0:00:00 - 0:00:22 All right. So I got a comment on a youtube video. It's from a friend of mine and I'm not gonna post a comment because I value his life and he, you'll see, I'll read it to you, I'll edit some things. Um I was gonna call him and respond to this, but I know that there are other people who need to hear it 0:00:22 - 0:00:49 . Now that being said, I'm going to very bluntly say a whole bunch of things that I would prefer to stretch out over time and to make a really firm foundation for and to treat a little less directly to help people make what they're going to see as radical changes to how they understand certain ideas 0:00:48 - 0:01:14 . But the thing about all this is is that when you understand certain things, you have to balance what the needs of the many and the needs of the few. And in this case, this is a friend of mine and I have other friends that I know are in this position. And so I have to do both. Now, I'm still gonna lay 0:01:14 - 0:01:37 these things out more thoroughly, um particularly focusing on or coming from the perspective of the more general applications for these principles, which are all very important. But I'm also gonna give you just a, a blunt slap in the face right now and, uh, if that's not your cup of tea, you can switch 0:01:37 - 0:02:06 this off right now. I promise this is gonna be ultra offensive for a whole lot of people. But it doesn't matter, it's true and it's much more needed than you think. You know, 11 theme that has come up historically, it will come up many times in your life is that extremes are sometimes only extreme because 0:02:06 - 0:02:27 of ignorance of the extremity of the consequences. That probably doesn't make a whole ton of sense. But here's an example from scripture when Jesus made a whip, went through all that trouble to make a whip and start flipping over tables in the temple and whipping people. The folks who were there, most 0:02:27 - 0:02:53 of them thought that that was a, a really extreme thing to do. You could try to somehow project that onto modern circumstances and see what you come up with. You have to remember that those people didn't see Jesus as the Son of God at that time, some of them never did. But at best, the aggregate assumption 0:02:52 - 0:03:21 of the people was that he was just yet another preacher, yet another teacher, yet another rabbi. And so for some random religious teacher to be doing that sort of thing would have been seen as highly extreme except to a certain group of people who, the priests, the priests whose job it was and they knew 0:03:20 - 0:03:43 this to prevent the, the theft, the open theft that was happening with the money changers. They didn't stop him. They could have, they had private police, they could have arrested him on the spot for that. And the people would have supported it. The people there would have supported that. They wouldn't 0:03:42 - 0:00:00 have protested. So why didn't they do it? Because they were convicted in their conscience, they knew that what he was doing was exactly what needed to happen. And so in that spirit, we're gonna whip some people and flip some tables and if it seems extreme to you, you, you feel free to disagree with, 0:00:00 - 0:04:30 with my assessment of the extremity, the importance, the value of what I'm about to say. However, there's precedent for this and maybe you're in the very large group of people who are in the midst of a situation that's generating extreme circumstances in your life that are negative and you just don't 0:04:30 - 0:04:59 see them yet. And so I'm going to whip you to try to help save you from this situation that is too much for you to see or deal with without the help. All right, with that disclaimer. So here's the comment, uh slightly edited. So this comment was in response to a video I made on donations and, and uh 0:04:59 - 0:05:19 some thoughts I had on that about a year ago and I just recently published the video. He says I've been scheming for months on how I might make donations without bringing down the wrath of my wife who controls all the purse strings. I've also been working for some months on setting up a new business 0:05:18 - 0:05:40 which I hope may turn into a full time gig once that's up and running with the business account and so on. I think I can make it happen covertly and in ways she can't possibly object to for years, it's really burned me up inside how I'm basically forced to pay tithing to her church, which I don't agree 0:05:40 - 0:06:03 with, which drains my resources, making it very difficult to contribute financially to many worthy causes. A few months ago, I talked her down to just 5% but I still don't know where the other 5% is going. It's supposed to be going to savings, but I don't know of any savings accumulating. Something seems 0:06:03 - 0:06:27 rather iffy. She's got me by the balls. That's for sure. What a crappy way to live. And so you probably see why I don't want to publish that with his name and face on there. But indeed, what a crappy way to live. Ok. It's not just crappy, it's unrighteous, it's unrighteous. And I wanna talk about that 0:06:26 - 0:07:00 because this actually has very little to do certainly with donations to me or even tithing in general. This has 100% to do with the way God has structured us in families and how we have to learn to live in order to eventually build Zion. There are words here that we need to define. So I'm going to go 0:07:00 - 0:07:24 to the Webster's dictionary from 1828 which is a nice early snapshot of the English language. It's obviously not early on the whole time scale of the lifetime of the English language, but it's an early dictionary that those weren't around before. So I wanna look up the word hottie haughty means having 0:07:24 - 0:07:48 a high opinion of one's self. And it also includes contempt for others. What's contempt? It's, it's disregard for merit right? There, there are many definitions we could throw around for these words, but peeling this apart is really important because it turns out that merit and justice. These concepts 0:07:48 - 0:08:20 are extremely important to God. Once His kingdom is established, everything will abide by the law of justice and what doesn't fit that pattern will be removed. It won't be there. People who don't fit that pattern will be removed. The kingdom of God is a perfect meritocracy. Now, the beauty of this is 0:08:19 - 0:08:45 the opportunity it provides us because everything we need to attain the place that we're willing to have will be provided. And that's a big part of what the end times is about. But those who choose not to live up to what's required to obtain what you say you want. They're not gonna get what they say 0:08:45 - 0:09:12 they want. So, what does this have to do with husbands? Wives and Children? Well, there is male haughtiness and there's female haughtiness and it's like a Venn diagram with an overlap in the middle. But one thing that tends to be more prominent with women is contempt for their husbands. Now, I'm not 0:09:12 - 0:09:38 saying that men can't have contempt for women. Of course, that's possible. But what we're zooming in on here, which is the situation of my friend and many, many men I know who are in families that are religious is that their wives don't understand their place in the family. They don't understand the 0:09:38 - 0:10:04 husband's place. They don't understand their own place. They have a haughty spirit and his female haughtiness. There's male hunting us too. It's not what we're talking about in this video. Iniquity is something other than merit. It's injustice, it's unrighteousness. It's a deviation from the way God 0:10:04 - 0:10:30 would have it. It's a deviation from what God would do in your place. So, if we want to come into God's kingdom first, we do that as individuals. And I've said an awful lot about that and I will never stop saying a lot about that once or as we get ourselves sorted out as individuals, we also have to 0:10:30 - 0:10:52 worry about our spouses. And that's true if you're a man and it's true if you're a woman. But the way you go about that is different depending on what you are as we sort out our spouses, we also turn to sort out our Children because all of these things, it, it's only then that we have any business thinking 0:10:52 - 0:11:16 about what our relationship to other people might be in a Zion situation in God's Kingdom. Now, this flips the traditional patterns on its head on their heads. Because in Christianity, typically people just wanna jump right to telling other people what they ought to do. You're not related to who you 0:11:16 - 0:00:00 don't even know. Right? You just wanna walk up to random people and tell them to believe in God. OK. Fine. That's great. But start with yourself, then work with your spouse, then work with your Children and then move out from there and move out. Proximately, talk to people, you already know friends, 0:00:00 - 0:12:08 you know, work out from there. Don't just walk up to random strangers and, and try to jump all of that. It doesn't work very well as you can see. So what this is about the structure, it's all about learning and adopting God's purpose, his character, the way He is, everything in the Gospel is designed 0:12:08 - 0:12:34 to help us see more of what God is like and to become more like Him. The pattern that God himself has established as the best way of doing this is through families. That's not just the relationship of parents and Children, it's also the relationship of husband and wife. Now, this has been grossly distorted 0:12:34 - 0:13:03 in modern times. And we've run the experiment and we know how it goes. It turns out that the best way to orient yourself and your family towards happiness is for a woman to marry a man who is more like God than any one. She knows who could be her husband and for that man to treat his wife as he believes 0:13:03 - 0:13:31 God would in his place and for her to adopt his purpose, which is his sincere idea of what God's purpose is in leading their family. It's pretty simple. This is the pattern since the Garden of Eden. It's a pattern God has established and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that there's nothing better 0:13:31 - 0:13:59 . We've, we've run the experiment. It has gone horrifically poorly. Ok. Unfortunately, men and women, even Christian men and women get married for very different reasons than this. And then we get into all these debates about what does quote unquote biblical submission look like and, you know, equal 0:13:58 - 0:14:24 partners, this and that and complementary. And how does this all work? And what does it mean most of the time? We're just retrofitting words from the scriptures, words and passages, uh phrases, words and phrases from scripture onto what the world has given us. And it doesn't work. A woman chooses to 0:14:23 - 0:14:55 submit to her husband through choosing who she marries. Thats when she gives her consent. It's not something that's meant to be a question at all times. And in all places, once you're in, you're in. And that's why it's so utterly important for women to choose a good man. That's one reason that I've made 0:14:54 - 0:15:21 so many videos about spouse selection and dating. It's abundantly important. It's absolutely hands down the most important decision a woman will ever make. Why is the opposite? Not true. It's one of the most important decisions a man will make, but it's not the most important because there's no dependency 0:15:20 - 0:15:48 . There, there is a dependency. The other way, these are topics we could spend a lot of time talking about. So none of this has to do specifically with money. Money is just a very tangible example of the greater principle, which is that a woman ought to be adopting her husband's purpose and her husband 0:15:48 - 0:16:16 ought to be adopting the Lord's purpose. And thats the way its supposed to be, the Children are supposed to be adopting their parents' purpose. Hardly any family today in the first world, even in Christian families works this way. And it, this is the cause of a great many problems. This is the cause 0:16:16 - 0:16:48 of a whole lot of joy and life functionality that's missing from those families. All right. So if you have a situation as a man, and, and again, just to disclaim this, there's obviously AAA counter position with this, this problem occurs in the other direction as well. And we're not talking about that 0:16:48 - 0:17:17 today, I do have videos on that, I'll talk about it again at some point. But we're talking about problems in the one direction, not the other today. So, if a man feels like he's a slave to the financial decisions of his wife, that's not a money problem. It's a much bigger issue. And if you show me a 0:17:17 - 0:17:39 man who feels like his wife controls the money, I'm not saying that he's delegated that I'm saying he knows that it's mean in a way that he doesn't like and he doesn't feel like he can do anything about it. I promise you that in that same situation, those kids are being raised in ways that he doesn't 0:17:39 - 0:18:05 agree with. I promise you that his wife's choices with which he does not agree are not limited to finances. And why is that a problem? Because that's not the way God intended it to be. And it's not a way that it can function towards the greatest happiness possible. The best you can achieve in a system 0:18:05 - 0:18:29 like that is way less than the ideal. The good news is, it is addressable. Even after the fact, ideally, young men and young women are taught this and then they go into marriage understanding the way it works and they make their choices accordingly. So that again is going to affect the woman choice much 0:18:29 - 0:19:02 more than the man's. But um it's something that should be done with full uh advanced warning of the way it works. Because a woman shouldn't marry a man, she's not willing to submit to. So, the thing is, is that God holds us accountable as men for our stewardship as men. And if you're married and, or 0:19:02 - 0:19:22 you have kids, you will be held accountable for what you do and what you don't do with those people were held accountable for all the good that we could do. But this isn't a hellfire and brimstone threat. If you're in this situation, you probably already feel like you're in hellfire and brimstone. This 0:19:22 - 0:19:45 is actually a redemptive pitch. It's a sh a show of how you can get out of this hole. I'm gonna give you a ladder. It's not pretty, but it works and it's the only thing that works. So it's not about, you know, getting crushed down by, oh, I'm responsible for yet another thing. The point is there is much 0:19:45 - 0:20:11 greater joy through fixing these things than, than what you're facing. Now, as my friend said, what a crappy way to live. I mean, imagine. Well, we'll get into details in a second. So here's my question for you. Why are things the way they are if you find yourself in this situation as a man? Well, I'm 0:20:11 - 0:20:35 sure you're coming up with reasons right now, but I'm gonna tell you something that you don't wanna hear, but you need to hear. There's really one reason for this and it has nothing to do with your wife. It's because you are a selfish coward. Now, I'm making this video for my friends. So I'm not saying 0:20:35 - 0:21:01 this to put you down. I'm saying it to lift you up. If you have anchors attached to your body, tethers tying you back, you can't rise up until you cut them off. And no real friend is going to fill your head with nonsense telling you, oh, there's no strings. There are no anchors. You can fly as high as 0:21:00 - 0:21:24 you want. No, you can't. Not while you're chained to that rock, it's not the good kind of rock to be attached to. So let's cut the chains. The first thing you have to do is recognize they're there. You're in this situation because you have acted like a selfish coward for a very long time. So your wife 0:21:24 - 0:21:53 has adopted ways of being that fit into that mold because that's in her best interest. When your husband is a selfish coward, you have to take control of situations because you can't trust him. You're not gonna feel secure that your best interest is, is going to be protected. So how does this work? What 0:21:53 - 0:22:14 are the details? Well, we talk about unrighteous Dominion. In fact, I'm sure a bunch of people will accuse me of preaching against or, or trying to persuade people to exercise unrighteous Dominion in these things I'm saying in this video. But actually I'm doing the opposite. You are already living that 0:22:13 - 0:22:37 . What do you mean? I don't exert control over my wife. No. But why are you doing what you're doing? It's not to help her and it's not to help your kids. That's why you feel all tied up about this because you see a better way things could be. But you'd feel like you can't do anything about it because 0:22:37 - 0:23:01 if you try, your wife is gonna make your life a living hell, you're scared. You're choosing to avoid pain for yourself and you're putting your wife and your kids on the altar to pay for that because they're doing things that you know, are not the best. Do you see how that works? That's selfishness. That's 0:23:01 - 0:23:27 cowardice. You have to do what's right? Even when it hurts and part of being a father and a man is being willing to do what's right, no matter what it costs you right. The thing is that that these go hand in hand because at the end of the day, what a woman wants more than anything else is to feel secure 0:23:26 - 0:23:57 . A woman cannot feel secure with a man who is weaker than she is plain and simple. Now, her, her contribution to that battle will be negative character traits, emotional outbursts, character assassination, you know, gossiping about you with her friends telling lies, just withholding sex, whatever it 0:23:57 - 0:24:34 is making your life more difficult, trying to turn the kids against you. Whatever your contribution in this battle is going to be truth, selflessness. Righteousness and you will overcome evil with good because there's one weapon that nothing can defeat. It's the love of God. That's the meaning of the 0:24:34 - 0:25:02 phrase charity never fails. There's nothing that can take it out. So if you set your compass on that bearing, you will overcome and everybody's life will be easier and better because of it on the other side of the battle. So why do we do this? If it's not the right thing? Why do, why do we take the easy 0:25:01 - 0:25:26 path even though it hurts people? There are a lot of scriptures about this, right? Correctly assessing the value of things. We could turn to Isaiah and read about, you know, the question, why do you spend your money on what has no worth? We could read the injunction also from Isaiah to look to the rock 0:25:26 - 0:25:54 from which we're hewn to Abraham. Now, when it comes to examples, it's, it's not that hard to find good examples to follow and turning to the scriptures and reading about Abraham. That's a pretty good example to use. He's called the friend of the Lord. And so there are two pieces of his life that I want 0:25:53 - 0:26:27 to draw attention to as relevant to this topic. One is going to take a little time to parse out the other's pretty quick. So the first one is the fact that Sarah called Abraham Lord. Now, why did she do that? Well, she understood who buttered her bread. Abraham was filthy, stinking rich. Ok. And, and 0:26:27 - 0:26:50 of course he had a very privileged position with the Lord. I'm not convinced Sarah cared too much about that. Maybe I'm wrong, but she certainly cared about the money. Now, when we talk about money, obviously, it's not the be all, end, all its worth is limited to what we spend it on. And the most valuable 0:26:50 - 0:27:26 thing you can spend it on is time to do more important things than work, right? However, money has advantages as disadvantages too. But one of the advantages is it's a very easy way for a woman to calibrate worth. So, dating women do this all the time, they assess the status of a man, associating the 0:27:26 - 0:27:56 money he makes to that question for better or for worse. They do it. Ok? So we don't, we don't set the rules of the game, we just learn what they are and we play to win. So as a man, the question is, how much money do you make the answer to that question? And what is your earnings capacity? And in both 0:27:55 - 0:28:21 cases, you compare that to your wife. This is something you need to know and this is something she needs to know. And we're gonna come back to this in a minute. Maybe it's a good time to talk about it. Now, let's just go with it. Now, Sarah was under no illusions about what she could get for herself 0:28:20 - 0:28:43 versus what she could get from Abraham now, she was a very beautiful woman and she could have married princes and kings, as evidenced by the fact that a few of them tried to marry her while she was already married to Abraham. Maybe that's where God's involvement comes in. I don't want to sidetrack too 0:28:43 - 0:29:03 much with this, but God made it very clear that that was not happening. He would kill any man that tried to marry her. That wasn't Abraham because of Abraham's relationship with her. That's really interesting to think about what implications that might have had in Sarah's worldview. But regardless, Abraham 0:29:03 - 0:29:29 was super wealthy and she was under no illusions about her own ability to create that wealth. And so staying with Abraham and being loyal to Abraham was in her evident best interest. Her self-interest suggested that that was a good idea. So we talked about training young men and women to know the truth 0:29:29 - 0:29:56 and live accordingly. This is why it's important to help young men develop ways of earning money because it's critically connected to their ability to attract and retain a quality woman. In this video. We're addressing people who are men who are already married. So you say, well, what do I do if it's 0:29:56 - 0:30:20 too late for that? Well, we're not really talking about you in this video if you don't clearly earn or have the capacity to earn much more than your wife significantly more, what you can do if you're in a position where that's not, the case is highly limited compared to those who, for whom it is. The 0:30:20 - 0:30:44 case earning way more money than your wife can, gives you tremendous leverage in the modern world. Now, you've been led to believe that that's actually a liability because anytime she wants, she can divorce you for no reason and take half your stuff and then get alimony and child support. And this creates 0:30:43 - 0:31:11 a situation where with certain protests by you, she might see divorce is an easy alternative that her self-interest would be better off if she just divorced you. And the beauty of this in the religious mind in a churchy woman is that there isn't any church that I know of that would look down on her for 0:31:11 - 0:31:35 that because after all, you don't wanna pay tithing, you don't wanna do this anymore. You don't wanna do that anymore. And so she'd have all these people telling her she did the right thing even though it's clearly not the case, but that's not true. It's not a liability. And we'll talk about why in a 0:31:35 - 0:32:05 little while. So Sarah knew who buttered her bread and your wife needs to know that too. And she probably doesn't why because the world has filled her head with ideas like men and women are equal partners and having kids is equal to earning the money needed to keep them. Well, let's talk about that for 0:32:05 - 0:32:33 a second. What does a woman need to bear Children? She needs what she was born with? All right. In fact, during the nine months that she's carrying the baby, the baby is developing and it's a physically excruciating task, but it actually doesn't take anything on her part other than suffering. There's 0:32:32 - 0:33:05 nothing she actively has to choose to do. She just has to eat and sleep, not smoke cigarettes, not do drugs, but basically just exist. What about when the child comes out? Well, thereafter, she has to do what every single mom since the dawn of time has done moms who were very unintelligent and very intelligent 0:33:04 - 0:33:39 and everything in between moms who were super lazy and super diligent and everything in between and on and on and on for every character quality there is, does this mean that motherhood is insignificant or easy? No, no, it's the most worthwhile thing a woman can do with her life hands down and yet it 0:33:39 - 0:34:16 absolutely positively cannot be compared to being a high earning man. Why? Because that's not something that men do in any large number. It's not passive. It's the absolute opposite of that. It's not natural. It's really freaking hard. What percent of men make? Six figures? What percent of men in the 0:34:16 - 0:34:49 United States make over $100,000 a year. It's about 6% right now. Now, inflation is rising and so that percentage is going to increase. But as a snapshot for right Now, if you're making over 100,000 a year as a man, you are an exceptional man, you can quantify how rare you are. Let me ask you this. What 0:34:49 - 0:35:28 do you need to do to be a 6% woman having babies doesn't qualify? That's a very normal thing to do. A lot more than 6% of women have babies. So if your wife thinks that what you earn is easy, even though she can't earn it, she's not gonna respect you and she's not going to give you the influence over 0:35:27 - 0:36:00 the decisions in the house that your merit. Um S now, what's this about? Is this a simple game of, you know, I make lots of money. Therefore, what I say goes, no, remember the question is what is best, who has the greater likelihood of knowing what is best? Someone who is in the top 6% or someone who's 0:36:00 - 0:36:33 completely normal in every way. No, not all women are completely normal in every way, obviously. But women overwhelmingly prefer to marry up in most marriages. She chose the man because he was better than her. You can't have it both ways. You can't marry someone better than you and then go around preaching 0:36:33 - 0:37:00 how you're equal partners. Why would you waste greater resources by using them the same way as you would without earning, being able to earn them. I'm not just talking about money. So if you're on a round table with the best and brightest minds in the world. And you're an average person, why would you 0:36:59 - 0:37:29 want an equal vote to these other people? Because any time you disagree, the likelihood is that their position is better, right? The objective of the family is to orient to the highest good that they can achieve for themselves in the world together, detain what they can together, that they can't. Apart 0:37:28 - 0:00:00 if the primary influence of your wife on your family is to drag the family down to her level. That's not good, by definition, it's not good. Zion begins at home because the Kingdom of God begins at home. The Kingdom of God is a meritocracy. Meritocracy begins at home. Now, when you zoom into things, 0:00:00 - 0:38:28 one reason that some men give their wives, the checkbook is because their wives do a better job at it than they would. That's great. Why wouldn't you do that? Right? If my wife were a CPA, she'd be the one doing our taxes every year. She's not, she has educational skills and credentials and she homeschools 0:38:28 - 0:39:04 her kids and I have earned the money because I can earn way more money than she can way more, probably at least three times as much. Right? So it's pretty simple. Now, if you're earning the money, what's the connection between earning the money and dictating how it's spent? What's the connection between 0:39:03 - 0:39:32 earning and influence on how it's spent? Now, we go back to Abraham when uh there's a story where where three messengers come from heaven and they talk with Abraham. These are God's servants. The identity of exactly who they are is something that's disputed. So we'll just call them heavenly messengers 0:39:31 - 0:00:00 . So they come to Abraham to announce that Sodom and Gomorrah are going to be destroyed. They also give Abraham a promise uh about Isaac. Now, first question here is why were they coming to Abraham to tell him about Sodom and Gomorrah? The answer is that Abraham had redeemed Sodom and Gomorrah that, 0:00:00 - 0:40:36 that they had been conquered by an invading army who took them captive and hauled them away. And Abraham caught up to them and conquered them and freed Sodom and Gomorrah. So in God's eyes, he had Dominion over those cities in the people's eyes, the city had a king that king actually greeted Abraham 0:40:35 - 0:41:01 when he came back and had the nerve to tell him, hey, anything you wanna take is a reward. Go ahead and take it as if it was his to give. It was all Abraham's at that point in God's eyes, Abraham let them keep it. He just took the share that is um his soldiers needed his servants. So Abraham went back 0:41:01 - 0:41:36 to his mobile operation, his mobile ranch and these messengers came to him and they said these cities are so wicked that God's going to destroy them. And so now Abraham had a say in how that was going to go and you know the story. So how does this relate to your family? If you want a say in what God 0:41:36 - 0:42:02 is going to do to your family? You have to act like they're your responsibility, including up to risking your life for their benefit. When Abraham went to save Sodom and Gomorrah, do you think he took a straw poll for these cap from these captives to say, hey, what do you think I should do? What do you 0:42:01 - 0:42:28 guys all want me to do here? It was kind of an emergency. He just went in and got them and he used the resources he had built up over time, namely 300 plus men who were armed with him to do it. How did Abraham respond to the visit of these messengers? It's very interesting. I've talked about this before 0:42:28 - 0:43:00 . He brings forth a sampling of every aspect of his operation. He asks his wife to make some cakes. He asks a young man to prepare an animal, the meat. He goes and gets some cheese, all of these things that a shepherd would have as part of the fruits of his estate. And he brings these things to these 0:43:00 - 0:43:31 three men. He was giving them evidence that he was managing all of his resources to the greatest possible ends. How did God respond to that? He blessed him with a child of promise. He took his family to a whole new level. Do you see how this works when God gives you things, it's always a test. It's a 0:43:31 - 0:43:58 blessing, but it's also the gateway to higher blessings because if you recognize the value and you appreciate it fully and you inject your influence to make it as good as it can be, as far as you understand is possible. And you don't hold back on giving yourself to making it the most. You can. He blesses 0:43:57 - 0:44:25 you with more and better. And what happens if you don't do that? He takes it away and he gives it to someone else who will appreciate it. That law applies in all things and you really should think about it carefully. If you care about your wife and your kids, they're not yours. Theyre on loan from God 0:44:25 - 0:44:54 and he's going to judge you for how well you serve them. And if you're a selfish coward, he will take them away and give them to someone who appreciates them in this life or the next. But for most people, they will be taken away in this life because of the things that are coming. And that's, that's something 0:44:53 - 0:45:16 that's probably appropriate to underscore here. It's so easy to look at the way the world thinks things are and to say, but it's all working, you know, the money changers, no one really likes that. But, uh, it's, it works right. It works. You can't judge the value of something in the short term. You 0:45:15 - 0:45:37 have to look in the long term, you can build a house on the coast in Florida and say this is great. I live on the beach. But when a hurricane wipes it out, you don't have a house anymore. You've got nothing to show for it. And odds are something different would have, would start looking better and you'd 0:45:37 - 0:46:07 wish that you could have done it a different way. Do you understand? Why did Abraham get Sarah to make some cakes when that happened? Whose job was it traditionally to grind green? That was the women did that? The women did that? Ok. She didn't protest. She fulfilled her part of how she could add the 0:46:07 - 0:46:35 most value to the situation. No, this particular comment was not about home school, but a lot of men in this situation are in a position where their wives could homeschool but choose not to. They make the man makes enough money that that's an option for the woman, but she chooses not to. That's another 0:46:35 - 0:47:01 piece of this principle is she adding the greatest value that she could or she being selfish? It's sometimes a coward too. Is she putting the interests of her Children before her own? Because if you want to be most aligned with God, that's what she needs to do if you want your family to be most aligned 0:47:01 - 0:47:41 with God. All right. So we talked about two perspectives from Abraham. Now, if you want the Lord to bless you with more the only way to do that is to do better with what you have already. Why would God bless you if those blessings are just gonna be routed to things that are not what he wants or are less 0:47:40 - 0:48:07 than what could be best for you, for your family. Now, I mentioned short term and long term consequences. We talked about Abraham. Let's talk about lot. When lot left Sodom and Gomorrah, his wife and two of his daughters were with him. He had other daughters who were married and they did not come and 0:48:07 - 0:48:28 they actually they mocked him when he warned them and said it's time to go. Now, this is really interesting and I'm gonna try to cut this down because it'd be easy to just dive into this and talk about the whole situation uh like Abraham's relationship with lot. But let's just focus on lot and his wife 0:48:28 - 0:48:59 and his daughters, we know from the later story that his daughters weren't exactly stellar people. Lot's wife turned back and the, the the scripture says she was turned into a pillar of salt. However, it happened, she died. Why did Lot's wife go with him? And why did his two daughters go with him when 0:48:59 - 0:49:27 they obviously weren't committed to his cause? Why did his other daughters not go with him? Because all of those people were doing what they thought was right in a very limited self interested way. They only went with lot because they knew the character of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah. And the choice 0:49:27 - 0:49:53 between starting over new somewhere else versus getting raped to death in Sodom and Gomorrah. That was a pretty easy choice to make. And that was the choice. And yet even in that extremity of choice, lot's wife turned back like she was fleeing the good part. She was, she was having second thoughts. Maybe 0:49:53 - 0:50:24 getting raped to death would be better. Really? What she was thinking was maybe there's a way for me to keep all my goods and live in a nice city and not get raped to death. But guess what? There isn't, what does this have to do with the topic at hand? If it's not super obvious, it's not enough for your 0:50:23 - 0:50:50 wife to go with your purpose just because she short term has a selfish interest that that would be good enough. It's a start. But the point is to build a pathway where she truly adopts the Lord's purpose in her life through you. Thats your job as a man. So skirting that never works out long term. And 0:50:49 - 0:51:20 I talked a lot about Zion. I'm gonna tell you as plainly as I can. If you and your wife and your kids are not on the same exact page as far as purpose in life goes, you're not going to Zion. You can't be there. If you're not united as a family, you can't unite with other people. So before that happens 0:51:19 - 0:51:53 . God will have to separate you. Now, it's not an exciting thought for God, for you to abandon your wife and, or kids. So, what's that going to entail? Use your imagination? Someone's gonna die, ok. In a lot of cases that will be the way that is not something that you want to deal with if you don't have 0:51:53 - 0:52:22 to. A lot of people are gonna deal with it whether they like it or not and not just for cases where someone is unrighteous and can't keep going with. But in many cases, a righteous man is going to be stuck with substandard wife or substandard kids and barred from something better because they didn't 0:52:22 - 0:52:47 sort out their family when they had the chance and now some window has closed the details abound, the variations abound. But don't think that just because you look around and oh, everything's fine for now that it's gonna continue to be that way, you're going to be placed in situations that will overwhelm 0:52:46 - 0:53:21 you. And unless you can connect to something greater, you will absolutely come to the point where you wish you had. All right. So what's my advice? How do you fix this? This requires a careful conversation. I mentioned that if you earn much more than she does or could you have leverage in this battle 0:53:20 - 0:53:48 and we need to talk about that. So here's my advice to you have a frank calm, at least from your part and open conversation. One thing you could say is something like I'm letting you know what I'm going to do and why I'm not asking for your advice or your permission. That is a completely appropriate 0:53:47 - 0:00:00 phrase for a man to use in marriage. It obviously should be used sparingly because there are many occasions where we have blind spots and no matter what our wives background might be or capability, open conversation can expose those blind spots and highlight them. It often suggests something better, 0:00:00 - 0:54:49 but sometimes it needs to be an informational letting you know rather than this is open for discussion. If you don't ever use that tactic ever as a man, your marriage is probably not what it should be. So you could open it that way and if that doesn't launch the nukes, you could continue bye laying out 0:54:49 - 0:55:14 the facts, what you bring to the table financially and how you don't feel like you have enough influence over how the money is spent in the family versus what you do to earn it. Now, whether this is gonna be a reaction to something, some pushback that comes or whether you wanna preempted it, it's almost 0:55:13 - 0:55:33 surely the case that she's going to echo feminist talking points that are false about interchangeability between men and women. And she'll list off a whole bunch of things that she does that she feels are equal to what you do. Statistics are your friend here. Uh I gave you an example of things you could 0:55:33 - 0:56:01 say closer to the beginning of this video. But another point that that will be brought up is, well, I do disproportionately more at home and with the kids and that's work too. I don't know if there's a better way to address this point other than I used this phrase already launching the nukes and just 0:56:01 - 0:56:34 abso absolutely demolishing it from orbit, nuke it from orbit. Ok. As a man, you obviously had a part in creating those kids, although it was the shorter and more enjoyable part by far. But they are your kids too, right? You have a share in everything that happens for their maintenance, well being and 0:56:34 - 0:57:02 growth. You actively participate in that even if you're some kind of absentee dad where your wife does 100% of everything with the kids and 100% of everything at home. Ok. Fine. Where does the money come from to allow such a luxurious existence? You have an enormous input in that it's shared. Now let's 0:57:02 - 0:57:27 flip it around. How much of a share does she have in what you do at work? So some women will say, well, yeah, but the reason you were able to go to med school was because I was at home with the kids. No. Now the reason you can go to work at Wendy's is because your wife was home with the kids. You see 0:57:27 - 0:57:51 the added value has nothing to do with the time it has to do with what you did to make it so much more valuable than what most people do. Do you see that? Unless she was the one passing your exams, if you had to go to college for your career or making the sales, if that, that's your job or inventing 0:57:51 - 0:58:21 the stuff. If that's your job, she does not have an equal part in the revenue you create. It's much closer to parody with the stuff at home. But let's burst one more bubble. Which is this? I work too. Argument. I like when I, when I think about stay at home moms, I like the analogy of Willy Wonka and 0:58:21 - 0:58:42 the golden ticket. Most women are born with a golden ticket. They're born with it. They don't have to do anything to get it. It's theirs to lose. If they gain £300 or sleep with 400 men, they lose it. Ok. But it's theirs. And if they make smart choices around the age of 18 and they haven't made dumb 0:58:42 - 0:59:14 choices before, then it's theirs. They can find a high quality man who already has his life together and basically retire at 18 for life. 100% of all their monetary problems can be solved for life. There is nothing that any man can do that won't subject them to life in prison. If they get caught to have 0:59:14 - 0:59:50 anything close to that. At 18, these two things are absolutely not the same. Is it work to stay at home with the kids? Sure. But they're, your kids taking care of your own kids is not comparable to doing something for someone else and getting paid, they're completely different and one is way harder than 0:59:50 - 1:00:22 the other. Again, we make the argument about percentages and what do normal people do and what do normal people not do? And why don't they do it? It's not because it's easier. It's because it's harder. So you nuke those arguments from orbit because they're absurd. Now, the unfortunate truth is that when 1:00:22 - 1:00:46 people have a good racket going, they're very reluctant to give it up. Even in part, it doesn't matter how much of it is an illusion they don't want to let go of even the idea. So this is absolutely going to be a battle. But the good news, if you wanna call it, that is that even though it's gonna be 1:00:46 - 1:01:12 a rough road, it's extremely likely that she's gonna come right out of the gate unleashing the worst, hell that she can on you, which means once she does, you're through the worst of it, it can only get better from there. Why should you hope that it would let me give you a few arguments for that one 1:01:11 - 1:01:35 . This is an informational problem and once she has the information, it, it, it can't disappear. She's gonna have to wrap her head around it. Ok? It's like the dragon story that Jordan Peterson tells. Who, who in incidentally in the story, there's a kid who sees this little baby dragon and the mom is 1:01:35 - 1:01:53 the one who's telling the kid the dragon doesn't exist. You're being silly and the dragon gets bigger and bigger and bigger and eventually it destroys the house and everything and they start paying attention to the dragon and acknowledging it exists and then it shrinks. That's what this is like. And 1:01:52 - 1:02:13 you, if you're in this situation, you have an enormous dragon in your house and it's destroyed, it's time to shrink the dragon by acknowledging it. And that's what you're doing in this conversation. Now, one of the oh and one reason to believe that it's going to shrink is again, what's a woman looking 1:02:13 - 1:02:39 for security? Because you've been a selfish coward, she had to generate her own security. And so instead of trusting you and being secure in the fact that you're a stable, um others interested man, a selfless man who's courageous, she, she didn't have that as a source of safety. And so she synthesized 1:02:38 - 1:03:09 safety by commandeering your money that you earn. And so by controlling your money, she's synthesizing security and you have to help her upgrade to the better source, which is to know that you're a man who's principled and selfless and courageous and a man who's weaker than her, his woman is always gonna 1:03:09 - 1:03:33 have a woman who doesn't feel safe so that dragon is gonna shrink as you take a stand for what is right? Not a stand for yourself, not a stand so that you feel better, not a stand so that your life is easier, but a stand so that their life is better and you'll put yourself, you'll take them off the altar 1:03:33 - 1:03:58 and put yourself there and you say this is the way it's gonna be and I don't care if you burn me to ashes. This is the way it's gonna be. Now, let's talk about that. Burning to ashes. Unfortunately, there's a nonzero component of women who will absolutely think I'm gonna divorce this guy if you have 1:03:57 - 1:04:23 this conversation with them. And so here's something that you need to make sure your wife understands before you have the conversation and that is that it will never be in her best interest to divorce you ever again. The financial leverage with this becomes very important if she understands that you 1:04:22 - 1:04:58 out earn her and you always will and that she really wouldn't even honestly want to try to match that. You can take that a step far further by helping her understand that the state can never force a man to do what he does not want to do. A woman can never force a man to work if he doesn't want to work 1:04:58 - 1:05:23 . Now, the state can put you in jail for not doing what they tell you to do, but jail doesn't pay alimony checks, jail, doesn't pay child support and she needs to understand that you're so courageous and you're so principled that you would have zero moral qualms spending the rest of your life in jail 1:05:22 - 1:05:55 rather than rewarding her for being a horrible person. That's what you gotta do today. Do you understand if you look her straight in the eyes and you say I am never going to consent to alimony and child support. It's extremely unlikely that she will go down that road if you're serious. And if you really 1:05:54 - 1:06:26 mean it, what about the moral obligation to care for your wife and kids? Well, that's in her hands, folks. If she breaks the agreement of marriage, then it's broken and God is going to hold her accountable for that, not you. If you're enabling that situation, it becomes your fault. Do you understand 1:06:26 - 1:06:50 ? It's very important now this flies in the face of what you're gonna hear from other people. But I'm telling you this is the way it is. This is, this is love. I said charity. It never faile love conquers all. If you really love someone, it's not about doing what they want you to do. It's about doing 1:06:50 - 1:07:33 what's best for them, no matter what it costs you giving someone rewards for bad behavior is not love. That's hate. Very, very, very, very few women will ever mention divorce again. If they understand that it would never be in their best interest All right. So once you have these conversations, you will 1:07:33 - 1:07:55 get to say how your money gets spent. At least you'll have a much greater say in that. Now, if you wanna go full throttle, which I am not sure why this would ever be the case that this would be necessary, but you could get your own banking account, you could get your check direct deposited into your 1:07:55 - 1:08:18 own banking account and you could, if your wife holds the purse strings, you get her to submit to you an itemized budget and you cut her a check for the sum total of things that you agree with. And you could ask for a report on how it's spent every month. Now, hopefully you very quickly get to a point 1:08:17 - 1:08:43 where that's not necessary, but the point is she needs to understand that's the way it works. Ok? You have that right. It's your money, it's not your money jointly. It's the money of the man who earns it. Now, what if she has a job? She just makes way less than you. Great. You take all of your household 1:08:42 - 1:09:06 , shared household expenses, everything for the kids and then what you share like the mortgage because you both live there and let's say she makes 35% as much as you do. You split those bills according to the proportion of what you earn. You see, and then all the other things that are important to whatever 1:09:06 - 1:09:30 person come out of what's left that that person has. Odds are she's not gonna have anything left. Right. Odds are like, I've made another video, she's probably actually spending more than she earns just to sustain that job. But when it comes to things like tithing, no, you should not talk her down to 1:09:30 - 1:10:05 just 5%. She can pay 10% of her money to her church, but she doesn't get to pay any of your money to her church. It's not her money. And what if you know what if Abraham? Uh so I'm now go gonna address this issue of she's supposed to be saving, but I haven't seen any accumulating savings. Let's briefly 1:10:04 - 1:10:38 talk about delegation. Delegation is not passive. You can never as a leader, you are never not responsible for outcomes. You're not delegating outcome responsibility, you're delegating inputs, not outputs. It's always your fault as a man, as a husband and a father. Everything is always your fault. When 1:10:38 - 1:10:59 the messengers came to Abraham, he didn't say, hey, Sarah, we have these messengers go. I don't even know what we have in this estate. Just go and get a bunch of the best stuff and bring it here. He asked Sarah to do something specific. He asked a specific young man to do something specific and then 1:10:59 - 1:11:20 he knew some other stuff he had that he went and got himself. What do you think something different would have happened if he just said, hey, Sarah, I don't even know what we have. Can you just bring the best stuff that we have so we can take care of these guys? Do you think God would have blessed him 1:11:20 - 1:11:53 the way that he did as a result? Do you think Sarah would have been more or less happy without Isaac? Do you see if as a man, if you don't know the rate at which your house is being paid off, the percentage of your money that's being spent on discretionary things, the accumulation of savings and investments 1:11:53 - 1:12:27 and the performance of those things. If you don't know that you are failing abysmally at leadership, God will hold you responsible because he's given you the resources to earn the money and you're not watching over it with those same resources, the same wisdom. It's not just about how you earn it. It's 1:12:27 - 1:12:53 about how you spend it. You're accountable for both. Now, your wife might be, I, I know a guy whose wife, I was just gonna tell you the full story in right before the 2008 crash. This guy was working for Microsoft boy, I just went into a lot of detail that I probably should have anonymized. Oh, well 1:12:52 - 1:13:14 , he's a software developer who's making a lot of money at a good time to, to be doing this and he was heavily invested in the stock market because they were maxing out their 401k, which was his wife's choice. He was one of these and delegating it to my wife guys and she was really good at it and she 1:13:13 - 0:00:00 had a premonition that the stock market was going to crash and she pulled out all their money before it did and then she put it all back after it did and they made out like bandits. Ok. If your wife is capable of that sort of thing, you should definitely do the Pharaoh Joseph of Egypt thing and say, 0:00:00 - 1:13:54 here's my ring, which you probably already did. If you're married, you make the most of this money because you're really good at it and you're way better at it than me. But that doesn't mean you can't say I delegated it because she's better at it than me or I don't have time or whatever. And I know exactly 1:13:54 - 1:14:21 how well that's doing now. Maybe you're not checking it every day, of course. But if you don't even know it's your money, God gave it to you and you're just, well, who knows where it is or where it's going. I don't know. So that is a sure fire way. I promise you in that situation of this gentleman friend 1:14:20 - 0:00:00 of mine that is not sus sustainable. God is going to take that away because you're being a poor steward. If you want what's best for your family, you need to watch over that nonsense. At least at a high level. You say give me a quarterly report or that's probably way too official. You just say, hey, 0:00:00 - 1:15:03 every once in a while, let me know how things are going. Hey, just so, you know, here's our total what we've got, here's where I think we'll be in, in one year, five years and 10 years or, hey, this thing happened and it's a big deal you should know. So those are things, for example, that I tell my wife 1:15:02 - 1:15:22 . Now, she, if you care about the details, she's got all the account information and access and her names on everything as far as I know unless I made a mistake somewhere. But I give her reports all the time. I say here's where we are financially, here's all of our assets, here's our liabilities, you 1:15:22 - 0:00:00 know, and it's not like a spreadsheet, there's just amounts I think we'll be here at this point. This is going this way. And sometimes I say I'm thinking about doing this. What do you think? And sometimes I say I'm doing this and I'm letting you know it's not hard. Once you get things in the groove, 0:00:00 - 1:16:04 it's not hard. There are tons of things that I delegate to my wife. There's things that she asks me for help on and I watch over all the things that I delegate. Uh I don't micromanage but I say I don't like these outcomes. What do you think you can do to make it better? This is what I'm looking for or 1:16:04 - 1:16:21 I think we could do this. I think this could be better in these ways. What do you think we could do to make it happen? Well, I don't know. What do you think we should do? Well, we could do this. I could do this. I could help in this way. I think you could be better at that. Right. And so we tweak it 1:16:21 - 1:16:44 and we move on. So this has been a long video and it's quite in the middle of the night. Uh, so I'm tired, I'm gonna stop this. I hope that, um, this is helpful. I know it's, it's really blunt and we talked about some really tricky things but these are tools that you need to win the war you're in and 1:16:44 - 1:16:45 it's a war for.