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Amen. So we're wrapping up the book of James and we're covering some interesting topics here in the fifth chapter, but it's still going to carry forward in the sense of chapter one brought up the point of perfecting our faith and the importance of being entire, wanting nothing and there's certain areas of just life that sometimes I think Christians forget about or don't really observe. In chapter number five, when he's going to bring up this topic, you know, it's questionable exactly who he's talking to. I'll give you my belief as far as what the context is here, but it's very clear that he's being very condemning towards a certain group of people. It says in verse one, Go to now ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered and the rest of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Now when we read verses one through three, he's really a hammering this group of people that are described as being rich. Now when you read the entire whole of scripture, we understand that being rich in and of itself is not a sin, okay? You can look at a lot of places throughout the Bible and understand that having money in and of itself is not a sin. But this group of people that he's just going to describe, I think in verses four, five, and six, he's trying to help us understand who he is that he's really targeting. It's a specific group of rich people. And the reality is the rich of this world are often the most ungodly people on the planet. They're the most disgusting, reprobate, filthy, wicked, evil people on this planet just as a whole when we talk about the richest people. And I'm going to get into a lot of that actually in this sermon. But the Bible even says that, but let's read verses four through six quickly. He said, Behold the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth. And the cries of them which have reaped are entered in the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed the just, and he does not resist you. So he's telling us who these rich people are. It's the rich people that were just very wicked in their practices. The things that they were doing to obtain riches and obtain wealth and obtain money were by fraud, by stealing from people, by not caring about others. So this group of rich people, he's saying, Hey, you're riches, they're corrupted. You know, they're not going to last. They're not going to preserve you from the things in this world. And I want to look at a lot of other verses before we get into the some of the meat of the sermon, but keep your finger here and go to Psalms chapter 39, Psalms chapter 39. Now when you think about rich people in the Bible, it's a pretty bad list. Now obviously there's some exceptions to this rule, but when we think about Sodom and Gomorrah, what was their problem? Oh yeah, they had fullness of bread. They had great riches. What about Nebuchadnezzar? Oh yeah, great riches. I mean, we think a lot of the heathen nations, the heathen kings, they're full of riches. Oh yeah, I remember a guy, he's compared to Lucifer, you know, the king of Tyre. What's he known for? Great riches, great wealth, you know, opulence. So these type of things are often associated with the most wicked people on the planet. And obviously the love of money is the root of all evils, what the Bible says. So having money is a danger. It's something that really distracts from the work of the Lord, and the Bible warns about it. It says in Psalms 39 verse 6, So the Bible is saying, gathering riches and personal wealth is really an errand, a fool's errand, because at the end of the day, you're probably not going to enjoy much of the riches that you actually keep up to yourself, someone else is going to enjoy them, your kids or somebody else. I mean, five of the richest people on the planet were just the sons and daughters of Sam Walton, the guy who founded Walmart. And they just inherit all these riches. And were they good or bad? We don't know. It doesn't really matter. And you don't know if your kids are going to be good. You don't know if somebody's going to steal the company from you and they're going to be a good or bad person. You don't really know. And the people that have these enormous amounts of money, there's no way they could spend it in their lifetime. I mean, the guys are the richest people on the planet today. I mean, they have so much money, it's unfathomable, the idea of spending it. So they're just laying it up for some other person. And what we should be laying up for ourselves is different things, you know, spiritual things, things of eternal value. Go to Ecclesiastes chapter 2, Ecclesiastes chapter 2. The Bible tells us, though, you know, heaping up riches, what is that going to profit you? Whenever you die, you know, your bank account is pretty much worthless at that point. I mean, who cares how much 401k you had? Who cares how much riches and wealth you had? Now, I'm not saying that you should just forsake your children. The Bible talks, you know, about a wise man laying up inheritance for his children's children, okay? But at the end of the day, what is the point of heaping up riches? It's vanity at the end of the day. It says in Ecclesiastes chapter 2, look at verse 26, For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy. But to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit. Now, whenever the Bible, keep your finger here, and you'll flip back just to James. I want to read one more verse again, because I want to get this fresh in your mind. Because he's talking about them treasuring something up under the last days. And it says in James chapter 5, it says in verse number 3, it says, Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rest of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as were fired. Notice this, you have heaped treasure together for the last days. Now, just on the surface when you're kind of reading this, you kind of think, oh, they're just talking about, you know, physical treasures, but I don't think that's what it's talking about at all. What it's actually talking about is the fact that they're heaping up wrath. They're heaping up even more pain and more anguish and more bad things that are going to happen to them. Look, the richest people on this earth are getting into the worst sins. When you take one of these young 17, 18 year old kids that grew up in the hood that's really good at football, and you give them a 20 million dollar a year contract, you know what he starts doing? The worst sins imaginable. He's a worse person, and in fact, riches, they don't change who you are, they just let your sins come out even more. I mean, if you're kind of a, you just drink a little bit, now you're going to be a full blown drunk. Hey, you just did a couple drugs, now you're doing LSD. I mean, you thought about fornication, now you're lying with every woman you can possibly see. That's what these people are like. And look, having riches is not necessarily going to make your life better, in many cases make it worse. It gets you in worse sins, and worse problems, all kinds of filth. He says in 26, he says, look, these guys, they're not getting good things. The sinner is given travail, notice, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation in the spirit. This guy gathering riches, he's not gathering riches on himself, he's gathering pain, and sorrow, and misery, and woe, and all kinds of other sin. And one thing you don't realize is, obviously, we're saved, we're going to heaven, okay? But the unsaved, they are going to be judged according to their works, and the Bible even says that there's lower parts of hell. You know how you get to the lower parts of hell? By treasuring up more wrath unto yourself. Go to Romans chapter number 2, Romans chapter number 2. By being an exceeding sinner. The Bible talked about it being more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, the day of judgment. What does that mean? That means some people are going to receive a worse judgment than others. You know, a murderer doesn't stand, you know, face the trial and have a worse sentencing than the guy that stole a pencil. It's different. And you can't, well, all sin is equal, that's a lie. That's never been the truth. And these people that are the richest people on the earth, they're going to have the worst trials, most of them. It's going to be awful for them. And he's saying, hey, you guys ought to start weeping and howling for the miseries that are coming upon you guys. You rich men. Do you not realize what's going to happen, you guys? And in Romans chapter number 2, the Bible's talking to a group of unsaved people. He says in Romans chapter number 2, look at verse 1, therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man. Whosoever thou art that judgest, for wherein thou judgest, another thou condemnest thyself. For thou that judgest doest the same things. So we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despiseth thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? So the Bible's saying because God is so longsuffering, so good, so merciful, it should cause us to want to get saved. It should cause us to seek the Lord and to believe in Jesus Christ and receive his free gift but those that continually resist and just harden themselves. He says in verse number 5, but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasures up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. The American presidents and the wicked evil politicians of today, they're just treasuring up for themselves wrath. It would be better if they just died. The Bible talks about the people offending little ones, it would be better for a millstone to be hung around his neck and for him to be cast in the depths of the sea. Why? Because he doesn't want more wrath. You get more wrath the longer you're alive. Those guys that are just continuing to live in their filth and debauchery and wickedness, they're just treasuring up for themselves more wrath. More pain, more suffering, more sorrow, more woe, I mean more sentencing, more works to be judged. It's awful for them. It's horrifying. I mean if you were to tell me, hey Pastor Shelley, we're going to print out every sin that you've committed for the last three weeks and read it before everybody in the church. I would be terrified. That would be horrible. How about if we did that to you? You know what's going to happen? The unsaved are going to have all of their works judged before everybody. It's going to be naked and manifest before his sight. You thought they were going to get away with it? Nope. Oh, but if I had all these riches, it'd be great. I mean if you're unsaved, it's horrifying because those people are getting so many horrible sins and wickedness that's going to be exposed and made manifest and we're going to really see what Donald Trump's like. You're going to really see what Barack Obama was like and Hillary Clinton and all these, you know, Joe Osteen. Yeah, we'll find out what you were really like, buddy. Lying closed doors. You know these sinless, perfectionist, lying devils like Paul Washer. Let's see how many sins you're appended of, you lying devil. But look, these people that are rich, they're heaping up to themselves wracked. Not good things. Go back to Psalms 52. Go back to Psalms 52. I think when you put these things in perspective, it'll help you have a better heart because at the end of the day, we think of riches as being so great and we're deceived by it by the devil. He's constantly lying to us about it. But these people that have all this wealth, they're going to get what's coming to them. The sins that they're committing, they're going to get what's coming to them. It says in Psalms 52, look at verse number 7. Well, let's back up one verse, alright? Verse 6, the righteous also shall see Barack Obama. No, I'm just kidding. That was my commentary, alright? And fear, and shall laugh at him. Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthened himself in his wickedness. The Bible says when we see the wicked, we'll even laugh at them. We'll laugh at how stupid it was for them to think that they could buy their way into heaven or, you know, get off the hook. You can't pay that judge. He's not a respecter of persons. He doesn't accept bribes like the one that you keep bribing. Go to chapter 73. Go to chapter 73. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that the rich are good when we read this verse. Psalm 73, look at verse number 12. Behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the world. They increase in riches. What does the Bible say? The guy that's just constantly gathering all this wealth and all these riches and just constantly increasing? The Bible says this guy is the ungodly person. Now you've got to balance this with other verses in the Bible. Obviously the Bible talks about if you serve the Lord, he's going to add riches without sorrow. Look, if you're a hard worker, and you're diligent, and you're doing right, and you're really smart, God can bless you, God can prosper you. You know what? You're never going to be Jeff Bezos. You're never going to be George Soros, okay? You're never going to be these type of people, and we're going to talk about why you can't be that person. It's not going to be possible, okay? Go if you went to Proverbs chapter 11, Proverbs chapter 11. Now why cover this? James chapter 5 is really clear. Whoa, sorrow. It's good to talk about it when it gets brought up, because I probably wouldn't want to preach a sermon on it otherwise. It says in Proverbs 11 verse 28, He that trusteth in his riches shall fall, but the righteous shall flourish as a branch. Look at chapter 13 verse 7. There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing. There is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches. Look at chapter 18, flip over the page, chapter 18, look at verse 11. The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit. Notice that he's deceived. He thinks that, oh, well I have all these riches, I'm protected. Look at chapter 23, chapter 23, flip over a few more pages, look at verse number 5. The Bible says, Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings. They fly away as an eagle toward heaven. Man, isn't that true? Every single dollar I seem to earn just keeps flying away from me. Look at chapter 28, go to chapter 28. Chapter 28, look at verse number 6. The Bible says, Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich. Look at verse 11. The rich man is wise in his own conceit, but the poor that hath understanding surgeth him out. Look at verse number 20. A faithful man shall abound with blessings, but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. And then look at verse 22. He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him. So the Bible warns against people becoming rich hastily. About having a love of money. About getting riches from unjust gain, like usury. From getting unjust gain by defrauding people and keeping back the higher of people's wages. Now this is the group of people that I believe James 5 is targeting, okay? He's saying, hey, these people that are gaining money by unjust gain, these people that are lovers of money, these people that are defrauding people, which is like all the rich, okay, this is what the rich are like. Let me just explain something to you, okay? He's saying these people are gonna have sorrow and pain, and they're just treasuring up for themselves wrath. All kinds of wicked things. Now let me give you an example, practical example, okay? There's a company, you may have heard of it, it's called Apple. Now Apple, cuz the Bible, go back to James, all right? Let's go back to James for a minute. The Bible says in James 5 that they've kept back their wages by fraud. Well, Apple, majority of all their iPhones are manufactured in China. Now, how much do you think that the average worker makes in one of these Chinese factories? It's $3.15 an hour, $3.15. Their average monthly paycheck is about $6.50 to $8.50 a month. If they saved up their entire month's wage, they could buy one iPhone. That they'd manufacture, I mean, they'd probably have to make like 100 a day too. I mean, the conditions of these places are just horrifying too. People are constantly trying to commit suicide because their job is so terrible, and they live in such a socialist economy that they don't really have any other options, they're kinda stuck in these working conditions, or they're just stuck in this type of environment. Look, this is what it's talking about when it's saying, hey, some of these workers, or sorry, some of these companies, they're holding back rightful wages to people and oppressing them by taking advantages of their situation. Look, why are they doing it to these people? Cuz they love them so much, or because they just wanna make more money? They just wanna make more money. Let me answer the question for you, in case you're wondering. Now, it happens even in the Bible. For sake of time, we're not gonna read it, but how about Laban and Jacob? What was constantly happening with him? Well, he's constantly changing his wages. The Bible says ten times. I mean, he's just constantly promising something, and then not delivering. How many times does a company say, hey, we'll take you on, and in a year we'll pay you this, and two years you'll get a bonus, and then never happens? Just, they don't really do it. They never really come through. This is holding back wages, defrauding people, lying to people. The Bible says, hey, God actually hears the cries, not only of the people that were defrauded, the money that's in your wallet, the money that's in your bank account that you held back from your laborers, it's crying to God. That inanimate, dirty, filthy $100 bill is crying to God, is what the Bible says. So you, as God's people, we ought to never hold back wages from anybody that has done work for us or has earned it. And I'm not saying from a practical standpoint, obviously, you can pay people on a biweekly period or a monthly period. That's just practical, okay? But if someone needed their money that they've already earned, it would be ungodly to hold it from them. Keep your finger and go to Leviticus chapter 19, Leviticus chapter 19, and let's see what the law actually prescribes when it comes to wages. But because of our society, because people are paid on either biweekly, bi, or, yeah, like every two weeks, or they're paid like bi-monthly, once every two months, or some kind of a system like this, people get themselves into a jam. They'll actually spend more money than they actually have, and they need to pay their bills. So they'll go to one of these cash paycheck places or a payday loan, and they'll actually sign up for their program, and they'll give them cash on the spot for a portion of their paycheck that's gonna be delivered to them. But this is very wicked, it's unjust gain, it's not of God. It says in Leviticus 19 verse 13, thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him. The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning. So the Bible's saying, hey, if someone has their money that they've worked hard for and have earned, you ought to just give it to them right then. You ought not hold back any kind of wages. Like I said, I'm not saying that you have to pay everybody daily, okay? In our society, it's pretty much a two week or a month. But if somebody were in a jam, if I had a worker or an employee or somebody that had worked for me, and they're in a jam and they came to me, I would feel like I was sinning, and you would be sinning if you held it back. You ought to just pay them up front, figure out a way to get it done, take care of them. That's an ungodly attribute of people to take advantage of their mistake, take advantage of their bad situation. Now I looked up some information, a payday loan in the United States. Lenders can charge borrowers extremely high levels of interest. Now in the Bible, usury is calculated at 1%. Now, let me give you the amount that you can charge in a payday loan, 500%, 500% in APR. It says in most states they have usury laws that limit interest rates to less than 35%, but there's certain exemptions that allow for the higher interest rates. In fact, in California, a payday lender can charge a 14-day APR of 459% for a $100 loan. On top of that, fees and all kinds of other things factored into there. I mean, just ripping off the poor. And obviously, the rich guy's not going to the payday loan, okay? They're taking advantage of the poor people that have an actual honest living that actually work with their hands and do a physical labor job, and they're just bad money managers, so they go to these places and get ripped off. And look, don't go to these places and get ripped off. Ask a brethren in the house of God, okay? Like, don't ever go to these places and get yourself in worse situations. That's not wise. Don't go and ask them for money because they'll charge 500%. Now, even throughout history, there's no new thing under the sun. The Roman Empire. Now, back in the time of the Roman Empire, banking was not like it is today. There wasn't a bank on every corner. Essentially, people would just borrow from rich people. So anybody that was rich would just give out money, but they were loan sharks. They were like these payday interest places. I look on an article, it said they would charge anywhere from 4 to 12%. But if it was a high risk loan, which would be these payday ones, they would charge anywhere from 24 to 48% interest on these loans. So there's nothing new under the sun. And in fact, this Wikipedia article says, the rich who were in a position to take advantage of the situation. So whenever there's the decline of the Roman Empire and it's failing and the economy's getting bad, it says that the rich who were in a position to take advantage of the situation became the money lenders when the increasing tax demands in the last declining days of the empire crippled and eventually destroyed the peasant class by reducing tenant farmers to serfs. And it was evident that usury meant exploitation of the poor. So he's saying as their economy was continually just degrading and getting to where there was just, the taxes are like 50%, sounds like a place I can think of, 60% and the wages aren't really even covering the taxes and people are just like needing money. They go to the rich and the rich just take complete advantage of them and they go from being poor to slave. There's something below being impoverished, it's called being a slave. Read Exodus, what Genesis right before that, read what Joseph did to his people. He brought them into bondage with all kinds of high government rates and taking from the people. That's not godly. And even in America today, we're drifting in this direction by and large. But this is the goal of these nations, is that it can completely eradicate the middle and the poor class to wherever it becomes a slave. Socialism, communism, it's all the same. Now, how do they do this? Well, they do it through things like inflation. Inflation is a wicked device of wicked people. And I went to college and I got a regular business degree, management degree. But then I was getting a master's degree in finance and economics. And I did very well in my classes, but I hated economics. And I keep having a more hatred for economics, okay? But in my economics courses, there was a certain individual that they studied a lot. His name was John Maynard Keyes, okay? And his economic policies are the Keynesian models. And there's like the new Keynesian models. Why, I looked up information about this guy. He went to Cambridge University, and that's where he was a sodomite. With all the other rich sodomite faggoty dudes in Cambridge. So this is the guy that I get to learn how to heap up treasure onto myself from a sodomite economist. And look, all the other economists, Milton Friedman or Adam Smith, they're all atheists or agnostic. I mean, none of these guys are godly people. And what is economics? It's basically a way in order to trick all the poor people into giving all their money to the rich, all right? Let me just help you out. That's what economics is. If you have a product that's in high demand, you jack up the price above what's fair just to receive more money. It's not because they wanna offer a good product. And there's some companies that could do this right now and get away with it. And I'm glad that they don't, but I could think of a restaurant like Chick-fil-A. You know, Chick-fil-A, I bet they could raise every single item on their price, their menu, by 50 cents, and it would stop nobody from going there. Nobody would stop going there. I don't even know what that number is, but they could probably jack up. Cuz they have so much demand for their product, but thank God, they try to keep it still at a reasonable volume. You know, a very ungodly, very wicked person, just desiring money and wealth and all these type of things. They're gonna jack up the price to the highest rate so that they can receive lots of money. Well, even in the United States, though, they've enacted all kinds of different tools in order to steal the money from everybody that's poor to where we're gonna basically become slaves at some point. It's just a matter of time. If you ever play Monopoly, again, Monopoly is a very realistic game, okay? But I wanna explain to you inflation for a second, all right? And I looked it up in 1959, I looked up what the poverty level was in America. And in 1959, the poverty level was $1,467 for a one person for their annual salary. That's not a lot of money, $1,460. Now it's a lot different, you know, back then, okay? But today in 2018, that number would be $12,784 per year, is the poverty line. Now for a family of four, that gets kicked up to $25,701. So that amount of money per year for a family of four or less, you are in poverty. According to the United States, I don't know, whatever their stupid organization's named. But in 1959, that's how much money. So what I tried to look at is I tried to figure out, okay, who is the richest person in America in 1959? How much money did they have as far as net worth? And the richest person that I found was John Paul Getty, which is estimated to have a net worth of $700 million to $1 billion. And this was in 1957. So like in 1957, Getty had, and we'll just round up, we'll be really generous to this guy, you know, he had $1 billion, okay? But the poor person had 1,000, let me read it again, $467. Is how much his annual salary is. So it's not completely comparing apples to apples to apples, because this is net worth and this is salary, but it still works for the point that I'm trying to make. As you get to 2018, this number has jumped up to 12,784, okay? According to this documentation. That would be approximately an 8.7 times increase. So over 60 years through inflation, it's increased that much. Now to calculate the inflation rate, essentially the inflation rate is 3.55%, rounded. What does that mean? That means that your money is, your $1 in 1959 is not worth as much in 1960, due to 3.5% inflation every single year compounding all the way to this point. Now, I looked at the richest person now, Jeff Bezos. He has $108 billion net worth. Can anybody tell me how many more times that was? It's 100, 100 times. So the rich are getting richer at 100 times rate, while everybody else is going at an 8.7% rate. How's that work? Well, let me tell you, and look, this is the number, almost the same numbers. These numbers are astronomical. They're getting so big, and they're just gonna keep getting so big. Now, what is inflation? Well, I figured I wanted to draw on the board for you guys to figure it out. How many people do we have in church tonight? We had 69 people. For sake, we'll say there's 70 here, all right? There's somebody sneaking around in the back, all right? So let's say we had 70 hot chocolate chip cookies in the back. And I mean, I'm excited. It's not real, okay? I'm sorry. Let's just say we had 70 chocolate chip cookies. Everybody's gonna get a chocolate chip cookie, right? And I hand out a ticket, a coupon, to all of you. And it says redeem, it says one on it. It says a one on it. And I hand everybody and say, hey, you go back there, you can redeem your one ticket for a cookie, all right? I mean, that sounds great. It all makes sense. We're all gonna get the cookie. Now, what is inflation? Inflation would be if I also had 70 more tickets in my pocket. And I just give them all to Jeff. Now, here's the problem. Now, all of a sudden, we have 140 tickets, and we have 70 cookies. Did the cookies change? So now, how much does a cookie cost? Two tickets. How many of you can buy a cookie? Just him. That's weird. How did that work? Inflation. They just print more money at the government, and it's not based on the natural resources. It's not based on any goods. Now, all of a sudden, the goods changed in price. And now, you can't afford it. What happens when a house costs a million dollars to buy? Who in here's gonna afford a house? You know, I was talking to Pastor Anderson. He was like, hey, you can go to San Jose to start a church. I looked, the cheapest house for sale, the time that I looked, was $1 million. I looked up an article that said you have to make $250,000 a year to afford a starter home in the San Francisco Bay Area, or that San Jose area. What happens if tomorrow that changed? Would the housing market just jumps up? What if the government just prints a whole bunch more money? Now, how does this work? Do they just print money and shove it in their pockets? This is how it works. I'm Barack Obama for a second, okay? And this guy is a corrupt internet businessman. And I decide that I want to force universal healthcare on everybody. Well, we need a website, don't we? So I'm gonna hire Jeff, and I'm gonna print $2 billion in government money, and just hand it to him to build me a website that doesn't even work. Called healthcare.gov, and then all of a sudden, what did I do? Well, all your money got less valuable. It's called dilution. Dilution, it also applies in stock. So sometimes people that have 70 stocks, this is not a real number. They usually have like millions of shares for their stock, okay? They say, let's say they had 70 shares in their stock. Well, all of a sudden, they just start offering 140 shares. Well, now all of your shares are worth less. Just like your one little cookie ticket. And the only way for you to get a cookie is to rob from somebody else in this room, steal from them, so that you can have two tickets to then get a cookie. And that's exactly what the American economics looks like, my friend. Inflation is not biblical, it's not of God. The same shekels, the same shekel, why? Because it should represent real resources. There's certain currency, we have a fiat currency. Fiat currency means that there's nothing backing it. There's tangible currency, like a shekel which is actually made of gold or silver and has intrinsic value. Then there's currency that's backed by something that has a physical value, like a bond, or theoretically our money used to be backed by gold. However, when it was no longer backed by gold, your money is worth nothing. You might as well just pick out all the money in the Monopoly game. And now that it's on a computer screen, it's just numbers on a piece of paper. Tomorrow, they could say it's worth nothing. Tomorrow, they can just change the numbers and the price. You don't even realize how dependent you are on their garbage system. Look, the Antichrist can come in at any moment and just say, you have no money. What are you gonna do about it? Now, let's learn some lessons from this, okay? I'm not just trying to scare you and make you feel bad, all right? But what is the rich doing? With economics, with inflation, they're trying to constantly dilute the American dollar to the point where we're all slaves. And only the rich have money. That's the game called capitalism that you love so much. I'm not saying I'm an advocate for socialism, okay? That's wicked, too. I'm just, they're both the same thing, basically, okay? But the rich are trying to dilute our money, and they're trying to take it from us, so unfortunately, in order for you to make wise financial decisions, a lot of times you have to play the game. Now let's go back to our scenario. You all had a ticket, right? You had one ticket, it was represented for a cookie. Before I handed Jeff 70 tickets and ruined your situation, what if you had went back there, turned in your ticket, and got the cookie? Then, whenever I hand him the $70, now how much is your cookie worth? It's worth two tickets. So you actually didn't get ripped off. You were actually protected. This is why a lot of people invest in gold, silver, precious metals, or they invest in real estate, or they invest in commodities and goods, because those things have a dollar value. They have the resource. Whoever owns the gold makes the rules. So if you want to actually protect money, the best thing to do is get it out of the fiat fake play money and get it into real tangible things that you can actually have value, gold, silver, real estate, these type of things. That way you go along with the game. Because if we go back to our 1959 example, $100 back then is worth a lot more money. It has a lot more buying power than $100 would today. And in fact, I looked up, it said $100 in 1959 is worth like 800. I don't have it written down. It was like $860 today is how much buying power it would have. But if I took $100 and shove it in a mattress 60 years from now, you know how much it's worth? $100, okay? But if you convert that into something that's just a tangible good, that tangible good will ride the inflation gain with you, the stocks, the bonds, or whatever, and they will continue to increase with that inflation rate and you won't lose as much money. Now, what I just taught you is just a truth, okay? But I'm not recommending it. Go to Matthew chapter number six. Go to Matthew chapter number six. But it's important for people to just understand good money management. Bad money management, going to payday loans. Good money management, putting into natural resources or goods that have intrinsic value, like ammo, like guns, like silver, like gold. These things have intrinsic value. And if you are gonna be a good, wise money manager, those are the type of things that you'd want to own, procure. And if you look at the rich, that's what they have. The rich own real estate, all these things. Look, the numbers at the banking computer mean nothing. If they all blew up, possession is nine tenths of the law, my friend. Whatever natural resources or goods that you own would be your currency. And in fact, whenever the antichrist system comes into play, you know it's gonna be your currency? Natural resources, cuz you're not gonna be able to buy and sell on that little stupid computer chip that they have, damaging their hand. The only thing you can, I got ammo though. I got chickens, I got, you know, whatever you got, that's gonna be a way to barter or to trade or to make it for those 75 days or however long you think it is. That's the type of thing. But should we just be laying up all these goods? Pastor Shelley, are you telling me that I need to go out and just start buying silver and gold? I'm not saying that. But what I am trying to tell you is that would be a wise financial decision, okay? Just because it's a wise financial decision does not mean that it's something we should do. Matthew chapter number six, look what it says in verse number 19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So here's the thing. What I was trying to teach you about wise financial decisions. The rich people understand this. So you know what they own? Lots of gold, lots of silver, lots of real estate, lots of goods, lots of fancy clothes and purses, and all these things of great value and money. But go back to James chapter five. Why would they do such a thing? Cuz they're trying to protect themselves. They're trying to ensure that they're protected and they're safeguarded. But what does God say to them? What is God's warning to these people that are trusting in these supposed wise financial decisions? Verse one again, go to now you rich men, weep and how for your miseries that shall come upon you, your riches are corrupted. And your garments are moth-eaten, your gold and silver is cankered. And the rest of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. You have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labors who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, and the cries of them which have reaped or entered in the years of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton. You have nourished your hearts as in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed the just, and he does not resist you. Now, again, I think this is the unsaved. He's talking to the Barack Obamas of the world, to the rich, Jeff Bezos. And he says he doesn't even resist them. Why? Cuz they're not saved. He chased and discouraged every son in whom he received. You think that this is a list of saved people, and God's just like, go ahead and keep doing that. No, he's gonna punish them. But he's letting the rich just constantly get away with it, and they're treasuring up for themselves wrath on the day of wrath. Now look at verse number seven. Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be also patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Why would God give so much detail in verses one through six about the rich, and how they're corrupted, and they're gonna be destroyed, and they're treasuring up for themselves wrath? Cuz God doesn't want you to do the same thing. That was a point. He's saying, hey, I want you to be patient under the waiting of the coming of the Lord. That's what we're looking forward to. I'm not seeing how much gold, silver, and precious stone, and monopoly money I can store up for myself. I want eternal rewards, and I'm gonna be patient for the Lord. Because at the end of the day, no matter what physical riches I have, they're all gonna be destroyed. Someone else will inherit them. Someone else will take them. Someone else will get them. And I sure, as the Bible is true, do not want to have any of these riches that have been kept back by fraud. Why would I want to just treasure up myself wrath and sin against the Lord? Look at verse number nine. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth before the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. So the Bible's saying, look, we need to realize that God's gonna come. He's gonna recompense. Those that have living and pleasure in this world, they're gonna get what's coming to them. For sake of time, I'm not gonna go there. We have the story in Luke about the rich man who fared sumptuously every day, fared sumptuously every single day. He had all the pleasure. He had all the good. But the poor beggar, he's just like having dogs lick his sores, all right? I mean, he doesn't get anything, but now he's comforted. Now he's with Abraham. Now he's hanging out with Abraham. How cool would it be to have Abraham having his arm hung around your shoulder and being like, hey man, you just wanna hang out in heaven? That sounds pretty good. The other guy, he just wants a drip of water. He can't even get it for his tongue. So you gotta be patient for the things of the Lord. We even see the patience of Job. Job obviously suffered greatly. And I think Job's life is, in an essence, trying to picture what's gonna be like us dying and going to heaven, okay? Obviously, for him, it was all physical. But he endured great affliction, he endures great suffering. But eventually, he just receives joy, and he's in rest, and he sees his children's children. And for some people, they may not get that in this world. When you read the book of Revelation, some martyrs were just beheaded. Some people were killed. But whenever you get into heaven, it's gonna be great. And we see the patience of Job, how when he endured all these things, he received the great blessings, he receives the great rewards. And those that are gonna be greatly rewarded on this earth are patient. Not hasty to be rich, not hasty to gather up all the gold and silver now, but they're waiting and gathering up the gold and silver in heaven. They're waiting, and they're getting the great mansion in heaven. They're enduring the things of today so that they can enjoy tomorrow. It says in verse number 12, but above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath. But let your yea be yea and your nay nay, lest ye fall into condemnation. So he's saying, whenever we make a proclamation, we ought not invoke the authority of God or his throne. Even myself, I don't know if I slipped and said something weird. I said something like, as sure as the Bible's true. I shouldn't even say that, okay? Cuz the Bible's more true than anything I could ever think or say, all right? It's a more sure word of prophecy. But whenever we swear, or we shouldn't swear, you should never swear. And when it's saying swear, it's not saying cussing. It's saying that you shouldn't need to say more than just yes or no. If someone says, hey, are you lying? You shouldn't get up there and be like, well, as sure as I am that I'm saved, you know, yeah, or I promise on everything that I'm saved. Just anything, the King James Bible's the word of God, if I'm lying, or if I'm not lying, or whatever. And it's just like, they make all these proclamations to try and make their statement have more power, but it actually weakens the statement. If you have to say, well, I promise on the Bible, and the Jesus Christ, and on my salvation, I've never done that. People are like, you've done it. They just keep trying to think of something, on my mother's grave, and on my father's grave, and on heaven, and on Jesus, and on the Trinity. And it's like, what are you saying? Like, bad. It makes people like, whoa, you didn't really do that. If someone asks you a question, and it's honest, no, yes, yes, or no. We shouldn't try to go above and beyond. It makes me think of that Tyler Baker loser that went to Faith Board Baptist Church with me as the deacon at the time, he got fired for teaching heresy, and being lazy, and all kinds of weird stuff. But when he was confronted by Pastor Anderson, he was just invoking every kind of swear you can imagine. He's just like, I promise on everything. I've never told this false doctrine or whatever. And then two minutes later, he's like, yeah, I did teach it. It's like, why would you promise on everything? That's a lot of things. God the Father, salvation, the Bible. That's a lot of things I'm not gonna promise on or swear on. And the Bible even warns in Matthew chapter number five, it says that in old time, you've heard it had been said that thou shall not forswear thyself, but thou shalt perform thine oaths. Now, what he's trying to say is if you make an oath, if you make a vow, you better pay it. But better than that is just not even making any oaths, just not making any vows. Now, obviously when you get married, we make a marriage vow, and I believe that that's biblical, and that's within the realm of what the Bible teaches, but you ought to pay that vow. And I make that vow because I take it seriously, till death do us part. It wasn't till it's uncomfortable, till I didn't like it, till she gave me a cross look. It was period. Why would I stand before God and the minister and all of God's people and say, hey, till death do us part for better or for worse? And then just be like, well, it's worse now, so see ya. Wicked, ungodly. Obviously, if you make an oath, you better perform that oath. But it's better to just never swear, to not make vows, to not just say, Well, I know I'm going to church three times a week, no matter what. At this church bed fast, I'm unmovable. He's like, I don't know about that, buddy. Usually the people that say that, you never see them again. I think there's somebody that came up to me, it was the first service of Pure Words Baptist Church. And they're like, man, I'm so excited. I'm coming to every soul winning time. I'm coming to every service. I can't, this is great. I'm just so glad I know I'm gonna be here. Never saw him again. It's like, what in the world? You know, it was just like, calm down, buddy. I remember some guy was like, I swear to God I'm gonna come to church. You know, if you get him saved soul winning, he's like, I swear to God I'd never lie. I would never lie. I'm just thinking like, calm down, buddy. I know you're not gonna show up, probably. And I don't want you to have sinned even more by trying to tell me all these things. And we ought not be this, we ought not do the same thing. If we're gonna promise to do something, we ought to just say yes. Someone says, hey, are you gonna be there? Yes, but then mean it. Say no, and then mean it. Whatever you say, mean it. Think before you speak. Think before you perform a vow. It says in verse number 13, is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church and let him pray over him, anointing him with the oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of the faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. And if you have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. So I think in chapter five, we've pretty much hit the meat, and now he's just kind of addressing several other things. It's just kind of a closing in. We're talking about perfecting the faith, we're talking about some different areas. So he kind of gives a list. He's kind of just giving you a couple things real quick. Hey, if you're in fliction, pray. If you're in suffering, pray. If you have some kind of persecution, pray. If you're happy, if you're merry, sing songs to the Lord. Sing praise the Lord. I mean, if you want to find a commandment in the Bible, praise the Lord, it's in the Psalms. I mean, it's over and over and over, singing praise the Lord and being joyful. And then it's saying if you're sick, there's this interesting passage here where it talks about calling the elders of the church and having them pray over him. Now, some people, they hear this and they think, I need to get some prayer. And it's like, well, let's read the context a little bit more, okay? It says in verse 15, it says, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up. Now, it's my personal interpretation of this verse that with the context, this is something serious, okay? It's not like you cough twice, okay? It's not like, hey, you just got the flu or you got the cold or you got some just normal illness or sickness. I believe this is like, this guy's on his deathbed. Like this is something serious, this is something major. This is not your just average run of the mill situation. But hey, if someone is in this situation, we ought to have as much faith in these verses as John 3.16. We ought to. And if someone's really in this desperate situation, the Bible says that even in the New Testament, God's ministers can go and they can anoint these people with oil and they can pray for them. And then in cases, the Lord will heal this person. The prayer of faith shall save the sick is what the Bible says. So this is a great promise that we have, this is something to keep in mind. But again, if you call me up and you're like, I coughed a couple times, will you come anoint me? I'll just say, hey, I'll pray for you, brother. But this is more of something that's pretty serious, of a very serious nature. It says in verse 17, Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are. And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. And it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit. Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him, let him know that he which converted the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. So the Bible's saying, hey, prayer is important, prayer makes a difference. We ought not take prayer as just a routine exercise, but it's something that really matters. If you actually have something that you're dealing with, pray and have faith that God can make it better. Pray and believe that God can bless you. Pray and believe that God can change your situation. I know there's been many times in my life where I looked at a situation, thought it was impossible, thought it was probably never gonna change. But through prayer and just constant faith in God's promises, it did change. Being faithful unto God and serving God and going to church and doing that which is right. I mean, there's just countless things that I could go back and think about and ponder about how I thought, you know what, that's never gonna happen. And then it did, in a positive way. Sometimes it's negative, too. But obviously, prayer works. The Bible tells us prayer works. And we see Elias, he was one that prayed fervently. So that means often that he's dealing with a lot of passion. He has a lot of faith in his prayers. It's not just, God bless his food, okay, amen. All right, let's eat. And I'm not saying praying super fast is wrong. I'm just saying that it's not gonna be just a knee-jerk reaction. You ought to actually mean it. Let your prayer come from the heart. The Bible talks about people not meditating on things beforehand. Look, I think your prayers, the best you can, should not be meditated on beforehand. And if you've heard me pray enough times, I'll make mistakes. But I'd rather have a sincere, honest prayer than to have these perfect, meditated prayers that I'm never gonna stumble on. The presidential prayer breakfast where they just read a paper. Written by somebody else. That's not faith. That's just a show for a pretense making long prayers that they may be seen of men. I think I read some verses about that. Look, our prayers ought to come from sincerity. They ought to come from the heart. They ought to come from what you really feel. And God knows what you need for before you ask. So don't get so caught up on the words. Get caught up in actually believing them. Get caught up in actually making a petition, relying upon God, depending upon God. God likes it when we pray, and we're just feeling like, it's impossible unless you do it, God. And he's like, you're right, great, let's do it. I'm gonna show myself strong on behalf of them that have their heart right, perfect toward them. But this latter portion, I wanna give a few minutes here before we close. Look at 1 Peter 4, cuz the Bible says, in talking about converting somebody, that you would hide a multitude of sins. Now, false teachers and false prophets will sometimes get to these verses. And they'll try to teach a works-based salvation. Or they'll try to say you could lose your salvation, in a sense. Like, hey, this guy erred from the way, so he's unsaved. And then someone brought him back to being saved. It's kinda like an Arminian, their favorite section of scripture. They kinda talk about being unsaved, and then saved, and then unsaved. And you're just constantly in this wishy-washy, waving water or something. But that's not biblical, that's not of God. What it's talking about is just the whole chapter, the whole book. What's the whole book? Having a perfect faith, being a godly Christian. So if someone errs in any of the ways that we just read, I mean, we read how many ways could you err in the book of James? I mean, it was like countless. He's saying, hey, if you have a brethren that's erring from the truth, that's erring in one of these ways, we oughta try to restore them in meekness. We oughta try to convert them, change them, and bring them back to the Lord. And hey, when we do that, we're gonna help them cover a multitude of sins. It says in 1 Peter chapter 4, look at verse number 8, 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 8. Above all things have fervent charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. So notice again, it's bringing up the same point. If we have love in our hearts, and we see our brethren doing bad, we oughta try to restore them and help cover a multitude of sins. Cover a lot of their transgressions. Help them get them right. Cuz the Bible makes it clear, as soon as we get it right with God, he's not gonna hold us against us in many cases. You know, the guy that's, you know, doing right his whole life and then sins, he's gonna be judged according to that sin. And the guy that's done a lot of sins his whole life, but then got it right, you know what, his unrighteousness is not gonna be mentioned before him, is what the Bible says, you know, in Ezekiel. So God is looking at where your heart is right now. And if you look at your brother, hey, he's slipping out of church. He's not going soul winning. He's getting back into the world, he's so carnal. He just only cares about the world. He only cares about riches. He's constantly heaping up gold and silver unto himself, and all the things of the flesh. He has the love of money in his heart. Look, if you can convert that guy back, you're gonna cover a multitude of sins, and love is gonna want that. You shouldn't look at your brother and be like, well cool, I'm glad he's out of here. Now I can start leading the music, you know, cool, man, yeah. You know, now I can start. No, we ought to love the brethren and want to restore the brethren and do good unto the brethren. Go to Proverbs chapter ten, Proverbs chapter ten. And you can compare scripture to scripture and realize that soul doesn't always mean the immaterial part of our body that goes to heaven or hell. It can just refer to the person. It can just refer to your personality. It can refer to just you in general. There's a lot of ways that it can be referred to. The Bible talked about Lot having his soul vexed, his righteous soul being vexed. What does that mean? It's just meaning like him as a person is being constantly vexed with seeing sodomy. I can relate. It's horrible. I don't like having to see it, or hear about it, or experience it, or know that it even happens. I wish I'd never even heard of it, cuz then I would've never thought of it. It's so disgusting. It's so vile and reprobate. Acts chapter 15 talks about people's souls being subverted. Whenever you have false teachers coming in and trying to teach them of works-based salvation, or trying to get them involved with fornication or these type of things. Subverting is just being corrupted or losing morals or faith. But if we go to Proverbs chapter number ten, I wanna look at a couple more verses here. Cuz this really should be the spirit of us in this church. It says in Proverbs chapter ten, look at verse number 12, the Bible says, hatred stirreth up strife, but love covereth all sins. It'd be great if our church could be one that's constantly covering up all the transgressions of the brethren, rather than causing new transgressions, and new strife, and new problems. And always having to worry about, man, all these things are happening. All these people are getting in trouble with these people and talking bad about these people and doing all these things. Go to chapter 17. Our church ought to do the opposite. We ought to look at somebody that's doing something wrong and see how we can restore the person. See how we can convert the person. See how we can love the person. It says in Proverbs chapter 17 verse 9, he that covereth a transgression seeketh love. But he that repeateth the matter, seperateth very friends. Such a powerful scripture. The Bible's saying, hey, if you see somebody with a problem, you ought to try to help that person, not going around spreading their problem to everybody else. And me personally, I don't even want to know. If you see somebody in this church doing something wrong and y'all can fix it, I don't need to know. I don't want to know. I'm not interested. Just like you shouldn't be interested. If me and Jeff have a problem, why do you need to know? You know? If I do something wrong against Jeff and he comes to me, then we can solve it. We can fix it, right? I don't need to go tell every single other person. He doesn't need to go tell every single other person. And that person's not even seeking love. They go to the guys of love sometimes, though. They're like, I just love Jeff so much. Just pray for him. He's such a liar. He lies to me all the time. And, you know, he does all these, this is not true, okay? This is how rumors start, all right? You're going to cover that transgression of Jeff's lying, all right? You're not going to repeat it. No, I'm just kidding. No, Jeff's a great guy. I like Jeff. But I'm just saying, whatever you have that has a problem with somebody, you want to cover that. You don't want to go around telling everybody, we want to restore them. And don't get so envious of the rich. What are you envious of? The fact they're going to be burning in the lowest parts of hell? You know who's burning in the lowest parts of hell? John Maynard Keyes, all right? That wicked economist. You don't even know who he is. I do. I hate him, all right? With perfect hatred. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Jeff Bezos, if he doesn't believe in Jesus Christ, all of them. I mean, it's easy to look at it and be like, boy, that'd be cool. A hundred and million, a hundred billion dollars. I can't even imagine what that's like. It's unfathomable, the amount of money these people are heaping up to themselves. For what? For more wrath in hell. So you got to be patient for the coming of the Lord. You ought to try to live the Christian life. You ought to try to be perfect. We need to take the book of James today and apply it to our lives. Not just preach against false doctrine with it, but also apply it. Faith without works is dead. We need to have some works today. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for this great book. I pray that you would just bless this Bible study. All the things of your word could just soak into our hearts and that we could just be changed to be more loving, more charitable. I pray that we wouldn't desire all the carnal things of this world, but rather we would desire eternal riches, that we would have true love in our hearts, and we want to restore the brethren. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.