 Amen. So keep your place in First Kings chapter 21. We're going to come back there in a few minutes, but what are we doing tonight? We're looking at Paul Harvey's 1965 essay, If I Were the Devil. This is the fifth sermon on this essay. We've gone through about three quarters of it so far. We're going to finish it up this evening. And what we're doing is we're looking at the words. Basically, you know, Paul Harvey wrote this essay in 1965. And it has some very thoughtful and in many times biblical explanations for what's actually happening to our country today. So we're going to finish this up this evening. But so far what we've talked about is how, you know, the devil has corrupted the churches in the United States of America. He's corrupted the churches. He's corrupted what those churches teach and what those churches preach and what those churches don't teach and preach. Then, of course, he's also corrupted the Bible is the next sermon that we had in this series. And then by corrupting the Bible, then he looked at in the essay talked about the sin and the media and how things just keep getting worse and worse and worse in this country. And then last week, we looked at division. And this is where there was a little bit of a correction that we needed to make because Paul Harvey was saying that the devil was for division. And I showed you from the Bible that is actually Jesus that brings division. The devil is trying to unify people in this country. It is the devil that says, let's come together. Let's meet in the middle. This is Satan's plan. This is not Jesus's plan. Jesus said, I come to bring division. And that is the problem. But anyway, the point is that the observation was still there. You know, he had this wrong. It's the devil that's trying to get unity. Of course, we'll see that in the end times. We'll see that with the Antichrist and the one world government. That's going to take some unity. That's going to take people leaving what they believe and meeting in the middle for unity. That's what Satan wants. So those are the first four sermons. Let's wrap things up tonight. I probably could have had about three or four more sermons, but I'm just going to go through and I'm going to wrap things up this evening with a few more thoughts. And there's one kind of main theme that I want to hit tonight, but keep your place in 1 Kings chapter 21. And we're going to come back to the story of Naboth's vineyard in a little bit. But let me just read for you. Continue on Paul Harvey's essay. Quote, let's continue. Within a decade, so this is if I were the devil, within a decade, I'd have prisons overflowing. I'd have judges promoting pornography. Soon I could evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, then from the houses of Congress. So right here, it demonstrates why this shows as all these things happen, I'd have prisons overflowing. I'd be able to take God out of all these institutions, the schools, the courthouses, and even Congress itself. Right here demonstrates why Satan, going back to the first sermon, why Satan had to corrupt the churches first. He had to corrupt the churches first. This had to be, and this will always be Satan's plan. I've said it many times, but this country, when this country is in complete shambles and it's over, this will be true. It was lost first from the pulpit in this country. It was lost first from the pulpit. That's why in part one, he starts the essay by saying, I'd subvert the churches first. And that's exactly what Satan did. Because look, the local church is the first line of defense. It's the grassroots of God's word in every community across America. And if there's not a good local church in every city, that's where everything goes wrong. But then, so he corrupts the church and he starts corrupting the church by corrupting the church doctrine, by getting people to change the Bible itself. Look, where there was somebody in a Bible-believing church, none of these things would be possible. Look, they wouldn't, and here's another thing. You know, as we remove God from the courthouse and God from the schoolhouse and all these things, here's the thing. Personally talking to me today, I wouldn't want whatever God they're referring to in our current society today, anywhere near my children's school anyway. This is why we're homeschooling. This is why we homeschool. This, I mean, because the God that was in the schools, even back when Paul Harvey wrote this essay, was completely corrupted at this point. Because churches already had been corrupted. Churches had stopped preaching the Bible. So I wouldn't want any school, any public school teaching my children anything about God today. This is why we homeschool. This is why you have to homeschool because God, I mean, now God is completely out of the public school. However, before he was even completely out, he was replaced with a corrupt version. Let's continue. Let's continue. Quote, and in his own churches, I would substitute psychology for religion and deify science. Now, let me correct there. I would correct that statement. I would say falsify science because many times I've shown you from the Bible that the Bible is extremely scientific. The Bible has never been scientifically proven wrong. So don't buy into this idea that if you believe the Bible, you're against science wrong. The Bible is very scientific. The Bible talks about everything. The Bible talks about physics. The Bible talks about time. The Bible talks about engineering. The Bible talks about math. The Bible talks about everything. I would lure, he continues, I would lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls and church money. If I were the devil, I'd make the symbols of Easter and egg and the symbol of Christmas a bottle. But ultimately, what he's talking about here, this is me now. He's ultimately talking about the doctrine and God has been corrupted in the churches. And by corrupting the doctrine, look, this is why doctrine matters in churches. Because of, you know, I would lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls. We'll get to that in a minute. Turn to Mark chapter nine. Turn to Mark chapter nine. But this is why doctrine matters, folks. Doctrine matters. We met a guy out today on the street that talked to my wife and he asked my wife, he said, well, what kind of charity do you guys do? He had no, he had no interest. My wife is showing him the Bible, like I can show you how you can know you're going to go to heaven. Would you like to hear the gospel? Would you like to know how you're going to have eternal life? Zero interest. He's like, but what kind of charity do you do? Because I have, he had his own religion that he made up in his house or something. And he wanted to know what kind of charity to do. Do we go out and feed the homeless? These are examples that he's giving as far as what we do for charity. And my wife said, well, this is what we do. We go out and we preach the gospel. We go out and we show people how they can go to heaven. We go out and we show people how they can pass from death to life. That's, that's what we do. What is charity? Charity means love. But you see how if you have no doctrine, if there's no doctrine, all churches can just get together and just go out and hand out diapers in Mexico or whatever because there's no doctrine. It doesn't matter. You're just doing something that seemed, it's seemingly good. Let's go out and feed stray cats. There's charity right there. But if there's no doctrine, unity is achieved. If there's no doctrine, Satan's plan is achieved. There must be doctrine. Why? I mean, he points it out here. He says, you know, pastors into and priests misusing boys and girls. What he's talking about is child abuse. 1965. Think about the things that have happened since 1965 in churches. And I hate even using the word churches in these cases. Look at Mark chapter nine and verse number 42. Let's look at the doctrine of Jesus Christ. Jesus says, and whosoever shall offend, you know what that means? That means hurt. You know, misuse, I, I, you know, give me a break. I mean, he's trying to lightly say a horrible thing here is what he's trying to do. He says, you know, whosoever shall offend, that means hurt. One of these little ones, he's talking about children that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged around his bed, his neck, and he were cast into the sea. Jesus, Jesus has been faked in churches today too. Jesus has been faked in churches today too to believe that he's just this, this soft, soft, you know, love everybody no matter what. God, it's fake. Jesus is saying anybody that hurts a child, it'd be better if they were drowned in the sea. He's like, because when I get him, it's going to be way worse than that. All Burnham in the lowest parts of hell is what Jesus is getting at here. Go to Romans chapter one. Look, this is why doctrine matters. This is why doctrine matters. Jesus said his church, the true church, the gates of hell will not prevail against it. But it sounds like these churches that Paul Harvey is talking about, it sounds like the gates of hell have been opened in these churches. I mean, if you can't expect your children to be safe in church, what's the problem? How did this happen? Because the doctrine, that's why. It's the doctrine. As a matter of fact, this one right here is just one doctrine. You say, how many doctrines must have gone bad to where children are actually being harmed in church? One. Just one. It's that serious. It's that serious. Go to Romans chapter one. Look at verse number 26. Romans chapter one and verse number 26. This is the importance of doctrine because by just forgetting one doctrine and just deciding, you know what? I don't like preaching this doctrine because this offends some people. By not preaching one doctrine, I endanger every child in this church. Every single one. And the gates of hell will prevail against the church like that. Look at Romans chapter one and verse number 26. For this cause, these are people that they didn't glorify God. They changed the word of God. They didn't believe God. They turned their back on God. These are evil people that turned against God. And in verse 26 he says, for this cause, because they did that, God says, God gave them up to vile affections. Look, somebody that would harm a child, that's a vile thing. That's not a normal thing. That's an unnatural thing. And that's why if you read Romans one, you will see that word come up again. Natural, unnatural, natural, unnatural, unnatural, inconvenient, not convenient. That means this is not normal. Something has happened there. Something has gone wrong there. The Bible's explaining what has gone wrong here. God has given these people up. And then these vile affections came in for even their women to change the natural. There it is, the natural use into that which is against nature. Likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust towards one another. Men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error, which was meat. Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, again, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. That means rejected. That means they've been rejected because they did not like to retain God in there and they became unnatural because of that. And this talking about homosexuality. And you could just put under unnatural all these other things that you see out there. Because you can't even keep track of them anymore. And this is why right here, that if you just decide, oh, you know, it's just another sin, all these unnatural things. Oh, have you never seen, are you perfect brother? And you just allow this unnaturalness inside the church? That's what happens. You endanger the children of the church because you're not following the doctrines of the Bible. It's very simple. You say, I've heard this before. Well, you know what? Some things are going to be repeated in this church because just this one doctrine can destroy the whole church. If we decide, oh, you know, I don't think it's politically correct to talk about, you know, homosexuality and unnaturalness. And I don't even know like all the different terms now. And I don't even want to speak those terms. But the Bible says that those people have been given over, they've been rejected, which is why they're not coming here ever. And the gates of hell will not prevail against this place as long as we follow the Bible. That's all we have to do. That's it. One doctrine. This is why you must, you destroy the doctrine, you destroy the churches, and we'll get into what comes after that later. Paul Harvey continues. If I were the devil, I'd take from those. Now it's a different paragraph. Now he says, if I were the devil, he said, I'd take from those that have and give to those who want until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. Ooh, there's a lot in that one sentence. Right there. Turn to 1 Timothy chapter six or just look at the front of your bulletin. You know what that reminds me of? It reminds me of kind of what we talked about this morning. But look at the front of your bulletin where the Bible says, but they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare. They that want money just for the sake of having money. He's talking about communism in this sentence. He's talking about socialism in this sentence. Now here's the big lie about communism and socialism in this country. See, the big lie is the socialists will go out there and they'll say, oh well, capitalism and a free market, those people are just greedy. Those people are just greedy and they can't get enough. Turn to Proverbs chapter 13 and they want to take from those that have and give to those that want. But here's the thing, turn to Proverbs chapter 13 and look at verse number four. Look at Proverbs chapter 13 and verse number four. Here's the problem right here with these people with the socialists today. The Bible says the soul of the sluggard, that's the lazy person. The soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing. Now notice that right there. It doesn't say the soul of the sluggard hath nothing and is just happy having nothing. This is the problem right here. Now if the socialists today was like, you know what? All these rich people and all these people that are going in these capitalists, you know, they just they're too greedy and they didn't want anything. At least they would be pure in their in their philosophy. But instead they're saying they have too much. They're too greedy. I want it. That's what they're saying. And the Bible says the exact same thing in Proverbs 13.4. It says the soul of the sluggard. You got to underline this verse. There's word right here. Desireth. He's not lazy sitting in his house or sitting wherever he's sitting. Just being like, yeah, I'm just lazy. I don't want to work and I'm fine. He's like, no, I don't want to work and I want I want your stuff. I want what they have. But I want to keep sitting here. And I want to do nothing. That's the big lie right there. Turn to Hebrews chapter 13. That's the big lie is it's not that they're just lazy. It's that they desire. They desire what others have. And you know, I think the Bible has a word for that. Look at Hebrews 13. Look at verse number five. Hebrews 13 and verse number five. The Bible says, let your conversation be without covetousness. And what and be content with such things as you have. Look, the Bible covetousness, the definition of covetousness is right here. It is not being content with what you have. So you want what other people have. That's what's going on today. That's what we see today. And another problem with communism, and this is turned back to First Kings chapter 21. Now we're going to see some communism, some philosophies of communism in the Bible in First Kings chapter 21. But the big problem with communism, the big problem with communism is that it always needs force. You always have to use force to implement it. It always needs to be implemented through violence is the problem. What do we see going on in First Kings 21? We see a guy that wants something. He wants something that somebody else has. Look at verse, look at verse number two. An Ahab. I mean, just forget that Ahab is the king here for a minute. I mean, he's kind of the guy that wants it. In this case, it's pretty convenient being Ahab, because the guy that wants it also has the ability to get it through violence. Look at verse number two, an Ahab spake on an Ahab, Nabeth saying, give me thy vineyard that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it's near unto my house. Think he wants to plant vegetables. I mean, think about this story for a second. And think about how it turns out, because it's near to my house, and I'll give it to thee for a better vineyard than it. Or if it seemed good to thee, I'll give you the worth of it and money. Nabeth just didn't want to sell. It was in his family. It meant something more than money to him. And Nabeth said to Ahab, the Lord forbid at me that I should give the inheritance of my father's unto thee. And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased, because the word would Nabeth, the Nabeth, the Jezreelite spoken unto him for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my father's. And he laid him down upon the bed and turned away his face and would eat no bread. Won't sell me the vineyard. And his wife comes to him and says, you know, what's going on? Then his wife, she's just a, this is just a peach, this gal, Jezebel. And you wonder why people don't, you know, have kids like, you know, how many Jezebel children do you know? This is why. And he said unto her, say, why is thy spirit so sad thou eatest no bread? And he said unto her, because I spake unto Nabeth the Jezreelite and said unto him, give me the vineyard for money or else if it please thee, and I will give thee another vineyard for it. And he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard. And Jezebel, his wife said unto him, does thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? She's like, hello, you're the king. Like, take it. Arise and eat bread and let thy heart be merry. I will give thee the vineyard of Nabeth the Jezreelite. Then look at verse 15. Then she makes up this scheme to falsely accuse Nabeth. You know, they kind of control the government so they can do whatever they want. And then in verse 15, and it came to pass when Jezebel heard that Nabeth was stoned. They killed him. They killed him. It was dead that Jezebel said to Ahabarize and take possession of the vineyard. So look, here's the reason that you need violence to enforce communism. Because typically people just don't want to give you what they've worked for. So you have to point a gun in their face. That's basically what you have to do. That's the government. That's that's what government regulation is, by the way. Don't you ever forget that. We always get so used to regulation, but government regulation is a gun pointed in your face. That's what it is. Follow these rules or else. You know, look, Romans 13 tells us that if the laws that the government have match the laws of the Bible, it's all good. But we are way beyond that today. We are way beyond that today. All these regulations, business regulations, some of you were talking to me about last week. Do this. Do that. But you know, it always turns into pay this and fees. And you know what? Or else. Or else. We'll shut your business down. We'll put you in prison. You know what? And if you don't do any of that, we'll kill you. That's what it comes down to. You know, 1 Corinthians 511, you know what one of the things that are, there's six things that are not allowed in church. You know what one of those things are? Extortion. And you know what extortion is? Extortion is, you know, threatening people for money. That's what it is. You see folks, it's these people that are pushing this back to 1 Timothy chapter 9 and verse number 6. Back to the front of your bulletin. It's these people that are pushing this. They're the greedy ones. Because they're coveting other people's property. Look, it's the guy on welfare who's the greedy one. He's greedy. He wastes. And he wants more and more. It's the guy on the corner. He's the very definition of just wanting money for the sake of money. Look, he just wants the guy standing there on the corner. He just wants money. There's no labor. There's no building. There's no service. There's no making a product. He just wants the money. And he wants your money. There's no benefit to society. It's just money. It's just money. There's no family to support. There's no 1st Timothy 5A. It's just money. That's it. And we learn from this morning, you ought to not go out and make money just for the sake of money. Just for the sake of the money itself. It is to serve the Lord with your life. It is to support your family. It is to follow the commandments that God has laid out for your life in the Bible. Money's a tool. But somebody that just wants your money for the sake of having your money. Look, that's the definition of greed and covetousness. Let's continue. He says, and tell. He says, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. Now, if you know some things about economics, you know that there's a very specific wording there. Incentive. He's saying, he's like, what is he talking about? He's saying, he's like, look, a society and the prosperity of a society is all about incentives. It's all about incentives. And guess what? The Bible is no different. Turn to Joshua chapter 23. The Bible is no different. Remember Joshua? In Joshua chapter 23, what is he saying? What is he pleading with the people? He's saying, don't forget the Lord. Don't forget the Lord. Don't forget the Lord. But then he gives them some incentives at the end of the chapter. Look at verse 16. He's saying over and over again, please don't forget the Lord. He's old. He knows he's gonna die. Verse 16, he says in Joshua 23, 16, he says, when you have transgressed the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and have gone and served other gods, he's saying, here's what's gonna happen if you don't listen to what I'm saying. And have gone and served other gods and bowed yourselves to them, then shall the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and you shall perish quickly from off the good land, which he hath given you. He's saying, look, he's like, you want to keep this land that you just, that we just all fought for, that the Lord gave to us, that the Lord fought for us. You want to keep this? He's like, you better follow the Lord. There's your incentive. He's giving them an incentive. Life is all about incentives, and the Bible is no different. Think about your Christian life. What are the incentives? I mean, think about it. I mean, think about it. You know, our salvation is free. I was saved because I trusted on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. If you're saved today, it's because you trusted on Jesus, and you were saved in a moment. And there's nothing that will ever change that. You go out and be a drug dealer. You go out and rob a bank. Don't do this stuff, kids. These are just examples. But look, you go out and do these bad things. You're not going to lose your salvation. You're saved no matter what. You're eternally saved. You're sealed by the Holy Spirit once you trusted in that moment. That was it. But what are my incentives? Well, I don't know. Here's one for me. I just want to be in God's good graces. I just want to follow the Lord that saved me. I just want to follow the Lord that gave me this free gift that I didn't have to work for, that I didn't deserve. You know, just character. How's that? But how's this? I want to avoid chastisement in my life because my Heavenly Father is going to beat me with many stripes because I know what's wrong. And then I go and I do them anyway. Look, I'm going to pay for that on this earth. Look, sin destroys. Sin destroys people. It destroys their life. It will destroy your life on this earth. Especially God's not going to let you get away with anything in this world. He's not going to take away your salvation. He promised you that. But you can ruin your life on this earth. That's an incentive. I don't want to. Look, I not only want to not ruin my life, I want to have a life that is profitable to other people. There's a spectrum there, completely ruined, very profitable to other people. That's what I want. I want to be over here somewhere. That's the incentive that we have as Christians. It's to serve the Lord that saved us and be in his good graces and have profitable lives on this earth. Nobody wants to waste their life, yet so many people do. So Paul Harvey is talking about communism. He's talking about how it will make people lazy in this sentence. He's saying it will kill their ambition. It will take those that are providing. Think about this. This is biblical. To go out and labor six days a week, as we talked about this morning. You go out and you labor six days a week with all thy might and you provide for your family. Look, that is biblical. That's what you're doing. Satan needs to destroy that. Satan can't have a bunch of Christians out there that are doing what they're supposed to do. So Satan's like, this is a problem. I need to kill this ambition. Enter communism. Paul Harvey saw this. Turn to 2 Peter chapter 1. Paul Harvey saw this coming. He saw this in 1965. In 1965, he saw this. You see, we are a problem for Satan. Satan is destroying this country and we can look at it and we can read this essay and we can see how completely and how brilliantly this is being done and how successfully it's being done. But you are still a problem. The Bible believing Christian who is trying to be profitable to others because guess what Bible believing Christian that still goes to church and still believes the Bible and still believes the doctrines and still goes out. So, oh, you're going out telling other people. You're going out trying to make other people more profitable. We're not going out trying to get other people to come with us passing out diapers. We are coming. We are trying to get other people to come with us to preach the gospel to people so people don't go to hell. That's what we're trying to do. That's what we're trying to do. And we're making more of ourselves. We are multiplying ourselves. This is a problem for Satan. This is a problem. He must destroy this. Look at 2 Peter chapter 1 in verse number 10. Wherefore, wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you shall fall when? When will the devil take you down? If you are diligent in your Christian life, when will the devil be able to destroy you? Never. I mean, these are promises that the Bible gives us. Hello, why don't we read this more? I mean, the Bible is telling us, the Bible says that if you do these things in the Bible, if you follow my word, Satan will never get you. He will never take you down, ever. Satan's like, that's not going to work. Not going to work for me. He's got to kill that diligence. He's got to destroy that ambition. Satan's goal is to bring you down, folks. He's like, he can't bring you to hell, but he can make you unprofitable. He can put you over on this side of the unprofitable wicked servant. He can cause you to stumble. Here's an analogy. And I don't know if this analogy actually happened, but it's a pretty good analogy as far as what communism will do to people's ambition. There was an economics professor at a university. I'll tell you the story. He said he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class. The class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich. A great equalizer. Sounds pretty good. The professor then said, okay, we'll have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades will be averaged. And everyone that would receive the same grade, so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset, and students who studied little were happy. But as the second test rolled around, here's the problem. The students who studied little studied even less. And the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride, too. So they studied little. The second test average was a D and no one was happy. When the third test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering blame, name calling of all kinds resulted in hard feelings, and no one would study for anyone else. All failed to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail as well because the harder to succeed, the greater the reward. But when a government takes all the reward away, no one will try to succeed. That's a nice little analogy right there. You can kind of feel this today. You know, it used to be an embarrassing thing to say you were getting government assistance for something. People wouldn't really, now it's almost like this badge of honor people wear. Like, oh, I'm getting this. And you know, it almost makes other people feel like, man, maybe I should be getting something. Everybody else is getting all this free stuff, and I'm not, I mean, it makes people feel bad about it. Same thing as this analogy here. But look, this is where we are today. This is where we are today, and it kills people's ambition, even biblical ambition of wanting to work hard, support your family, Paul Harvey saw it in 1965. This is where we are. So first, just an overview here. We destroy the churches. We destroy the Bible. And the doctrines that go along with that Bible. But then guess what else we destroy? Paul Harvey continues, and he concludes. He concludes. He says, and what do you bet after all this has been destroyed, the Bible, the doctrines, the morality, really? And what do you bet I could get whole states to promote gambling as the way to get rich? I would caution against extremes and hard work in patriotism, in moral conduct. I would convince the young that marriage is old fashioned, that swinging is more fun, that what you see on TV is the way to be. I would put fornication in there instead of swinging, and there's never been more people under the age of 30 unmarried in this country ever. Marriage just isn't, and quite frankly, if you're not following the Bible, why in the world would you get married? It's just risk. Any woman will shack up with any guy today. Fornication is just because, look, they destroyed the Bible. They destroyed the doctrines. And guess what? Then you know what else you destroy? The morality, the morality. And thus he continues, I could undress you in public, and I could lure you into bed with diseases for which there is no cure. You know, I read an article before I came to church today that California has an epidemic of STDs. You can explain what that is to your kids later. They have an epidemic, so what are they doing? What's the answer? They're pushing to have at-home STD tests. This is the answer. This is what they're going with, because guess what? They've destroyed the Bible. They've destroyed the doctrines. And you know what? They're going to destroy the people. That's what's happening. Diseases, that there is no cure. How about teaching against fornication, like the Bible does? How about teaching for marriage, like the Bible does? How about instilling the morality, like the Bible does? But no, that's been destroyed. So what do we do? We need more tests. We need more tests. What in the world is that going to do? What in the world is that going to do? I'd address you in public, he says. I mean, look, we've convinced women and girls and ladies to walk around dressed like prostitutes that that's the right way, because they've literally destroyed the people. We've convinced women through this wicked idea of feminism, we've convinced women and young girls that they have no value. That's what we've convinced them. That's what we've told them. We told them, hey, dress like this, because that's what the carnal person that wants to commit fornication wants to see. And you know what? Your value is not your heart and your soul. And the fact that you should be a loving mother to teach the Bible to your children one day, that your value is your body. That's it. What in the world? How is this okay? And people look at us and think we're weird. If I were the devil, I'd just keep right on doing what he's doing. Paul Harvey, good day. You have to listen to it on the radio through his voice to really capture it. But the whole essay, folks, in a nutshell is that once all these things are gone, once I get rid of the Bible, once I get rid of the churches, once I get rid of the doctrines, then I can destroy the people. That is the whole idea of the essay. And you know what? That's exactly what the Bible teaches. I mean, I can destroy their morality. I can destroy their ambition. And ultimately, I can destroy their lives. And you know what? Saved and unsaved. I can make it to where the Christian, the Bible-believing Christian, is worthless. And I can make it to where the unsaved never hears the truth. And then I can bring the whole country down. This is the stage that we are at today, folks. I mean, look, we are a destroyed people. You could look at it. If you're looking at the majority of this country, we're a destroyed people today. Because of Satan's plan, it's very far along. It's very far along. But the optimistic view is this, is that every person, you know what? Every person has a conscience. Let me give you two thoughts. Let me give you two thoughts and just not depress you at the beginning of the new year. But look, first of all, every person has a conscience. Every single person, when they're born, has the law written in their heart. And they have a conscience that must be corrupted. Normally, left alone, left, I mean, a person has God's law written in their heart. That's why people just know that murder's wrong. They just know. Like some person in some South American country that's never even seen civilization, they'll just know that murder's wrong because God wrote the law in everyone's heart. The Bible tells us this. Romans 2.15. So every person has a conscience. That's why, as the people are destroyed, that's why you stand out. And you know what? That's why there's so much opportunity. That's why there's so much opportunity for an 18 or 19 or 20-year-old kid who comes out and he just wants to just work hard. And just, you know, get married and provide for his family. People look at him like, whoa, what in the world? Shows up for work every day. That's weird. There's so much opportunity out there because people, the boss, the owner of the company, still has a conscience. Still looks at somebody like that and says, that's good. They still know that all these unnatural things that are going on out there, they know they're wrong. They may not have the courage or a pastor or a church that they go to that will stand up against these things, but they know because it's written right there. And so they know. So there is a ton of opportunity for the Bible-believing Christian today. Oh, the advantage that is out there because you know what? People still have a conscience. You know, all these people that have been rejected and given over and they're reprobates and they can't, you know, they're unnatural now. That's a very small percentage of people. Most people still have a conscience. So there's a lot of opportunity for those that still, and just think of the low-hanging fruit that's out there for us because we need to go out there and we need to teach the Bible to people because guess what? They still have a conscience. We need to go out there and read, hey, you know, I know this is what you're seeing today and they don't like it, by the way. They don't like it. They're like, I don't know. I don't like it. I don't want to say anything. I don't want to get in trouble, but I like this stuff. And we go out there and we teach them what the Bible says and you know what they're going to do? They're going to put that key in the conscience, in the lock that is the conscience of their heart and it's going to fit. And they're going to get saved. And they're going to get in church and then you know what? We got the answers for them here. We can show them how they can raise those kids in this wicked world. We can show them how they can, you know, in this wicked world, how you can still raise world-class educated kids that have a biblical worldview in a messed up world, in a messed up country. This is why the devil needs to get rid of us. This is why you need to be careful. This is why you need to read the Bible because you're a danger to this plan and don't forget that, especially as you're out there soul-winning, weekend and week out. You have a target on your back. You have a target on your forehead because the devil needs to destroy you in order to complete his plan. But it's very, very foreseeing in 1965 to write something like this. So I'm glad we got a chance to look through it in light of the Bible. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.