Latest / The Salty Pastor / Is this the End Times? Ep. 117

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Is this the End Times? Ep. 117 · The Salty Pastor

• Doug: [00:00:00] Number two is all of the promises will that his return will be unexpected. So no matter how hard we try to figure out when it's going to happen, we won't know Jesse: Jesus doesn't have a Google calendar appointment for when he's coming back. It's not marked up on that. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the salty pastor podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping you learn, to think critically and develop your faith on your own. We're here to be your guides. We're here to challenge you. We're here to encourage you, but ultimately your faith and your knowledge is in your hands and you need to be an active participant in growing both of them. So we are here. My name is Jesse Maher. I will be your host and we can't do the salty pastor podcast without the salty pastor himself. The one, the only Dr. Douglas Peake. Doug: Well, my mama always said that after God made me, he broke the mold. [00:01:00] So I guess I am the one and only so greetings to you of the mission of the salty pastor, as Jesse said, is to help you grow your faith. So my question is what are you doing to ensure the strength of your faith? Are you taking steps to really develop what you're going to need when the world spins out of control? And what we're seeing is exactly. That. So the Salter passengers, all designed to coach you and how to strengthen your faith, give you the tools, the techniques, but also the constructs, the information, the teaching, uh, that will help you achieve that mission and purpose for your faith. So welcome to the salty pastor. I'm glad that I can be here with you. Jesse: So. Ultimately, we love to encourage people to get them moving forward and moving forward in your life, in your faith, in your jobs and your careers and with your family. These are all things. That's a refreshing. We talked about this with joy. It's a renewal or a refreshing of your mind, your spirit, your, your body. [00:02:00] And part of that is your faith. You need to be refreshing your faith. You need to be moving forward in your faith. We want to be here to encourage you to do that. And there's some people out that are really desperate and need encouragement to get moving forward in their faith. Talk to me, pastor, what do you have to encourage people to move forward with their faith today? Doug: Well, our theories is get up and go. I've loved this series because it's just been a practical, you know, we're on the 10th step. Uh, you can pick and choose different ones. You know, I started off really strong with pastor Harv. You know, I really loved the one on, make a decision. No, we really need to make decisions. I enjoyed the one my son did on be generous. I really liked that one a lot. And so those are ones that just, those are specific things that as soon as you start doing them, you see immediate impact, right? And today what we're going to do is something I think people really need to focus on, and that is be prepared. You need to live your life as if it is heading somewhere, [00:03:00] because it is, you need to live your life as if you're going to have to make a sacrifice. You know, all life requires decisions. Those decisions always have sacrifices you're picking and choosing from one or the other, because, and that happens. If you do not realize this, then you lose your freedom to choose your own sacrifice. You know, you lose your freedom to be able to say, this is what I'm going to do. For instance, uh, the way this works is, you know, there's two times of, uh, pain and life. There's the pain of regret. And then there's the pain of discipline. And so you can. You know, sacrifice to discipline yourself or an outcome, which allows you to choose. But if you don't live that way and you make a mistake, then you have the pain of regret and that never goes away. There's nothing you knew about it. So you lose your capacity to choose your sacrifice. So in this current environment today, yay. Um, I've been getting lots and lots of questions about. [00:04:00] Do you think that we are in the end times, pastor, when you look at what's going on, are we in the end times or not? And so I think today we're going to focus on being prepared. Jesse: So, I mean, I've been hearing a lot of that too. Um, and it's, it's come from very different people. That's the interesting thing is there's some people that I I've, I've seen that I would've never thought would have kind of had that thought process. Like they're not, they're not actively studying the un-timed, they're just. Oh, well, maybe this is it. Maybe this is the things. And then there's people that have been really digging into it that are also like, I think this is it. And so it's kind of a broad base of people that are talking about this. And I think everyone's on different spaces about whether it is or isn't and they come looking to you to see what someone who's spent a lot of time studying the Bible would say about this. Yeah. Um, so. How big of a deal, according to the new Testament is the end times. Doug: Well, I think we get this question a lot and we're going to, we've always gotten it over the last [00:05:00] 34 years of full-time ministry. I would say. Three really big times, uh, or three seasons over that 30 some years. So I'd say about once a decade or so it really becomes a hot topic. Uh, the very first decade it started back in the late eighties, there was kind of this big wave of, of talking about it. And then at the year, 2000. And cause there was this belief, right? Yeah. Y2K that I, everything and everything was going to fall apart. And then people were like, no, no, it's a Mayan calendar. It's actually 2012. It's not 2000. So, and then John Cusack made that crazy movie and all that kind of stuff. But what happened is, um, uh, I think though that it, reason it keeps coming back up is because in the new Testament, it is a big. I mean, Jesse: there's a whole, there's a whole book devoted to, it Doug: was a whole book devoted to it. The book otherwise known as the apocalypse. And, uh, there are over 100 passages in the new Testament alone. So [00:06:00] you think there's 27 books in the new Testament. There's over a hundred passages. So you're talking around an average of four references per book. If you were to kind of just distill it out. Wait. So there's a lot about it. And the reason why is because you have to step back a moment and realize the overall basic ethos of Christianity, and that is Jesus, who is God created. The universe created this entire space-time continuum in which we exists. Um, science out there accepts this as a fact that there was a beginning and therefore there will be an end, uh, Not that Jesus science doesn't say Jesus started it, but it says there is a beginning now you and I were created. In the image of God. And what this basically means is that all human beings are sentient. We have value because we're created in his image. We mean that this means we have [00:07:00] free will and we're relationally oriented. So things like love and bonding and kindness and all of these things are real things. Love is a real thing. It's not just an illusion as an atheist would say, um, we. At the very beginning, invited evil into this world because we have free will because we're created in his image and in doing so we became tainted. So there's kind of this tank out there. And so that basically means that even the best things about us, unconditional love, honor, kindness, virtues, sexual intimacy, mercy can be tainted, manipulated, or perverted by this taint Saint and can use this tank to pervert it and create more. Taint. So Jesus Christ comes into this in order to pay the price, to remove the taint of sin. That's why he died on the cross. His resurrection from the dead proves that he achieved what he [00:08:00] said he came to do, and that is break the power of death over us. And so now we're in this thing, what I call the. The Gap. Jesse: The Gap, not the store, right? Not the store. We can't get a bargain khaki pants here. Doug: No, you can not get bargain khaki pants. And this gap, the gap is a period of time where people are given the free choice to be set free spiritually, to come to know Jesus Christ, right. As Lord and savior. And then we know. At some point, this period of time ends and Jesus will come a second time in victory so that he will take what the victory that's already achieved in the spiritual realm. And then he's going to bring that victory to the material realm. Now you gotta be careful that we're, you don't divide those two too much, you know, because we're not, dualists where there's this massive division between spiritual and material. They influence each other. This is why Jesus said, you know, the way to pray. You say, Lord, you [00:09:00] know, as you're willing heaven, let it be done here on earth. So, so there's things happening here on earth. You know, this battle against evil and the principalities happens in the material world and that battle will continue on. According to the will of God until him, he says, okay, we're going to bring this to an end. And up until that point, human beings are free to choose whether they will follow Christ and be saved by him or not. So we're in this thing called The Gap. Jesse: So, I mean, Jesus coming, back's kind of a big deal, obviously. I mean, we're, it's kind of the finish line on this thing. It's a, it's a hard deadline. Um, as far as people making a choice, whether they're going to correct to, to accept him as their Lord and savior, but it also. I mean, I with growing up, read the left behind series. Did you ever read any of these, watch the movies [00:10:00] with Kirk Cameron and them, and it sounds like there was a whole thought process and people are pretty. Focused on this whole end times thing. And everyone gives it a different spin, but ultimately it is a victory. Like there are things that will happen that are not going to be super fun for the people that are still here. Correct. But ultimately it is a victory. It's going to be a glorious return. It's what we're all striving for. It's what we're hoping for. Um, and so that's kind of the big deal. So what, what can we know specifically about how that's gonna unfold in his return? What's what are we looking at? Doug: Well, all of these passages, uh, in my opinion, can be categorizedinto basically four promises, you know, so I kind of, I do it now. These are not divinely inspired. Categories, but I think, uh, based on just reading them and knowing them and studying them over the last 35 years, they've kind of fallen to four areas that helped me understand them. And the first one is the promise of his returning. [00:11:00] And so the promise is he is going to return. He will return. And there's no question. About that number two is all of the promises will that his return will be unexpected. So no matter how hard we try to figure out when it's going to happen, we will. No, Jesus doesn't Jesse: have a Google calendar appointment for when he's coming back. It's not marked up on Doug: yeah. What, what is that, you know, when people tweet or do social media, you know, the big shows. Yeah. The events come in, you know, kind of, yeah. There's no, Uh, uh, knowledge of exactly when it's going to happen. There's a bunch of verses that. Talk about that. The third promise is the condition of the culture and the world in which we live prior to his return. And so this, those are called the last days promises. There's lots of promises about those. And then finally the promises on how we can prepare for it. [00:12:00] There is there's these promises that this is how you prepare. For his second coming for his return. So, you know, you're ready. Jesse: So, so before we started recording today, um, you did send me an email with some of these verses and you kind of, you made it easy for me. You categorize them a little bit, so I'm going to read them. And then what I'd like you to do is kind of chime in on what these verses are talking about, uh, in relation to these categories you've made and promises he's made. So we're going to start first in John 14, one through three. Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me, in my father's house are many rooms. If it were not. So what I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you and I go and prepare a place for you. I will come again and I will take you to myself where that, where I am. You may also be. Hebrews 9:28 says so Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly [00:13:00] waiting for him. And then John 6:39 - 40. Says, and this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day for this is the will of my father and that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. Doug: We'll see, these are the questions. These are all in the category and there's a bunch more, but these are really primary, uh, about his promise to return. And I think what's really important is to note a couple of things. And in John chapter 14, he says, let your heart not be troubled. Let your heart not be troubled. Believe in me, because I will come again and I will take you to myself. So, it's really important to understand is that when he returns a goal is to bring people unto himself. [00:14:00] Right. And so, and that's what you uniquely about heaven is that, heaven is a Christian concept. It's so funny. Excuse me when I'm listening to people in America. Talk. I remember I was a number of years ago and Oprah still had her show. They were talking about heaven. This, she was talking to this gal who had like passed away or something a little bit and saw lights. And she went to heaven and came back or something like. And so Oprah was just like, well, there's many different ways to get to heaven. You know, everybody has their own journey. They're like a river. She said, that all have different tributaries, but they all end up in the same ocean and there's, you know, there's Muslims and, you know, and then somebody stood up and said in the crowd and said, well, actually that's not true. Um, you know, And so then there was a big argument on Oprah there for a while about that, about how this person who said that's not true was narrow-minded and bigoted and stuff. Unfortunately, truth [00:15:00] tends to be true. And what nobody really understood is that in Islam, there is no heaven. People don't realize that there's there is paradise, but paradise is a reward given to you by Allah. It's given to males and paradise is base is kind of described as a wondrous island with all the food and wine that you can drink and, uh, virgins, women that you can have sex with. But it's not Allah, is not there because Allah is you do not want to be in the presence of Allah. See, you want to have the favor of Allah. And you want to have Allah merciful, but you don't want to be in his presence. But right here in John chapter 14, it says, Jesus says, I will bring you to myself. In Hinduism. There is no heaven. There's zero heaven in Hinduism. Okay. [00:16:00] There's no heaven in Buddhism, right? There's no heaven in ancestral worship. And so the heaven is a uniquely Christian concept. And what's fascinating to me is that so many secular Americans are like, Hey, I want to go to heaven and I'm going to get there my own way. And I'm like, oh really? I just don't get that, that you're. So, um, gosh, what's a good way to say this, that you're so intellectually challenged in dishonest with yourself that you could believe something so foolish as that. That, that there is something that I don't have anything to do with that. There is a God that created it. And then I have the audacity to tell him that he better let me in based on my criteria. Right. I'm just like, bro. Jesse: You're not thinking critically in any way. Doug: Not thinking [00:17:00] critically. You have two basic options. Okay. An atheist is a lot more honest than you are. An atheist is a lot more honest than you are. at least an atheist being honest with it says, I don't believe it. You know, there's nothing more dishonest and foolish than saying I'm going to dictate to a God, I say I believe in. That he has to let me into heaven based on my criteria, because when you're, what you're doing is first and foremost is that you don't really believe in God. When you make God up. You've just created an idle. It talks about this in the old Testament about the foolishness of men who carved figures out of wood and then bow down and pray to it. It's ridiculous. Right. But that's exactly what you're doing. That's the American form of what secular Christianity is today is that people just make up their God. If I'm going to believe in a God he's like this. And really all you're doing is transferring. You're S you're imposing what you [00:18:00] think you want. So there's nothing more narcissistic and self-centered than saying, God is going to accept me into heaven based on my own criteria. I mean, that's just absurd. And so I think this is why Jesus said it's a lot harder for a rich person, to get into heaven, uh, because then an I, a camel to go through the eye of a needle. And the reason why is because, wealth fuels and propagates this foolishness in people are secular. Jesse: They believe they have more power than they do. Doug: Exactly. And so I think, I think that's, what's really interesting about it is that Jesus says, I will bring you to myself. And he says, I will come and I will do it. And in verse in chapter six, it says, coach Jesus is saying, this is the will of him who sent me. And I think that's great. I will raise you up on the last day and Hebrews, where he says, that the son of man or the cr, the [00:19:00] Messiah will appear a second time not to deal with sin. So see, the first time it was to deal spiritually with the sin, the taint. Right, right now the second time it says, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him, So, so there's a real powerful thing that he's coming back. It's a powerful promise. It may happen in your lifetime, or it may not. That's not the point because when you go and read it Ephesians, or excuse me, Hebrews chapter 11, it talks about the whole point of faith, and that is, is that Abraham and Isaac and David, and it goes down this list of people. They call it the hall of fame of faith. It said every one of these people died without receiving the promise. But they live as if the promise was real. And so when they died, then they received the promise, but that it didn't happen here on earth at that time. And so that's, what's really critical is that there's a [00:20:00] promise to return. It is not changing. It will always be true. Jesse: So let me read the next couple verses, um, we're going back into Matthew. Uh, Chapter 24 verse 42. Therefore stay awake for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. Matthew 25:13, watch therefore for, you know, neither the day nor the hour. And then second Peter 3:10, but the day of the Lord will come like a thief. And then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Doug: So here you see. The promise of it being unexpected, in the 24th chapter of Matthew, Jesus says, he says it will be like two men working in a field, you know, and the guy turns around and boom, the other guy's gone. You know, so, so Jesus is talking about this. He talks about it over and over again, and he says, [00:21:00] the promise will be unexpected. Now here, here's the rub, is that it also says to be aware of the times, right? You should be aware of the times and wiser those who read the signs. So we want to read, you want to read signs. And so, but that's for the purpose of fulfilling the fourth promise, you know, of being prepared. But the real issue is in this one is that it's going to be unexpected. So I should, I should read this, the signs, the winds of the age in order to be prepared, but no matter how much I read them, I'll never know. Right. And, and so you know that you're injecting yourself a little bit, when you try to get super specific, you know, it's like, well, I think Jesus is going to come back next you know, August. Jesse: I read, I read the Bible and all these things are happening. So it's gotta be like in the next week or something like it's coming, it's coming. Doug: It's coming. In 1988, I was just newly ordained into the ministry. [00:22:00] I was a youth minister in Wichita, Kansas. And this guy wrote this book and he would, I can't remember if he's a mathematician or an engineer. And he said, he'd cracked the code of the Bible. The book of revelation and he said 88 reasons why Jesus will return on September 8th, 1988 now. Okay. W, is it September? Basically the ninth month? So if you want it to be consistent, wouldn't you pick August 8th? Just saying, but anyway, this book went crazy. It was crazy. And it's before the internet, this is before any of that stuff, it was everywhere. And so it was a little pamphlet that people got and you could send in 50 cents or a dollar, whatever. And they'd mail you one and kind of a thing. Call a hotline, a one 800 number that was big back. Then so long and short of it is a lot of people. Uh, I read a story about one guy who sold his house and took the equity and went out and bought a real expensive convertible. So that on the [00:23:00] 8th of September, 1988, he was going to drive around in his convertible with his top down, so that he could, you know, cause he was ready to go. Right now. Some people say, oh, that's so silly, but I don't think you really realize what a big deal this is, is, is how people have interpreted this in the past. And that is, do you like shaker furniture? Have you ever seen this shaker style furniture? Shaker furniture it's really big in the antique world and you go back, and the thing about shaker furniture is that it's really clean lines, you know, with real thin legs and just really, it's just really, really clean. And what a lot of people don't realize is that the shakers believe that the second coming was happening right now, they knew it was coming. And so, they created all of the furniture for their houses so that it could be removed, very quickly so that they could run outside when they heard trumpet. Hm. Cause they, they had figured out a trumpet blast, you know, cause it says in Thessalonians, so [00:24:00] here are the trumpets. They said, well, there'll be a trumpet pl, blast. And that's going to be about 12 seconds or 18 seconds or however long they figured I can't remember the exact amount, but then what they would do is they would be, they wanted to run outside. So like what, what happened is, um, Around their tables, they had a table in the center of the room and then they would sit at their chairs, and then after every single meal, they would take their chairs and hang them on a hook, on the wall. So they were out of the way. So it could be no impediment to getting outside. Jesse: It's a Fire Marshall's dream right there, right there. Fire Marshalls would love to ever have shaker furniture. Doug: So, so the point is, is these are illustrations to show you that people have tried, to with, with a very high degree of specificity, determine when Jesus is going to return, but the promise is be ready, but you'll never know when. Jesse: So let's move on to our next set of [00:25:00] verses. Um, second Timothy three, one through five. Um, this is Paul speaking, he says, but mark, this there'll be a terrible times. In the last days, people will be lovers of themselves. Lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive disobedient to their parents. Ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash conceited, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God, having a form of Godliness, but denying its power, having nothing to do with, with such people, what a list. Doug: That is a list, isn't it. Jesse: Let me do this other one, and then you can break these down. Second Peter three, three through four. This is Peter speaking, and it says, above all, you must understand that in the last days, scoffers will come scoffing and following their own evil desires, they will say, where is this Coming. He promised ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation. Yeah. So he's saying you've given Doug: me some big passages there. Wow. Those are big ones. [00:26:00] Yeah. But basically what these are these statements of what I call the promise of difficult times. And that is, is that there will be difficult times. One of the things that's really interesting about what COVID- 19 did is that, uh, I was reading some statistics that just came out this summer, and mega churches are reporting, a mega church is a church that's, you know, it used to be over a thousand and now it's over 2000 I think, or above. But these really, really big churches have 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000. A lot of these really, really big churches. Uh, a year and a half after COVID hit, they're all reporting a drop of 40% in attendance at their churches. And, I was listening to a guy who's pastor of a mega church of about 12,000 people. And he said, what COVID was on this call, and he was talking and it's it's back in the east. And he just said, well, what, what COVID has revealed to us is that [00:27:00] we haven't done a very good job of discipleship. And we've got really good at, uh, attracting people, but we were not very good at discipling people. And what happened is these people, what the research says, uh, you know, no, sometimes I do have a little bit of a question about it because how well can you really track it? But you do see a massive trend, 30 to 40% of people who thought, you know, I'm an active church going Christian. Really wasn't. Right. You know, and it's not that they're just like, well, I'm not going back to church in a building to worship. What happened is they, when it hit, they checked out. They didn't go online. They didn't do church at home. They didn't continue their small group. They just quit everything. Right. And they haven't returned. And so what that tells me is that their faith was not that big of a deal to them. Maybe it was a habit or maybe it was Jesse: expectation from other family members or whatever. Doug: [00:28:00] Now, finally, because, I know in other areas, this is true. There are some other people that just quit bathing, you know, during COVID. Yeah. It's just like, well, I'm not going out anywhere and I don't have to do anything. I was just like, man, that's kinda gnarly if you asked me. I don't know if you heard about this, but here's a real controversial thing that just came out and that is Matthew McConaughey admitted that he hasn't used deodorant in 15 years. Wow. The things you learned on the salty pastor, what does this have to do with anything? Okay. The point being is that difficult times will come and people who aren't prepared for difficult times, always fold. Jesus told the parable of build your house upon the rock. Jesse: I just read this passage this morning, actually in my devotionals. Doug: And so the foolish person builds it on the sand. The wise man builds it on the rock, because when the storms come [00:29:00] and they are coming, you'll either fold, or you'll stand. And so I think that's really important is that, right now there's a huge, sifting, uh, you could call it threshing, uh, where the chaff is being blown out of the church. And that is people who, really maybe thought they had a faith, but in reality, they didn't. What's happening is there's a purification service. This is why foothills, what is really interesting as foothills. So different. Cause I get on these calls and I listen to these people and they're all talking about how everything's down and they go, you know, and I'm like, I hope they don't ask me, you know, what's going on in foothills? You know, it's like, well, our, uh, we, we brought more people to Christ last year than we did in the three years prior. We've got more people in small groups, we got our discipleship groups are growing. Our attendance is almost doubled. Jesse: We're doing opposite of what you guys are doing in your stats. [00:30:00] So. Doug: Yeah, here's, what's really interesting because right at the first three months of COVID, you know, this was back in 2020, about the middle of the summer. I was talking to a different guy. Who's a pastor of a mega church in the Midwest and he's a good friend and we were just talking about it. And I said, well, I don't, I don't know what to think about this because you're telling me, you guys are. Dropping off the cliff and we're, kind of going up. And he says, well, it's an aberration. It's just an aberration. You'll, you'll catch up to us. Jesse: Well, you're just so small. You're not feeling it. Yeah. That's what he was trying to put on you. Doug: You're so small, you're not feeling it yet. And I mean, he wasn't trying to be rude or mean he was just trying to, you know, cause we're really good friends. He's just being honest. He says, yeah, it's going to hit you too. Well now it's been over a year later and guess what? It's still growing. Yeah. Stronger than it's ever been, n. I think that's because Foothills is, is, is the ethos of The Salty Pastor. And that is, look, I want you to grow your faith. So we focus on discipleship, right.[00:31:00] You know, we grow better in circles than rows. And so when difficult times come. When you hear all of these people, and we'll talk about this on Thursdays, about what slander and scoffing and conceit and treachery and all of this kind of stuff that's going on today and how it's being pointed at Christians. We're going to go into that pretty deeply on Thursday. But the, the promise for us is that I need to be prepared because difficult times are coming. And I think one of the things that foothills has tried to focus on is preparing people for the challenges that they will face. And I think that's what people are really hungry for right now. Jesse: So we got to wrap up here soon, but we've got one more category. So let's just talk about this last promise and how we should be preparing for all of these things that will be coming whenever they come. Doug: Well, if you're really interested in the, end times, and I'm going to share this hopefully on Sunday when I preach. And that is, is that the best place to get started is read Matthew [00:32:00] chapter 24 and then read Matthew chapter 25. Because 24 talks about the last days and the son of man will return. And then Matthew chapter 25 talks about how to be prepared. And he basically tells three stories, three parables. He tells the parable of the 10 virgins. He tells the parable of the talents or the bags of gold. Tells the parable of the sheep and the goats, the parable of the 10 virgins in a nutshell is that they went to a wedding and they were waiting for the party to start. I can't start until the bridegroom shows up. Well, five were prepared and five weren't, five had invested. In waiting the other five are like, no, we'll just wait. So when they went to go get oil for their lamps, they ran out, they came back. Well, the party already started. They missed out. The parable of the talents is, is that the master gave his servants, you know, his employees, three different amounts. The two went out and took what they got and doubled it. The one was so afraid. He buried in the backyard and gave back to [00:33:00] him, was this. And so that. You better use the talents that God has gifted you with. And then the sheep and the goats is basically, how do we take who we said we were and apply it to the world, to those who were sick, and those who were needy, and those who were hungry, and those who were naked. And the end is that the sheep and the goats are separated. And the goats say, well, Jesus, when did we ever see you naked? And when did we ever see you this? And what he was basically saying is you say you have faith. But you do nothing, nothing to help those less fortunate than you. Didn't give any money to your church. You don't, you, you don't serve in, in, in a church, you don't serve anything that helped ease the suffering of other people. You make no sacrifice. All you are concerned about is yourself going to heaven. He separates those people and then he looks at the sheep and they go, well, when did we see you naked? When did he? And he says, when you did it to the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me, which is so how do you prepare the [00:34:00] promise of preparation is that you will be honored by Jesus himself when you're prepared for his return. Okay. And how do you do that? Well, number one is you invest in the right things like the in Virgin story says, number two is you take whatever it is God gave you doesn't matter what's in your hands, you know, the cards in their hand, all of us have something right that we've been given. And we need to use that for the sake of the master, not our own sake, but the sake of the master. And then finally we need to, our faith needs to have an existential component for it. And this is one of the things that I love about Foothills. Um, you know, during COVID we had there, there prior to COVID, there were 23 food banks in the treasure valley, right? These are places where. Distribute food. Right. And so, uh, when COVID hit, uh, out of those, we are one of the top two, uh, [00:35:00] in size and the amount of people and amount of food that we run through here each week. So what happened is when COVID hit more than half of them shut down. Oh man. Yeah. Just because they weren't able to. And so now we, uh, and, but we ran. We, we found out a way to be safe and do it. We ramped up and, and I just think that's just a great thing about the ethos of foothills and that is. We, we just don't, you know, talk about how to be salted, how to grow in our faith, but we want to find real-world ways to apply our faith, to make a difference in easing the suffering of other human beings so that they can meet Jesus as well. Jesse: Absolutely. Well, I'm sure we could spend hours discussing these topics and we still have a Thursday podcast as well. We're going to continue diving into being prepared. Um, but we just thank you guys so much for joining us today here on The Salty Pastor, we encourage you to start having some discussions about what you learned today. Read some of these passages, we talked about start looking at them for yourself, look at different [00:36:00] translations because it may be revealing to you, um, in hearing it in a different way and start challenging what you're believing about, um, the end times and your own faith. So just have conversations, be doing your own research and just tune in on Thursday. So we can talk a little bit more about being prepared here at Foothills Christian Church in beautiful Boise, Idaho. Doug: Blessings.