Personal finance practice problem using OneNote. Life insurance using personal financial statements. Prepare to get financially fit by practicing personal finance. You're not required to, but if you have access to OneNote, would like to follow along when the icon on the left-hand side, practice problems tab and the 10140 life insurance using personal financial statements tab. Also take a look at the immersive reader tool or practice problems are typically the text area to with the same name, same number, but with transcripts, transcripts that can be translated into multiple languages, either listened to or read into them. Informations on the left-hand side, we're trying to calculate how much life insurance we may need with a more comprehensive practice problem, noting that in prior presentations, we looked at online life insurance calculation tools often offered by life insurance companies. We saw that they ask for different data input, often have different data output, which is not unusual given the fact that we can approach this question from many different angles. What we would like to do is get an understanding of the tools in order to calculate, which we've looked at in prior presentations and then apply those tools to our particular circumstance, possibly using then the online calculators to help give us an idea that we are in, in essence, the bull park. So information on the left-hand side, we're gonna assume we have a couple with five kids, funeral expenses at the 8,500, nanny cost 3,600, which we're gonna tack on if someone, if the primary wage earner was to die. We've got the life insurance for the higher earning spouse. So we're imagining a couple here, the higher earning spouse, we're trying to think about what if that individual dies. We've got information that we're gonna construct the financial statements from, balance sheet income statement, including assets, liabilities, income, and then the income statement, information, income and expenses. So let's keep it there for now. First of all, we might first wanna construct our personal financial statement that would make it easier for us to make a more informed calculation on terms of what our needs would be for the life insurance calculation. The personal financial statements include a balance sheet and an income statement. You might do this by getting say, software for example, such as a QuickBooks, which is a counting software or any other kind of accounting software, which could help you to pull this information, say in from the bank, using bank feeds, but it will not give you the ending balance in QuickBooks. It'll give you the transactions in order to get to the ending balance, the balance sheet basically being the ending balances as of a point in time. Income statement then being the activity. You can also use other software, such as for example, a personal capital has a software that pulls in the ending balances, which you could use to construct a balance sheet, but it's not as useful to construct then the income statement. So keeping that in mind, let's think about the balance sheet. We might wanna break out our assets. We could also get this information from just basically pulling our financial statements together, checking account. You could get this from a personal capital software, for example, or from by actually creating it using QuickBooks and checking it to the ending balance, same with the savings account because it's from a financial institution, same with an emergency fund. These are the more liquid type of things that you can tap into if necessary. The total current assets then are gonna be the 39,500. And I'm gonna go through this pretty quickly because we've seen the creation of financial statements in the past. So I'm gonna just do this, go through this fairly quick. Other assets could be like an IRA. We might put that in separate because an IRA or a pension plan are gonna be things that they might not have access to as readily when we die. And note, that's another thing that you could consider because if you have a substantial amount in an IRA or a 401K plan, it's possible that if they're in your IRA or 401K plan and you were the one that died, they could have access to it. So you wanna take into, or is it in the other person's IRA or 401K plan, do they have access to it? And is that important that they get access at the point of death in your kind of calculation? And there could be tax consequences just taken to consider tax consequences. So fixed assets then are gonna be things like the home. Now, notice something like the home is a big asset, but it's not something that you can pull in from like just a financial institution because the value of the home might say hopefully increase over time. So you'd have to kind of get an estimate of what the value of the home would be. Same with a car, which you may or may not put on kind of the balance sheet in terms of because it's something that will depreciate over time, that's gonna go up over time. But we'll put those two cars in place. The total fixed assets then are gonna be the 235, which are these three. Our total assets include the current assets, the other assets and the fixed assets at the 298.5 on the liability side, things that we owe. Current liabilities, credit card, car loans, these are things that we're gonna say are gonna be due fairly soon. Usually within a year, for example, at the 11.3, we need the current cash flow in order to pay those things off. And then we've got the more long-term liabilities, which is typically the mortgage. Noting, however, that the mortgage is something we pay off monthly. Therefore, a year's worth of this mortgage is still something that you would need cash flow for in the current time period. So if we then take the total liabilities are at the 161.3, that gives us the net assets, which if we were constructing the balance sheet by just taking your assets minus the liabilities, we would be saying, okay, if I have 298.5 of assets minus the liabilities of 161.3, that means the net assets are at the 137.2. If you were to do this using accounting software, then it would record every transaction in balance, and we would see it as assets equal liabilities plus equity or net assets, the 298.5 and the 298.5 here. Now, if we just look at the balance sheet, notice again, a lot of this you can get from like a personal capital software that will pull the ending balances in from the financial institution. That includes the credit card, possibly the car loan, and most likely the mortgage. The thing that it will not pull in are things like the fixed assets, the home value, the being the big one. Now, when I look at this net assets, then that's kind of our net value. And although we're looking pretty good here, we've got the net assets, notice a large part of it is being eaten up by the home, and the home is not liquid. So when we die, then even though we have a net asset positive, we've got this big fixed asset, which we can't really use to pay off the current liabilities. So oftentimes we want to be comparing then the more liquid assets, the 39.5 here for example, for sure, and possibly if they have access to the thing under the IRA, the 24,000, 24,000 to the liabilities that are gonna be coming due, which would be the 11.3 for sure. And yearly speaking, you'd have to take each year's worth of the mortgage, which would be done, don't do on a year by year basis. The other way we can look at this is we might say, well, if I was to die, I'd like to be able to have them just pay off or wipe out the 161.300, the full liabilities or possibly just pay off the mortgage.  So those are a couple of approaches we might take when we try to construct how much life insurance we need. Do we want to calculate the imagining they're just gonna wipe out the liabilities and then how much would they need to cover the current expenses and so on. So we'll use that in future calculations. Let's look at the income statement. The income statement's important because that'll show us how much we need from a cost perspective. So we could use on an income statement, let's calculate it, we'll do it a couple of different ways. Note that if you use accounting software, you can't use like an easy software like personal capital or something to just make your income statement from the ending balances because it's a timing statement and therefore the QuickBooks or something like that is good to make the income statement or you can try to pull in from your checking account. If you pull in from the checking account or use something like QuickBooks to construct from the checking account, the income side is often a little confusing because the amount that's gonna hit the income statement will be the net amount, not the gross amount. So you gotta take into consideration the withholdings that we're taking out at least for taxes. So we can do it a couple of different ways. Let's look at this income statement using the gross amount, the full amount that would be shown on a pay stub minus the expenses which we might take from say our checking account that we spent but categorizing not by who we paid but what we paid for such as property taxes, homeowners insurance, utilities, food, gas maintenance, entertainment and so on giving us the total expenses. If I take then the gross income minus those expenses we get the net income before taxes and withholdings and then I'm gonna take out the taxes and withholdings because I put this amount up here at gross. The taxes and withholdings are my gross income 25,000 plus the 60,000 minus the 21,250 minus the 51,000. So that's gonna be the 12,750 which could be taxes. It could also include benefits. Those things complicate the calculation of your income statement because they're pulled out. They never hit the checking account. So you can't really account for them as easily by just using your cash basis method or connecting to the bank, right? Because it got taken out by the employer or if you use your cash basis method, more of a cash basis method, you're connected to the bank in something like QuickBooks and you don't record the gross amount you record the net amount up top. You might record it this way because it would be easier to do and that would be the 72,250 and then the expenses would look similar but now I'm gonna add the cash flow expenses including the mortgage. Now the mortgage usually on a cruel accounting system you would record the interest portion as an expense and then the principal portion would decrease the loan balance up here. Your loan balance would be going down. So that complicates the calculation if you tie into something like a QuickBooks and tie into the bank account but let's do the cash basis here and we'll use either one of these when we do our actual calculation for our life insurance. We'll see how that kind of works. Property taxes still, homeowners insurance. We've got the utilities, the food, the gas and then the credit card and the loan payments. Again, these two right here because they're debts that we're paying off may be something that we would be that we would be putting on the interest only here if it was an accrual basis and then we would be paying down the debt. So that would be complex. So we're gonna assume we're paying these off for more of a cash flow basis. So here's what we have on a cash flow basis. And so the difference then is the 72, 250 minus the 41, 220. So we've got the 31, 30. So now you can see these two are different. We could say, okay, if I was to take the difference between those two, it's 19, 380. If I wanted to reconcile the difference, it's the mortgage here that we put in on the cash flow. It's the credit card that we added and it's the car loan. So that's basically the difference between these two on kind of a cash flow.  Or I might say I'm gonna keep the liabilities on the books and see how much they need from a cash flow basis, including the yearly mortgage payments and the credit card, for example, and use that 41, 220. So those are two ways you can try to construct or think about how you might put together how much you might need. Okay, so now we could do a couple of methods for the life insurance calculation. So first off, let's say, and notice what we wanna know here is that you could look at this from a couple different categories. So the first category would be how much, if I was to die, how much would the spouse need and how long would they need it in order to meet the cash flow obligations? So we might say, well, we might base it on my income. So let's say that the person whose dies income was the 60,000, we don't have to use that because we might use an extents method. We might use the 21, 8, for example, or the 41, 220, but let's base it on the income, which hopefully is higher than what is actually needed for our practice problem, noting that, again, you could use those other kind of methods. And then I'm gonna multiply that times the number of years. The number of years as we've seen in the past might be how many years until I get to retirement, how many years the spouse reaches retirement, how many years the kids get until they reach 18, for example. So there's, or you can use a heuristic of seven or 10, for example, if I multiply that out, I'm getting 600,000. So like I say, this is one static example we could get more complicated because we might say that we get closer to that 10 and take into consideration time value of money, which we'll see shortly. So this is the first kind of just general quick estimate. So we could have estimates about daily living costs for dependents, so we could then also have the college tuition, which is a goal-oriented thing. So we might calculate that, and we might basically just calculate it based on the current cost of college. We might say, well, the cost of college is currently at the 35, and if I was to die, hopefully they can invest the money and get revenue on it in order to pay for the college in the future. Now, we might do a more complicated goal-oriented calculation and use time value of money, which we'll do shortly. We might add other costs after we were to die, such as if they had to add nanny costs, and this might be something that you would include up top, like as a yearly cost, they're gonna need another 3,600 until the kid is so old or something like that, but we're gonna put it as a lump sum here for now, and then retirement goal. So this is another kind of goal-oriented one. You might be saying college tuition, maybe you wanna help with the spouses' retirement in some way, so you put whatever we think the goal is for that as well, and again, we might get more complicated with time value of money calculations in order to reach those goals. How much would they need to reach them? We'll do that shortly. So the total added cost, we're gonna say are the 5,38, 600. Notice that these two calculations act differently. That's why we have to kind of put them in different categories. And then we might also have an emergency fund. So this is like a one-time cost. So we might say that if we have yearly expenses and the nanny costs, total yearly expenses, we're gonna take half of that and say that we would like to have an emergency fund of 22,410. So that's different than the cash flow up top. It's not a goal-oriented thing either. It's a one-time kind of expense that we would like to have as well. So that's why it's gonna be calculated differently. And then we also have the other one-time expense, 8,500 of the funeral costs, which would be the cost if we were to die. So then the estimated family needs, we're gonna add this up, the 600, the 5,386, the 22,410, the 8,005 to get to the 1,169,510. Now that's all the needs that we've calculated, but we already have assets. So we can say, let's take a look at what we currently have. We've got the checking account. We've got the savings account. We've got the emergency fund. Those are gonna be our liquid assets that they can use to meet those kind of needs. And so those are the 39. And then you might take into consideration the IRA, depending on whether they have access to it and whether you think it's relevant to have access to it at that point or possibly when the spouse reaches retirement, depending on whose IRA or retirement account it is. So I'm gonna add that in here. So that's gonna be our liquid assets that they can use to meet these needs. I'm gonna subtract that out then and we get to the 1,10610. Now we do this in more detail in Excel if you wanna do it in Excel. Another method you might use, you might say, okay, let's start off by saying I would like to basically pay off the liabilities. So I've got the 161,350,300 in the liabilities up top. So right there, I'd like to, if I die, just pay that thing off up top and let's start there. And I currently have in the liquid assets, the 63.5, which is the 39.5 and the 24, assuming they have access to that at the point of debt to do it. So that means just to wipe out the liabilities, we would need 97.800. So we can use that as the starting point possibly instead of trying to figure out how much cash flow they would need in order to pay off those liabilities in accordance with the normal, whatever our agreement is at that point. So then we could say the yearly cash flow needs then. Current yearly cash flow, we're gonna take the 24.8. The reason I'm taking that now is we're gonna use a needs-based approach now and say if they paid off the liabilities, then I'm not taking the 24.220. I'm not taking my personal income. I'm taking the 21.840, not including the mortgage payments, cash flows that are needed, right? Because I'm paying off the mortgage. So we could calculate that and then say the nanny costs. So we're adding in the nanny costs as time, assuming that if I was to die, maybe they need more in costs related to them. Estimated yearly cash flow, 25, 440, the years that they need it. Once again, just like this year's could be based on how many years till retirement, how many years till the kids reaches 18, for example. So the yearly cash flow, the 254.4 then. So the estimated cost above the daily costs. So we got the goal-oriented costs, 35,000. Same thing with the college tuition, the retirement same thing, care for the parent. That's another goal-oriented thing we might add in. So we've got the 535. So then we've got the emergency. These are the one-time kind of fees. So if the yearly expenses are the 21.8, and we add in the 3.6 for the nanny fees, we're gonna take half of that. So the general idea being, we want half a year's worth of expenses as an emergency fund that comes out to the 12.7.20 here. So then if I tack on the funeral cost, the one-time cost of the 8,005, we're now at the 908.420 for that kind of calculation. So a little bit different on them too, because we're paying off the liabilities in this case. Now again, notice these are static calculations. You might say, well, like if I lived more, then the loan should go down. That would be the major cost I wanna have go down. And it might be cheaper if I can take into time value of money and buy term policy that decreases over time after as I pay down the loan, for example. So you might do some time value money. I'm not gonna go into the loan calculation here, but we'll do this in the practice problem if you want, recalculate your amortization table, and then possibly convert it to a year by year. So if I had a loan, 150,006%, 20 years left payments, 1,075, I can break out the amortization table on a month by month basis, how much I'm gonna owe. But what I really wanna know is to break that out on a year by year basis. And then I can figure out how much I owe each year, and I can figure out the loan balance at the end of each year. You can see then that when I'm looking at the second calculation, based on the loan balance by liabilities, it will decrease each year. So we could try to set up our liabilities or our term policy to actually decline as time passes, which would be nice, be cheaper, right? So if I go down and say, okay, now let's take our financial statements and think about a time value of money. And I'll do this fairly quickly. We'll do it in Excel if you're interested in flushing this out more. But we've got the yearly cash flows that would be needed. So we've got the mortgage, so expenses not including, we got the 21,840. Those are the expenses not including the mortgage that we said were from the income statement over here, 21,840. So we're taking the costs here for the cash flow. And then we're gonna say the nanny costs, we're tacking that on, assuming that if we died, there's gonna be another 3,600 per year. Now the mortgage, notice I probably shouldn't have added the mortgage here if it was fixed, because if it's a variable mortgage and it can change over time, then the mortgage would increase over time when you take into account time value of money with inflation, possibly. But if you're locked in the mortgage rate, then the mortgage, although time value of money will increase the other stuff, the mortgage will still stay what it is if you're not planning to pay off the mortgage, meaning we're planning at the point of death that our spouse just takes the cash flow and pays off the mortgage in accordance with the terms that we have set up already, instead of paying it all off at the point of death. So the yearly cash flow needed would be the 38,336, and so we can then calculate the future value, meaning if I died at this point in time, that's the cost at this point in time. So obviously there is no future value difference right now because I'm in the current period. If I was to drag this out into the future periods, this whole top part is basically based on current value dollars. But if I was to say what would be the future value of this, I could do a future value calculation, assuming that we have inflation, I'm gonna say at 2.5% inflation, often between zero and 3% if the Fed is on target, but it could be more than that at times. So I'm gonna then say that we've got, so the future value costs then for each of these would be the 39,294, the 40,277, these would be the cash flows needs we would need in the future to buy the same basket of goods. And again, remember that this 12,896, if you locked in the mortgage, then you might wanna have another column down here that would break it out separately because it would not be going up. We wouldn't be paying more on the mortgage if we had the rate locked in, for example. So you might just do this future value based on everything not included in the mortgage and the nanny because those things would go up with inflation. And if the mortgage had a flexible rate, then you might include that, for example, or you might break out the mortgage separately and say it's not gonna go up with inflation because you've locked in the rate. Okay, so now we've got these future value needs here. So then we can say, well, the lump sum then, if I was to die, for example, here would be the lump sum of basically, if I just look at the cash flow, it would be the sum of everything out up until that 10 year timeframe. So it would be the sum, this number is the sum of all this stuff. And this number is the sum of all this stuff up until 10. This number is the sum of all this stuff. And you can see, obviously, as I get closer to year 10, then that sum, that amount that I'm gonna need is gonna go down as time passes. Now that's just one way you can look at it. Another way you could look at it is you could say, let's say we're gonna take the lump sum and imagine that if I was to die here, let's just take this current value, the 38336 times 10, right? So they would need 10 years at that current cash flow value, which would be the 3383360. If I was to die here, then let's start it now at this number, the 39294, which would be my starting point. So now I'm gonna take the 39294 times nine, because there's nine years left, and that gives us the 3533646. And then I could say, this one now I need the 40,000. I need the 4277, because that's how much they would need to purchase the same amount of goods, remembering that that mortgage possibly would be fixed, and you can account for that if you, but in any case, I'm gonna take that times now eight years. So that's another way you can come up and so you notice you get a slightly different number. On those two methods, and then you can also say, let's use this method, this is the one we'll actually use. Another method that we can look at is say, let's say that they need the 38336 for the 10 years, I wanna use this as the starting point, but then I'm gonna use the fact that they have inflation of 2.5 and the rate of return is 5%. So we've got this 2.5 real rate of return. So let's see how much would they need in order to have an annuity of payments basically to cover the cash flow needs based on this current value of the 38336. So to do that, I would be taking, this number would be basically the present value of an annuity for annuity loss. So present value with a rate of the 2.5% over the 10 years using this number. And then on year two, I'd start, here's the starting point at year two, and we would take the present value for the 2.5% real rate of return over now nine years using this starting point and then here we would take the present value using this starting point, the 400277, 2.5% over now eight years and so on and so forth. Now I know I'm saying that pretty quickly, but we'll do it in Excel if you wanna kinda get into it in more detail. And so that would give us our cash flow. So I'm gonna be using this number, not these two columns, these are two different ways you can kinda think about it if you wanted to, but we're using this number now for the cash flow needs. So that's the one group of flows that are behaving the same. Remember it again that that mortgage insurance, that mortgage payment may not behave the same because it may be fixed if you fixed the rate in which case you'd have to break that out and pull that down here separate because it's not gonna be going up with inflation if you fixed the rate. Okay, so then we've got the emergency fund which acts differently. So we're gonna say the emergency fund, we're gonna calculate it was half of our cost. So it was half of like a year's cost. We want that as a one time kind of emergency fund. But again, the emergency fund, if I was to die next year, half of next year's expenses would be going up in future value terms. So this number, the 19168, I'm gonna say is a one time cost which is half of this 38,000. So the 38336 divided by two, we're gonna say we have an emergency fund of half of one year, right? And then this one, if I died here, we're gonna say now the future value would be at the 39. So I'm gonna take the 39294 divided by two. So the emergency fund would be half of that. It's a one time calculation, but we're gonna say it's gonna be whatever half of the year's worth of expenses for whatever year of death happened. So then we've got the college fund. So the college fund calculation is gonna be the 27505 we calculate. And for that, I'm gonna say over here, that's a goal oriented cost. So now I've got the 35,000, let's say that's the current calculation for college funds, the future value then 10 years out because we're assuming it takes 10 years before the person reaches 18, which is college age, we're gonna say. So we're gonna need 44803 based on inflation, right? We're gonna say, okay, if it's 35,000 now, 10 years at the point in time that they're gonna need it. Future value of money for 10 years at inflation rate 2.5 is 44803. So if I died today, then I'm gonna say, well, they could invest the money if they died today and get a, let's say a 5% rate of return. So we're gonna say, now we're gonna try to do a present value calculation for a 5% rate of return for 10 years, present value of one, not an annuity. And that means they would only need 27,505 if they invested it, got a 5% return on it in order to meet the college tuitions after 10 years of 44803. And then in year two, notice this is kind of going opposite direction. It's going up as opposed to these calculations which are going down because it's a goal oriented one. If I died a year later, then they would need $28,880 to invest, assuming 5% rate of return in order to reach the goal after nine years to get to the 44803. And then in year two, they would need, I'd do a present value calculation for it at the 2.5% rate of return over eight years. They would need 30,324 for it to grow at a rate of 5% to reach that targeted goal. We have the same kind of calculation for like a retirement. So any target goal could also be an elderly parent. For example, we would say, okay, the retirement fund, if we're trying to get to 500,000, how much would they need in order to be able to invest it at the 2.5% to reach the 500,000 at the point in time that they're gonna retire, which we're gonna say is 10 years again. So again, the 500,000, where did I come up with that? You'd have to do some kind of calculation which is gonna be a targeted retirement necessity.  And then we could do the same approach here and say, when I die, how close am I to that point? And then do my present value calculation. And then we've got funeral costs at the 8,500. So if they're 8,500 today, you would expect they would go up by inflation by the 2.5%. So we're gonna say future value, if I died a year later, they would have to pay for the same funeral costs at 8,713, which costs 8,500 last year. Then they'd go up to 8,930. So there's a future value calculation. And then we've got the life insurance before assets are considered. So that's what they're gonna need, we assume. But we currently have current assets of the 63,500. And that is on our balance sheet, which is the 39,500 and the 24,000. So that would mean if I subtract that out, that we're left with the 6,34147. And you can see this way, we can also think about it declining over time and possibly be putting money into a retirement account that declines over time. This one doesn't decline as much because we had that huge retirement thing that we put in here. But sometimes it'll decline substantially if your major thing is the mortgage that you're taking into consideration, for example. So that's one way you can kind of think about it. Again, be careful with that mortgage one because I probably could have broken that out so it shouldn't be static over time. But those are the general tools, the ideas that you can use. Now the other method that you might use just real quick here is the same kind of idea, but you might start by saying, so I'm gonna say the expenses, the expenses not including the mortgage because I'm gonna assume here off the bat that we wanna pay off the mortgage. We're gonna pay the 151 at the point of death. So what do they need after we pay off the mortgage? It's just gonna be the 21840, which if I look at after we pay the mortgage on the income statement, I'm no longer picking up the mortgage number, which includes this number, I'm just picking up the 284840. And then we've got the nanny costs. So now my yearly costs are the 25,440. And we can do our same calculation here. So now we've got the future value of those cash flows are gonna be going up due to inflation. And then we've got the lump sum calculation. So this is a couple of ways we can calculate it. I could sum up everything after that point to get my cash flow. I could do it this way. I could take wherever I am at this point in time. At that point, they would need 25,440 times 10, which would be that. I could take it here and say now they would be starting at 26076 times nine years, which would be the 234. Or I could try to say, let's do my same calculation we did up top. So I won't spend a lot of time on it, but we could say then that I'm gonna say wherever we started at, we're gonna do a present value of an annuity at that point in time using once again, the 2.5, the real rate rate of return minus inflation. And so then we would come up with these numbers. So these are three methods you can do for that cash flow need kind of calculation. It's different here because I didn't include the mortgage in the cash flow. And again, you might, if you were trying to pay off the mortgage as you go, you might get to this number in this example and then try to pay off the mortgage and used it as one number per year because it's not gonna go up with inflation if you lock the rate. But here we're gonna assume we're paying off the full liability. So whenever I die, now I'm gonna assume that we pay off the liability of the mortgage, which at the point, at point one is 150. And this is where you'd need the amortization table, right? On a per year basis, which is way up here to see the balance after each year. So if I died a year later, it would be at 145,990. I died a year later, 141,744. So it will go down substantially as I get closer to the endpoint here, whatever the timeframe is. So notice we're gonna put the full liability and assume we're gonna pay off the full mortgage based on whatever the amortization table says. That's the big difference between these two calculations. So then we've got the emergency fund, which is the same kind of thing we did before, which goes up with inflation because we would assume the emergency fund would have to be increasing if I died later to buy the same basket of emergency goods, college, same calculation we did before with a targeted amount, retirement, same calculation we did before with a targeted amount, funeral expenses, we would expect to go up with inflation in the same fashion. So the life insurance needs then would be here. And then once again, we'll take into consideration the liquid assets we have, 63.5. So now we're coming up to 664834. So the difference between these two methods is this one, we're thinking about paying off the liabilities at the point of death, whereas this one up top, we're thinking about keeping say the mortgage in place and just paying the payments as they become due. And again, noting that if it was a fixed mortgage, it wouldn't be going up with inflation. If it was variable, subject to variability, then you might have it increasing then with the rest of things as inflation goes. Now, of course, you can get more detail than this even because the mortgage you saw wasn't just 10 years, the mortgage was 20 years, so we used this 10 years out so you could try to map it out for a longer timeframe than the 10 years for the fact that and the 10 years that you might be calculating might be your retirement, which might be different than how many years it'll take for the college tuition and so on. So, but these are just some tools, you can see how you can kind of put them together and the basic idea would be you want to be categorizing by need and the behavior of these kind of things. So the cash flow needs will kind of, you'll need a different kind of calculation or approach than the needs for like a goal oriented type of thing or a one time kind of thing such as paying off the funeral costs. And then again, you could take an approach based on cash flow needs or based on paying off the liabilities at the point of death.


Finally, in chapter 2, we spent a few weeks getting through chapter 1. Colossians, again, I'll say is a great study of the person and work of Jesus Christ. So it's a short book, but there's a lot of detail in Colossians, so I don't want to miss anything. Let's get right into it and look at what Paul is saying in chapter 2 of the book of Colossians. Look at verse number 1, where Paul says, I would that you knew what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea and for as many have not seen my face in the flesh. So, first of all, Colossae. Colossae is in Asia, which is right across just to the east of Greece. Colossae is not a coastal city like Ephesus is. So there's some coastal cities. Colossae is a little further inland. And if you've ever looked at, you know, Paul's missionary journeys, I'm going to tell you that there's a point that Paul is trying to make here at the beginning. And I'm going to get to that in just a minute. But look at verse number 2. It says, What great a conflict I have for you in verse 1 and for them at Laodicea and as for many have not seen my face in the flesh. So first of all, he says that there's people that haven't seen him before. And if you put that in conjunction with a verse that comes a couple verses later and then you look at the fact that Epapharis in verse number 1 came back from Colossae and reported to Paul. If you remember the sermon a church witness was the very first sermon of the book of Colossians. Paul has never been to Colossae. I find no evidence in the entire New Testament that Paul ever went to this town. Okay, so now he's encouraging them through letters. That's what he's doing at this point. Look at verse number 2 that their hearts might be comforted. So he's saying you and the people at Laodicea that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love. We'll look at that in a few minutes and until all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ. It's like, okay, there's a lot there. Okay, so let's stop there just for a minute. What is the mystery of God that we looked at last week? The mystery of God is how God was actually going to save the world. So the mystery is now known. So here Paul through his missionary journeys, the apostles going around the world, Asia, Greece, Rome, all across the world, they are making known the mystery of God that was hid. So people knew what Messiah was coming, but they didn't know how God was going to do it. Now Jesus had come. He had lived this life. He had been killed. He died on the cross. You know, he bore our sins in his own body on the tree. The Bible says he died, was buried. He rose again from the dead. Now we know the mystery. Now we know how God did it. So that is the mystery to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God. That means these people accepted the gospel. That's what it means. They acknowledged the mystery of God. They accepted. They came to full assurance of understanding. I find it interesting that he uses the word assurance there. So they have full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ. That is that how God was going to save the world through Jesus Christ. Now look at verse number three, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So he says two things here. If you remember, he says in verse number two, he is talking about the gospel. He is talking about how Jesus came to pay for the sins of the world, to be that perfect sacrifice for our sins. And then look at verse number three. He says there's another thing. He says, oh, by the way, he's like, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are our hid. And that's why he's writing these letters. So basically what he's saying is, is that there's the gospel and then there's the word of God that contains everything that you would ever need in your life. He's saying that God in God are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Let that sink in for a minute. Let that sink in. That not just the gospel. Look, the simplest thing in the gospel, in the Bible is the gospel. Okay, if the Bible only contained the gospel, it would just be a couple of pages long because the Bible, the gospel is very simple, the Bible says. But not only that, but in God's word are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So let's talk this evening about discovering God's treasure. Think about this for a minute. Think about this for a minute. Paul, think about where you are today. We're going to contrast where you are sitting tonight to where these people are at. Paul is literally trying, there is no visit from Paul. Paul is not in this church. Paul is literally trying to give these treasures of wisdom and knowledge to this church in Colossae through letters and through sending men, like Epaphorus that he sent. Paul was writing, sending men, you know, but he had never been there and there's no evidence that he ever went there. Maybe he did and it's just not in the Bible, but the point being is Paul, you know, these people had a problem that they didn't know, they didn't know this wisdom from God. It was hid from them, Paul said. Now think about this. Most problems that people have in their life are because they don't know what God's word says. Think about that. They don't know what God's word said. You know, and you know, look, I'm going to show you how we don't really have this excuse. I was thinking about, you know, this whole, this comment that Paul made in verse number three. It says all treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid. All treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in God's word that we all have sitting in front of us right here. So think about this for a minute. Most people throughout history have had this problem. They've had two problems really. The first one is they didn't know what God's word said. You know, they just didn't know. They didn't have it. I mean, there was times. I actually probably spent more time looking for this quote out of this book than I spent writing this sermon. But I had this book and it was written, this book is written in the 18th century, which means it was written sometime, you know, the story was from, it's a true story from sometime in 1700 something. And I like older books like this. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book because it's got some doctrinal issues in it, but it's called a Hedge of Thorns. But one thing stuck out to me and I went and I searched a couple of different books before I found this quote. But here it's talking about the Bible. So here you have a family in this book that is in England and it's sometime in the 1750s or 1760s. Let me read you this quote from this book. The book is called a Hedge of Thorns. The book says this, we did not own a Bible. It's this young girl telling about her family and how she grew up and who her parents were at the beginning of this book. She said, we did not own a Bible, but Mrs. Warring had us memorize scriptures as we learned the alphabet. Little did I know how valuable those lessons would be. And it wasn't long before Father sold one of our two cows in order to purchase our very own book of scriptures. That just really stuck out to me when I read this book several years ago. But here's the thing. How many Bibles are in this room right now? I mean, I bet you that there is more than two dozen Bibles in this room. You can go pick up a Bible. You can literally pick up a King James Bible at Barnes & Noble or on Amazon for like $3. Well, maybe it's six now. I haven't checked for like four weeks. So, you know, who knows? But the point is for just a couple bucks, you can get the entire word of God that's given to us. Now, let me ask you this. I mean, I think that's probably the biggest thing we take for granted today is the Bible. I mean, think about this. People throughout history didn't have access to one. You know, many people, many people, I mean, there's stories of entire villages being persecuted because people had Bibles there. I mean, the Catholic Church came at them. Look, the Catholic Church, here's what they don't want you to have, a Bible. Because then you'll know they're like, oh man, we can't teach this stuff and have people read in a Bible. They're going to compare it and be like, oh yeah, this isn't right. People that had Bibles throughout history, if they even could get one. They sold half their possessions in that book to get a Bible. And we could just, we just have them everywhere. I mean, we'll clean up around here. They're just laying all over the place. You know, I mean, we take it for granted. People were persecuted for this. People died to help put the Bible together. Now, let me ask you this. What would you trade for your Bible? What if your Bible cost you $100,000? Would you have one? What if your Bible, what if having a Bible meant you couldn't have a house to live in? What would you choose? These are the kinds of things that people throughout history have had to decide on. And look, we don't have an excuse for having these all knowledge and all wisdom hid from us because Bibles are so easily accessible to us today. Anybody can have one. It's just, it's the biggest blessing that we have that I think we probably take the granted for granted the most. Look down in Colossians chapter two. Here's another, here's a second problem. Here's a second problem. But we have the Bible, right? We have the Bible, but here's another thing. People don't know how to use it. People don't know how to use the Bible because I can't just take this Bible and sleep on it every single night.  I mean, the thing is that people, they don't, they have one. They don't read it though. They don't read it. They don't understand it and they certainly don't apply it in their life. Those are the problems that we have today. It's not that we don't have a Bible. Turn to Ephesians chapter four.  Turn to Ephesians chapter four. Paul, for some reason, starts out Colossians chapter two and he's saying, he's like, look, you've got to know these things that are hid from you. He's like, you've already acknowledged the gospel. You've acknowledged Christ. He's like, but you've got to know all this wisdom and knowledge. And he's trying to do it through men that he sends to them and through these letters that he writes to them. And I'll show you next week and on Sunday morning, you know why he's doing this. But look at Ephesians chapter four and look at verse number 11. We have no excuse because we have the word of God. We have the word of God, but there's more. We not only have the word of God, but we have God gives us resources to know how to use it in our lives. Look at Ephesians chapter four and look at verse number 11. The Bible says this, it says, and he gave some. Look, this is God providing things for you when it starts out in verse number 11. It says, and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. Look, did he give us apostles? He sure did right here. We have apostles that we can read right here. He gave some prophets again right here. We have the words of the prophets, the words that God gave the prophets right here. He gave some evangelists. This is a path for us that he sent to Colossae. You know, they didn't have Paul, but he sent another evangelist out there. And he gave some pastors and teachers. Why? Why did he provide all these things? Look, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Guess what? That's you. That's the church. That's this independent local church is the body of Christ. And the Bible says that God gave you all these things. Look, we have the Bible, but there's more. He gave you these things to help you use the Bible, to help you apply the Bible, to help you walk the Bible in your life. Look, folks, this is the importance of a church and why God gave you these tools to help you apply the Word of God. So you have the Word. You have the tools.  And I'm going to talk to the kids here in a little bit. But the point is, just like people don't appreciate the Bible, people don't appreciate church and people don't appreciate these things that God has provided for them to use the Bible. Look, the church, the pastor, the teachers, they help you apply the Bible in your life. That's why I'm here, is to serve you with whatever you need. Because look, here's the thing. You're just like, can I just read the Bible? But here's the thing, the Bible covers everything. The Bible covers every single topic that you could ever want to know about or ever have questions about with your family, with, you know, your relationships with other people, with sin, what's a sin and what's not? Boy, it's hard to tell these days. But not if you read the Bible, it's always the same. But here's the thing, the Bible does not cover every single scenario. Does that make sense? The Bible does not cover every scenario you're going to run into in your home or every scenario you're going to run into at work.  Think about standards, just as an example. Think about, you know, we're supposed to be separated. We're supposed to be a peculiar people. People are supposed to look at us and say that person is different just because of how they look and how they act and how they sound. But you can tell a Christian today who's applying the Bible in their life within the first 30 seconds of the conversation with them if they're applying the Bible in their life.  It's just, it's normal now. But if you apply the Bible, you're different. You're set apart, you're separated, but we're supposed to be that way. So we follow these principles, but here's the thing, the Bible doesn't say, don't go to the beach. You know, the Bible doesn't say, don't go places where there's naked people. You know, but the Bible does teach on modesty and nakedness. The Bible talks about the principles, then we develop standards from those principles. And with that, you know, people may, you know, the Bible doesn't say, don't do cocaine. But the Bible says, be sober. Be sober, be sober, dozens of times we see sobriety brought up in the Bible.  Look, there's a reason, there's a reason that the sermons at this church are heavy in application for your life. There's a reason for it. It's on purpose because it's helping you take the standards of the Word of God and apply them to every situation. That's why I'll never run out of sermon topics because no matter how many times I preach on drunkenness or fornication or whatever other sin is out there that's being normalized today, there's always all these different scenarios and different angles and different Bible teaching on these things because the Bible just has all the answers to these things. And look, the church and these tools within the church are literally there to help you. Look, use your pastor. You should use the teachers in your life in general. I mean, the same thing. I mean, who goes to work and just never wants to learn anything? Who goes to work and goes to work and starts a new job and then just never asks a question about their job? Look, how far is that person going to go? The person who's growing is asking and using every tool that they have at their availability. Kids at school. You should be asking questions. The kid at school who's... Look, you're learning all these new things.  You should be asking questions.  And you're just not asking any questions.  So kids, look, use your teachers. And you know what? You will learn faster. You will learn faster. You'll become better at what you do in anything. But here's the thing. Look at Ephesians chapter 4. Keep your place there. Let's go a couple more verses down. Look at Ephesians chapter 4 and look down at verse number 13 because here's the thing. When we all start applying successfully, when we all start taking the Word of God and we start applying it successfully in our lives, something's gonna happen. Look at verse 13. The Bible says, till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive. The Bible is saying here, the better you get at applying the Bible, you know, you're just gonna be...  You know, the Bible says that an unstable man, you know, he's just, look, an unstable man, look, turn to James chapter 1. Let's look at it. James chapter 1. Go to James chapter 1. If you're tossed to and fro, what does that mean for you? What's gonna happen to you if you're tossed to and fro in your life? Look at James chapter 1. Look at verse number 8 of James chapter 1. The Bible says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. If you're somebody that is tossed to and fro and you're not being grounded and you're not applying the Bible in your life, you're gonna be unstable everywhere. The Bible says. And you're gonna be carried about. Look, you're gonna be carried about with.  You're gonna be carried about with all kinds of weird doctrine.  Maybe I heard this guy, you know, this philosopher say something. Maybe that's right. But that's because you're not applying the Bible in your life and you're not growing as Ephesians chapter 4 said the word every slide of man.   You're not mature in the Bible. You're not growing. But you have no excuse because you have the Bible and you have all these tools that God gave you to be grounded in the Bible, to learn the Bible and to apply the Bible successfully in your life. That's the whole point of Colossians chapter 2, the introduction that Paul is getting to here.  We have all the tools. There is literally nothing but upside for us. You know, I was thinking about this wedding. We're going to a wedding in Sacramento. Here's why. Five or six years, we've seen these kids grow up in this church. We've seen, look, you know what these weddings are?  I'm talking about like a mathematical proof. It's a proof that God's word works in people's lives. These kids grow up from being young teenagers.  Well, we met him a few years ago. We first moved there. But now they just grow up and they mature in the Word of God and they meet someone in the church that has also grown up and matured in the Word of God. Look, it is a proof of the Word of God and a successful application in young people's lives. And it is so great to see. That's why, I mean, it's so exciting to go to these weddings. But the thing is for us, there is no excuse for us for anything to be kids. Parents, I could say the same thing. Kids, kids, you need to be asking your teachers. But parents, this is why parents spending time with your kids is so important. What I want my kids to know that as they get older and they make decisions and they have ups and they have downs, I want them to know that they have a support structure in their life. You know that kids, even when they're young, if you know kids that are like six, seven years old, you know they can have ups and downs. You think, oh, what kind of serious problem could a kid that's six or seven have? But here's the thing, it might be serious then, but it's not serious to the scope of what an adult goes through, but it's still a serious thing. Here's the thing, your kids have to know that they can talk to you about anything that's on their mind. They need to know that they can ask you a question about anything that's on their mind. We have told our kids this from the youngest age, that you can talk to us about anything and we still tell them now. We still tell them the same thing now. I mean, I purposely bring things up to my kids that I know that they don't want to know and my daughter's laughing right now. But the thing is, I do it on purpose because I want my kids to know that they can bring anything to me. I mean, look, these kids that go out and they don't tell their parents what's going on in their life, terrible stories come from that. Terrible things come from that. It'll be nothing but positive for you if you can successfully do this. Kids that lock their feelings inside, that's heading for disaster right there. And it can be a dangerous situation, especially in the world that we live in today. Here's three T's. I got three T's for you on how to get your kids to talk to you about anything that's on their mind. Here's what you need to do. Just, there's three T's right here. The first one is this. You need to spend time with them. Individual one-on-one time. You know what I was thinking, a great, I had one of my kids just talking my ear off for like an hour today. All the things that he was learning today and all this you think, where do you find time for one of your kids for just an hour? So many. I'm not so many with my son. They're just talking to me. We're just talking about stuff back and forth. And you know, not too many people in the door want to talk to us, but that's fine because I was talking to him and he was talking to me. It was a great time. The first thing is you need to spend individual time with all your children. Individual time.  You need to invent things where you can spend that time with them. The second one is this. Here's the second T. Talk. You need to talk to them. You need to talk to them about everything. You need to bring up things that they don't want to talk about.  Who talked to you? A boy talked to you? What are their names? How long did they talk to you? Yeah, stop it. Stop it. Tell me. Who were they? This is what I do.  But here's the thing. Your kids need to know that they can talk to you about anything. Here's the big one right here and this is the one that most people fail at. This is the one that most people fail at. Here's the third T. Trust. Your kids need to trust you.  You know what that means? You know what that means?   You know, look, we're not saved by our works. But our kids are watching us. And if you want to be profitable, you will have works in your life. Otherwise, you could be the same Christian that has no works. Hey, you're going to heaven, buddy. But no one will profit from you, including your own kids. What kind of terrible Christian life is that? Your kids need to trust you and kids are hypocrite detectors.  God designed it that way. These kids can see hypocrisy. This is why the person that sends their kids to public school has almost no chance. They get pulled to the wolves. And then the wolves start eating them.  You put me in with these wolves. You are already starting out with no credibility.    They're not strong enough. They're not strong enough. We're building kids here. We're building men here. They're not men yet. We're building them. Everything in the Bible is talking about bringing up children, training children, not throwing them out there. Not, you know, the Southern Baptist Convention was like, no, you should keep them in the public school because it could be a witness of a disno. Paul was a witness. Paul was a man and he was beaten and stoned and whipped and imprisoned. Look, a child is not strong enough for that. We need to protect our children. They need to know that we're there to protect them. They got to trust that you'll protect them.   It's not going to work. I mean, you could try it. Many people have tried it.  Look at verse 15 of Ephesians chapter 4. Verse 15. Talking about pastors and teachers. This here's my job right here. Verse 15. But speaking the truth in love. So look, when these pastors and teachers, they speak the truth in love to you. And then guess what? When they speak the truth in love to you, guess what will happen? You'll grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. Guess what? That's exactly what Paul was saying in Colossians chapter 2. Growing up into him in all things, you'll learn all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Exactly what Paul is talking about in Colossians chapter 2. Both through preaching. Look, and even through counsel. People come to me and sometimes I think people don't come to me because they don't want to do what they think I'll tell them. But look, my job is to speak the truth to you. I had someone tell me a few months ago, I'm just not going to take your advice. Look, that doesn't hurt my feelings. That doesn't bother me. Fine. My job is to speak the truth in love and then the rest is on you. If you need any kind of help in prosecuting that or doing what I'll do anything for you. If you don't know that, know that. I'll do anything I can to help you at any time. But my job is to speak the truth in love to you. Look at verse 16. From whom the whole body fitly... Look, this is... I mean, this is the beautiful thing about it because this is what will happen. From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that with every joint supply according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, make it increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. Turn to Hebrews chapter 10. Turn to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. All of this creates a church that is in verse 16. He says it's increasing. Look, all of this creates a church that is spiritually increasing and loving amongst the members. Look at Hebrews chapter 10 and look at verse 24. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24. Look at what the Bible says. It says, And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. That's... We're supposed to inspire each other with, you know, unto love and good works. And then, of course, fame is verse 25 by going to church not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. What is the manner of a lot of people is today? But exhorting one another. That means encouraging one another in so much the more as you see the day approaching. Look, imagine this. Imagine this. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 4. Imagine this. He keeps saying this. He keeps edifying itself in love, provoking to good works unto love. I mean, imagine if we had a church. I mean, just let's get crazy for a minute here. Imagine if we had a church and if we all cared about each other. I mean, that would be amazing. Imagine if we all worked out for one another.  There's just something about a great team. You know what I'm saying? That's what the Bible is saying here. The Bible is saying, you know what? You should be a great team. You should be working together. And guess what? Ecclesiastes chapter 4. Look at verse number 9. Together as a team that's fitly joined together, we will accomplish much more. Look at verse number 9. Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his foe, but woe to him that is alone when he falls. We have not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat, but how can one be warm alone? I can tell you right now that there's already been times, many times during this ministry where all of you have lifted me up. Where if I was alone during those times, it would have been difficult for me. Say, you're the pastor. Well, look what it does as we get down to verse number 12. If two lie together, then they have heat. But how can one be warm? So we went for one. Now we have two. Look at verse 12. And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him, and a three-fold cord is not quickly broken. You see what the Bible is doing here? It's saying one is not good, two is better, and then it says, three is even better. This is talking about a church. This is talking about a bunch of people that are fitly going together in the faith as they search for all wisdom and knowledge from God's Word. And the more that we can get from it, go back to Colossians chapter 2, the more we can get this wisdom unhidden in our lives, which we have no excuse for. We don't have Paul just writing us a letter. We have the entire Word of God at our fingertips whenever we want it. The better we can get at this, the stronger we will be. And that is what Paul is getting at here because Paul is preparing these people for something in Colossians chapter 2. Look at verse number 4. The Bible says, in this I say, he's saying this. He's saying, you need to know these things. You need to not only acknowledge Christ in the gospel and be saved, but you need to know this knowledge that is hidden from you. You need to know what the Word of God has for you. And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. He's saying, you need to know this in case somebody tries, beguile means to charm you in a deceptive way. He's saying, for though I be absent in the flesh, see, he's not there. He's not there. Yet I am with you in the Spirit, enjoying and beholding your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him. He says the same thing in verse number 6. He said the same thing. You've already acknowledged the gospel. He's like, now you need to apply the Bible in your life. He's saying, because there are people that are coming to try to deceive you. He's trying to prepare them for this. Look at verse 7. Rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as ye have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving. Boy, wouldn't that be a place to be? Just be rooted and grounded in the faith that whoever tried to deceive you, whatever came along, you're just like, whatever, that's not what the Bible says. I'm with the Bible. Look, life gets real easy, folks. It gets real easy. And guess what? As your brothers and sisters are together with you, it's even easier. I mean, look, we've been, my family, we've been separated. We've been, you know, peculiar. We've been alone in this. And it's much easier for the church. You can withstand all these things with the church because you're living these things together. It's hard to be different alone. It just is. Colossus chapter 2 is about to show us why we need these things unhid from us because in your life people are going to try to deceive you. They're going to try to, they're going to try to tell you that what you're doing is wrong. They're going to try to tell you that you should be like everybody else. They're going to try to tell you that, you know what? Because, you know what? This might get hard. They're going to be like, you know, why does it just have the easier way? Why does it just go the easier route? You know what? It may sound good. That's what the Bible was saying. Beguile means it's going to tickle your ears. It's going to sound better. It's not really, it's not really fair I think to the Bible. When you're sitting here you see the truth and love to you. And the Bible says that I'm not going to be afraid of your faces because you know what that's saying? Is that a lot of times you're going to like what I'm saying.  The Bible's true. But here these people they just say all these good things and all these wonderful things but those things will destroy you. And that's why Paul is saying these things need to be unhid from you. And then you'll be rooted and you'll be built up in him. And then when these things come you're just like, yeah, that's all. You need all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And here's the thing, when you know all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge all things will be shown through. When you shine the light of the Bible on things and that's what we're going to do next week, that's what we're going to do Sunday morning. We're just going to take the wisdom and the knowledge of the Bible and we're going to shine in on some pretty, pretty good sounding things in this world and you're going to see how wicked those things are. You're going to see how bad the people that are teaching those things are and how dangerous those things are. And look, some of these things especially the ones we're going to be talking about on Sunday morning are pretty elaborated. And some of them are are pretty, I mean, unless you have the Bible you will not be able to tell the truth. But with the Bible, with the Bible the more you will just easily be able to recognize these things. And I'll show you especially in this particular case on Sunday morning how we can no more be children tossing and throwing when it comes to people that want to tell you how smart they are and tell you how much they know about things. But I'm going to show you how it's really them that are confused and confounded and I'm going to show you that God did it to them. That's what Paul is getting at with these people. He knows that there's things coming at these people and he knows that he has been included and built up. He's not even there. He's sending people right and right. We have every single exam. There is no excuse for us to fail. There is no excuse for our children to fail. I don't care how wicked the world gets. You can still raise Godly children in this country today. It's possible. I'm watching it happen. I'm watching it happen. I'm going to a wedding on Saturday. It's just a proof. Let's follow it.