A (87:01)
That's great. Let me tell one. Can I tell one last story and then we'll finish on a little application note. So I just finished reading. You're reading it right now. What's the name of the American story by the Bartons? Yeah, David and Tim Barton. It's a fantastic book. So this is really interesting. There's actually a little case attorney I'm getting ready to have you pull up that map. Well actually go ahead and pull up that map. Can you pull up that little map of Jamestown, of Plymouth? So this is really interesting. So, so this is an 1888 map that some political leaders in our nation put together. And you'll see at the top you got an arrow that is flowing left from the plate Plymouth settlement. And at the bottom you have this nasty looking crooked arrow that flows left from the Jamestown settlement in Virginia. So here's. And the Top one, what is showing is that the Puritans that really settled and then implemented their faith in a generally consistent way out of Plymouth, it's showing, man, God's blessing flowed out of those people. Jamestown was considerably more secular, secular, considerably more secular. And I'm going to talk about that here in a second. And even in 1888, you got this map, political leaders going, well, a bunch of nasty things flowed out of Jamestown. And it says, God's curse, slavery. And then the top one, flown out of Plymouth, they created this little thing that said God's blessing, liberty. Now, here's what's really interesting. This book documents this, that when the original settlers settled Jamestown, Plymouth, both of them adopted socialistic forms of local governance. So they get here and winter comes and they're like, oh, dang, man. You know, so they kind of do the, you know, from each according to his means and to each according to his needs thing. And they all do a, hey, common pot, whatever. You get your farm, put it here and we'll distribute it. Absolute disaster. About half of both the colonies died in the first winter from starvation, malnutrition. In Jamestown, of the original 104 colonists who arrived arrived, 2/3 were dead within six months. And that first winter, they started doing things like eating horses, dogs, cats, rice mice. They were eating boot and shoe leather. This is really disgusting, but you need to know what happened. It got so bad, they dug up dead corpses and were actually committing cannibalism. Okay, now here's what happened in Plymouth. They learned from their mistake and they started embracing biblical teaching on how we should think about economics. So, for instance, the governor, I think his name was Governor Bradford, he literally opened his Bible to 1 Timothy 5, 8. And what, you know, what we're supposed to be doing is if anybody doesn't provide for his own, especially for those of his own household, he's denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. And then he also read the other verse from Thessalonians that says, if somebody will not work, he shall not eat. And so he literally said, hey, guys, we're not doing this common pot thing anymore. From now on, when winter comes, next time, you're responsible for your family. You're responsible for your family. I'm responsible for my family. And they instituted some form of free markets and system. I'm going to read you what he said. This is what he said. So in Jamestown, people kept dying. What happened in Plymouth is they introduced this. Governor Bradford wrote this in his journal. This has had very good Success for it made all hands very industrious. So as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the governor or any could use and gave far better kind content. The women now went willingly into the field. He had previously documented how. Actually, I'll read the whole sentence. The women went willingly into the field and took their little ones with them to set the corn which before would fake weakness and inability. So dude, I just want to say this literally in the first colony when they had a redistribution of wealth economic system, guess what? Everybody did. Man, I'm disabled. I don't, I really, I don't think I can do it. And man, I'm real tired, you know. Ah, you know, we're a little busy today. Why? Because a redistribution of wealth economic system removes human incentives towards hard work and ingenuity. And as soon as they went towards a more biblical system of spheres, he said, man, it worked really, really good. David Barton finishes by saying this. You know, he's a guy that studied all the primary documents. Significantly from the time the pilgrims began adopting a biblical economic system, no general want ever existed again among them. There you go. Interesting little story. Now I'll just give one last encouragement and then we can be done because I'm gonna go take Jan on a date. My encouragement is what I don't want to have happen. Happen is the primary note of this podcast results in a bunch of compassionless, hard hearted Christians towards the poor. I'll just tell you what I encourage you to do and I encourage it from personal experience. I encourage every Christian everywhere to in addition to your tithe, this. Listen, you have no idea how much this will bless you and you have no idea how much it will bless your children growing up in a house where they this happen. In addition to your tithe, carve out a small part of your budget and just call it your blessings budget. And every time you find out about another Christian in particular anybody, but in particular do good to all, especially those of the household of faith. Whenever you find out about somebody in need around you personally find a way to anonymously bless them and help somebody who's poor, hurting or injuries need. You have no idea how much that will bless you and your children and great will be your reward in the kingdom of heaven.
