In his sermon titled 'Economic Storm Clouds On the Horizon,' Scott Brown addresses the challenges posed by economic uncertainty, highlighting three major storm clouds: fear, economic instability, and cancel culture. He emphasizes that while God is sovereign over all events, Christians should adopt shrewd, diligent, and faith-driven strategies to navigate these challenges. Brown discusses the impact of fear on the economy, citing statistics on mental health and financial instability. He underscores the importance of shrewd financial management, such as saving, controlling expenses, and investing wisely. The sermon encourages Christians to focus on family and church responsibilities, trust in God's sovereignty, and maintain faith and consistency in their actions despite the uncertain future.

I want to talk about economic storm clouds on the horizon and I want to speak about three storm clouds and then I want to give three, a ten shrewd actions in the face of those storm clouds. The truth of the matter is that God is in control of all the clouds. All the rain, all the earthquakes, all the economic upturns and downdrafts are all under God's sovereign hand. God controls the stock market with his finger up and down. I think that should be the foundation of all that we think about this.

The truth is, at the same time, the prosperity of a nation, the prosperity of a church, the prosperity of a family really depends on the power of the gospel and its work in those people's lives, in their behavior, in their thinking, in all of their priorities. And we've been trying to examine the many ways that God has given his people to prosper in the land. And of course, that takes place by being shrewd. And we've been desiring to just talk about the many ways that we can be shrewd, be diligent. I love what Psalm 119, 111 says, your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart.

Just this morning I read Psalm 119 verse 127, I love your commandments more than gold, yes, than fine gold. Operating out of the wellspring of the goodness of God and his commandments is really where we ought to keep our focus. So I'd like to talk about storm clouds and I'm going to talk about three storm clouds that we should just be aware of. And the first is fear. One of the greatest factors in an economy is fear.

The results of fear are being seen all over the place. Often The stock market is governed by fear. The fear and the Fed, those are the two things that really control the stock market. It's very interesting what's happening in our culture right now. The Centers for Disease Control is documenting some of it and they have just painted some very disheartening pictures of the nation's mental health and particularly the climate regarding fear in our nation.

They've just reported that 11% of US adults have seriously contemplated suicide within the last 30 days. Isn't that astounding? They are reporting that more than 25% of 18 to 24 year olds have considered taking their lives. They're saying that more than 13% of Americans have started abusing alcohol or drugs or some kind of substances to cope with the uncertainties and the fears that have overwhelmed their hearts as a result of these things. There's a tremendous misperception in the part of our citizens about the danger of this virus.

And they're drastically overestimating the danger of the virus. The CDC has been telling us that Americans are overestimating the mortality rate for people over 55 years old. And for example, people are saying that those who are age 44 or younger are accounting for 30% of the COVID deaths. It's actually 2.7 percent. Americans are estimating that people age 55 and older account for 57 percent of COVID deaths.

The actual percent is 92 percent. So there's a a tremendous fear-driven misperception about what's actually happening. When you have 98% recovery rates on this, you have at the same time massive fear. So fear has overtaken our society. This presents a tremendous opportunity for the Church of Jesus Christ.

The Church in its best state is a fearless people. I've been very thankful for our church. I've not sensed a spirit of fear in this church, and I'm just so grateful for it. It's a sign of faith. It's a sign of the power of God working in your hearts by keeping your eyes on God.

The second is economic uncertainty. The economic toll from the shutdown of the economy, the fact that the government has shut down businesses for months, has been astounding. There are different numbers that are describing the possibilities. Some of these numbers may be incorrect, but they're definitely representative of the problem. I'm getting my numbers from the economic policy institute.

30% of homeowners missed their house payments in June. 30%, that's what they're saying. That will have an impact on the next couple of years. 19 to 22 million are facing eviction by the end of the year. It's somewhere around 20 million are getting unemployment benefits.

Of course, that's dropping. It has dropped. It's possible that you have 32 million people that will be out of work as a result of all this. They say that 6.6 million have already dropped out of the workforce. 4.9 million employees furloughed will never go back.

11% out of work will not go back with any reasonable chance at this point. I've read different numbers about this and no one knows what these numbers really will turn out to be. So I'm not presenting these as absolute realities. We're being told that 30% of businesses won't survive. Those are small businesses.

The large businesses are doing quite well. How long will it take to get 20 million people back to work? Nobody really knows. Large retail operations are being abandoned for different reasons. Large corporate headquarters are being shrunk, leaving millions and millions of square feet of empty commercial space.

I think you can expect a commercial real estate free fall. It's already started in New York and other places like that. Many economists are predicting a housing market collapse as foreclosures increase and things like that. And these kinds of things will escalate, particularly among those who've lost their businesses, however many that is. So these things have never really happened in my lifetime.

And certainly I don't believe in American history. The things that have happened are actually quite unusual. And no one really knows what the effect will be. The government continues to pump enormous amounts of money in the economy. Nobody knows the effect of that.

It's propping up the stock market for sure. The stock market, Wall Street isn't really very reflective on what's happening on Main Street. And there are various reasons for that. The Fed has something to do with that and other factors. But the stock market, nobody knows what will happen.

Some say there's a crash, a big correction ahead. Some say that the Fed's going to keep propping it up. I have no idea. But I think what I want to say is it really is a time of economic uncertainty. We don't know what's going to happen.

And that's a good thing actually. Because we've been given orders from God about how we ought to live. There's also something that has some new terminology called cancel culture. Christians are being removed from major information delivery outlets, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Amazon, they're being canceled. Many people who make their livelihood as a result of these platforms are being canceled.

And one of the things that at least we've been thinking about at the NCFIC and I've been talking about with others is What's the impact of owned space? If your livelihood is dependent on platforms that you don't own, what's the impact of that? And I think Christians have to ask themselves, what is it that's part of my livelihood that's on a platform that somebody else owns? If it's on Facebook or if it's on some other platform. We've just been trying to think that through.

Publishing companies, all kinds of things like that, do you have control over the means of wealth creation? And it's a very interesting time. You have, I'm just going to call it woke totalitarianism. Corporations are exerting pressure on companies and individuals to make massive changes. I mean, one of the most recent examples was the changing of the name of the Washington Redskins.

And of course, the reason they changed their name is that FedEx and Nike and Bank of America threatened to withdraw their corporate sponsorship if they didn't change their name. So there's tremendous pressure. The woke cultures of totalitarianism are work like really like never before in our country. And you know what should Christians do? What should Christians do?

Well Christians should be shrewd. That's what we've been talking about during this entire time. I define this kind of shrewdness from Luke chapter 16 as a well-divised scheme, a carefully considered advantage, an inner consciousness, and understanding, a thoughtful consideration, and intellectual activity. That's what we wanna challenge you to do in our church. Not to fear, but to consider your ways and to ask yourself the questions that are being raised in these sessions.

And to think carefully and thoughtfully across the different implications of handling these things, being shrewd in handling mammon. And I want to give you ten shrewd actions. Now these actions have been surfaced and will continue to be surfaced during this conference, but I'd like to lay them out for you. And the first is be shrewd. Set aside something each month for yourself.

After you tithe and you set aside something for yourself to live on, live below your expenses. If you make $10 an hour, take $1 of that $10 an hour and keep it for yourself and use it to invest it, whatever that is. What keeps you from doing this? Usually it's the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. That's usually what it is, or at least the results of those kinds of things in our lives in the past that keeps us from being able to set aside things.

We're not, Christians are not misers who just hoard things. Christians are not just fearful of the robbers, but Christians set aside resources so that they will grow. The second the second is control your expenses. You know, avoid the do dads, avoid the consumables that are not necessary. You know, when Deborah and I got married, some of you are young couples, I'm pretty sure we only went out to eat one time in the first year of our marriage because we didn't want to we didn't have the money to spend and we didn't want to spend it on those on something that we would eat.

When I when I buy a large item I want to be able to sell it for what I bought it for. I almost always do that. My wife Deborah, you know, in, it's interesting, the way she's purchased our furniture, she always buys our furniture at 10 to 30 or 40 cents on the dollar. And, but she buys nice furniture. And, and we keep it, We keep it for 20 years.

Some of the furniture that we bought 25 years ago is still in our house. And it's because she bought quality furniture. We also taught our kids not to ruin our furniture. We taught them not to run and jump on the, we taught them not to, not to jump on the arms of the furniture and soil them. Because we wanted to keep it for, we wanted to keep those things for a long time.

It had to do with, we didn't want to have to buy those things again. And I, and when we had people over, as guests, we didn't want to be embarrassed at how grungy and messed up our couches were. So there are things that you can do to be shrewd and control expenses. Some of it has to do with just personal discipline and actually even training your children. Be shrewd, make your resources multiply.

Now Kelly Jennings is gonna elaborate on this. How, what are the various ways to multiply your resources? And you know seek counsel from wise men who've demonstrated wisdom in those areas. Next, number four, be shrewd. Guard your capital.

One of the things that my father-in-law told me when we were first married is he said, don't eat your capital. Don't eat your capital. And we tried not to do that in our lives. You know, putting your capital in unsafe investments and things like that can be very dangerous. You know, a person should have risk capital and unriskable capital, That's my view of it.

Be shrewd. Own your own home. The way you do that is you save cash and you stow away so that you can enter into a home and try to own your home as fast as you can. Try to pay off your home as fast as you can. There are many people who say owning a home is not an asset, it's a liability, because it's always taking money out of your pocket.

It's taking money out of your pocket in interest, it's taking money out of your pocket in expenses, and you don't have any idea whether it's going to appreciate or not. So with that said, my general counsel is though, own your home, control your home, and find yourself in a space that you actually have control over. But there are difficulties in owning homes and entry levels, although now with interest rates, there's never been a better time to do that. Number six, be shrewd. Increase your income through knowledge and skill acquisition.

We talked about this a little bit last night. Learn more. Maybe you need to learn something new in terms of technology, some area of competence that will help you to increase your income through knowledge acquisition. Number seven, be shrewd. Teach your children how to work hard.

It's very important that you teach the next generation how to work. It's very important that you teach the next generation about how money works. And a conference like this, I hope, is helpful for that. Number eight, be shrewd. Provide for your family in case of your untimely death.

That's one thing that men should do. They should think about what will happen if they die. If you have lots of children and a husband dies, you have children who will take care of your wife. If I died right now, my children would take care of my wife. They would take care of her so nicely.

She treated them really nice when they were growing up. And they're going to treat her nice, for sure. And so find how you're going to provide for your family, whether those are insurance mechanisms or whatever they might be. Number nine, be shrewd. Have a plan to provide for yourself in your old age when your earning power diminishes.

That usually happens to most people. Earning power diminishes as people get older and older. And you ought to have some kind of a plan. Don't just wait to get there. Most Americans have waited and they're there and they don't have any resources.

They don't have any way to support themselves. Actually, the statistics are astounding. The average American has very, very few resources to survive really more than a few days. And it's because of poor planning. It's because of not being shrewd and paying attention to biblical principles.

Number 10, be shrewd, trust in the sovereignty of God. Trust in the sovereignty of God. The pagans, you know, call this good luck. There's no such thing as luck. God is sovereign and God has promised to provide for his children.

And he's made many, many promises to that effect. I would just encourage all of us to focus in the midst of these environments that we're living in. Secure the right jurisdiction of your family. Teach your children when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. Discipline your sons and daughters in the Lord.

Bring up a family. I was just reading this morning in 1 Corinthians 7 verse 3, let the husband render to his wife the affection to her. And I just thought, husbands, give your wives the affection that they deserve. Secure the jurisdiction of your family. Build a strong family.

Secondly, promote the jurisdiction of the Church of Jesus Christ. In First Corinthians 17 it says, "'But as God has distributed to each one, "'as the Lord has called each one, so let him walk." So there's a lot to do. There's a lot of shrewdness that's necessary in a time like this. Don't be discouraged. Snap into action.

Power up and meet the challenges of the day with the wisdom of God. Meet it by faithfulness to God. And that's really the whole point of the passages of scripture that speak about these matters. Be faithful, be diligent, be consistent, and provide for those who are around you. So there you have it, dealing with storm clouds on the horizon.

Christians don't run around like chickens with their heads cut off in fear. They have confidence in God. And they take actions, and they do them consistently. And they do them carefully. And they don't do them fitfully.

And so I pray that God gives us grace in the midst of whatever is going to happen in the next 12, 24, 36 months I don't know But I think we should just continue to act like Christians and be shrewd.