Proverbs chapter three in verse nine, the word of God says, honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase. And let's pray. Our father, we come to you now and we ask for you to speak to our hearts. This is your book and we want to do more than just read it. We want to know it, to understand it, to obey it. And Lord, there's a lot of wonderful truths in here that get lost in the busyness of the day and as the culture changes. And the concept that you've put on our hearts for this evening is one that is still observed in much of the world, but it's being lost speedily in America. and I pray that you'd help us to understand it, to know it, to practice it, to teach it to others and so that we can be blessed as we obey you. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. I had a entirely different and complete sermon that I was going to preach tonight on missions. And since that the Lord had changed my heart and wanted us to talk about this word tonight. And I was meditating this afternoon some of on what the sermon this morning and just the depth of the sermon this morning give and it shall be given to you. and how that is truly life-changing if you realize that that means anything. Not just talking about money, but anything. And one of the things that I was, that the Lord brought to mind is give honor, and honor shall be given unto you. And I had different verses running through my mind, like honor thy father and mother. And this word honor, It's not a word that you hear a lot in our day and age. And so I sensed that, I thought the Lord wanted me to save what I had for this evening and just give you some thoughts on this idea of honor. Honor. Honor can have a few different meanings. There used to be talk about being honorable. You know, there was a day when men were concerned about being honorable. Honorable is just what it sounds like. Honor, able, or able to honor. It's basically living a life worth of honor. Living a life that merits some sincere honor. What is honor? Honor is a type of respect, but it's more than respect. The Bible word literally speaks about showing someone how much they mean to you through your actions, words, and gifts. So it's you show someone respect not just by saying, I respect you, but through your behavior and even through the giving of gifts. And the Bible has a lot to say about honor. And I want to just give you about Six thoughts tonight, six groups in the Bible. There's more than this, but the six that the Lord brought to mind about who we should honor and what that means and how in our culture honor is fading rapidly. There is a big move and part of the move, the spirit of woke-ism this one man aptly called it a mind virus, this thinking that gets into your mind and just starts to rewrite what you used to believe. One of the elements of that is throwing away the past. Just throw away the past. They don't care who you were. They don't care what you did. If you ever did anything that they deem unacceptable, they will erase you. which it comes across as kind of a virtuous thing. But really, underneath that, there's this Marxist-Communist idea of you have to separate someone from their heritage and tradition in order to get them to fully buy in to this new way of thinking. I was saddened when I saw them move the—some years ago, they removed the beautiful Teddy Roosevelt statue away from the—I think it was the New York Public Library—statue that had been there forever. I just saw recently that they had removed another statue. The founding fathers, they're meaningless. They're nothing. The people that helped build the country, nothing, because they did this or that. And in this concept of wokeism, this godless view of looking at the world, there is no idea of redemption. The Christians believe in redemption, right? Christians believe in God giving us a path to make things right. We can be forgiven. The devil has no plan of salvation. It's only destruction. If you've ever done anything wrong, they will hold your feet to the fire. It came out just this past week that, I guess there's a lady on The View, I don't know her very well, but I've seen clips of her often talking about race and condemning people for being racist. It came out this week that she had gone on one of those shows where they look at her past, and she was shocked to find out that she was a descendant of slave owners. after she built her career on condemning people for being racist. Now, you and I would say she's not responsible for what her family did hundreds of years ago. But she had spent decades holding people responsible for things they could not control. And what happens is it always, that type of of godless philosophy always ends up destroying its own. Because Satan's goal is not to build anything. It's actually complete destruction. You might be the last ones to be destroyed, but you're going to eventually be destroyed, right? We've seen that throughout the years in Nazi Germany and other places. There were people that let things go they shouldn't have because they weren't the ones being attacked, but eventually they were the ones that got attacked. And so we have to look at the world through a godly lens and through the lens of the scripture. And one of the things that grieves my heart that is being lost today as these ungodly philosophies fill our universities and trickle down into our schools and into our homes and into the media is this idea of honor. Honor. When's the last time you heard someone say, I just want to be honorable? Or that's an honorable person. The only time you really hear it today is in courtrooms. The honorable Judge Judy presiding. Well, I'm not sure how honorable she is, but we all ought to be honorable. And there's people we ought to honor. When you lose, it's so important you understand this. If you don't respect other people, you're actually cutting off your own legs because you will be unable to respect yourself. The world talks a lot about self-esteem. I think it's a terrible word. They talk about self-love. I think that's a terrible way to look at it. I think the word that most people are looking for is self-respect. Self-respect. Can you look in the mirror? Do you respect you? And the answer is often no. And you can tell by how someone dresses, by how someone comports themselves, by how they behave, by how they speak. There is a way to act that's not for everybody else, but it's for you. There's a minimum acceptable level of behavior that each one of us say, boy, I just couldn't respect myself if I went lower than that. The world today is not taught to think about it in those terms. They think about they're running after pleasure, they're running after this esteem, whatever that is. The concept, I know what it is, but the concept, the way they teach it is it's flawed and faulty, and that's why it's hard to obtain. The Bible does talk about loving yourself, but not the way that the world talks about loving yourself. And so the word that we all need to look at is this idea of self-respect. What happens is when you learn to give honor unto others, then one of these days you will receive the honor that you hoped to get. If you don't honor others, then you won't receive honor yourself. And I believe you won't be able to even respect yourself. So let me give you some areas tonight of things and groups of people that we're supposed to honor. First of all, of course, the Bible says honor the Lord. Right? Honor the Lord. The Lord's always number one. Honor the Lord. How do we do that? In verse 9, it talks about honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruit of all thine increase. So this is talk about we honor the Lord through our tithes and offerings. This is what I try to remind you of on a regular basis is tithing is a matter of obedience, but it's also a matter of worship. It's a matter of worship. When I give, the Bible says this about Melchizedek and Abraham that the blessed, the lesser is blessed of the better. And so we have to learn to bless god we have to learn to give honor to god he is our lord he is our better how do we do that through the giving of the the ties and and offerings and then god is able to bless us as well and so we honor the lord with our substance the bible talks about god being a god of honor and majesty see god's honorable whether we honor him or not But it changes me if I give him the honor that he is due. And so we honor the Lord. Look at John chapter five, and I'll just walk you through some scriptures here. John chapter five, we not just honor the Lord, which you know if you've been following along our Wednesday night Bible studies, the all caps Lord is the word Jehovah. But the Bible also says in John chapter five, Look at verse 22, For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. Verse 23, That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father, that hath sent which hath sent him and so it goes on to talk about salvation verily verily i say unto you he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life some people honor god they may even honor jehovah but they don't honor the son jesus christ and god says no no if you don't honor my son you're not honoring me the way to get to me is through the son how do you honor jesus you honor him by believing in him But verse 24 said, the ultimate way to honor Jesus, how do you get saved? I believe in Jesus is who He said He is, and Jesus can and will do what He promised to do. And so you honor him by believing in the person and work of Jesus. There's no greater honor than putting your soul and your eternal destiny in the hands of Christ. And of course, he that believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Nobody's ever believed in Jesus and regretted it later. And so we honor the Lord. And that's where it should all start. If you're not honoring the Lord, then you're not gonna be able to honor anybody else. Look at Ephesians chapter six. If you know your Bibles, you know this one's on the list. Ephesians chapter six. Look at verse one. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Why? For this is right. Kids, you know why you obey your parents? Because it's right. God told you to, and that's enough. What's a child? In Jewish culture, someone was a child until they became 12 years of age. When they became 12, they became an apprentice, and now they were a young man or a young woman. The idea of being a teenager in the Bible It wasn't there, this American idea that between the ages of 12 and 21 that you somehow have this limbo where there's really no responsibilities. You're just a kid and you can fill out your life. Other cultures don't have that. You're either a child or you're a young man becoming a man or you're a young woman becoming a woman. And so, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. That means that the number one job of a parent is before our children turn 12, and hopefully long before, they learn to listen to us. Because if they don't learn to listen to us, then they're not gonna listen to God. And obedience means that someone follows through quickly, immediately, and happily. Happy signifies submission, right? Fine. That's not really obedience. That is defiance shielded by doing the least amount possible, right? And so children obey your parents and the Lord, but we don't stay children forever. And yet our parents are always our parents. So what happens? Look at the next verse. Honor thy father and mother. Which is the first command with promise. So I was bound by the word of God to honor my parents as long as I was a child. By the way, here's how I qualify this in 2024. If you are living under your parents roof, eating your parents food, they are helping you pay for things. then in many ways you are still functioning as a child, even though you may not be legally a child. Does that make sense? There's this idea that says, well, I'm 18 now, so I'm going to eat your food and live in your house, and you can't tell me what to do. Well, that's a good deal for you, isn't it? But it's not honest. It's not honorable. If you're still living under the auspices of parent, then you need to defer to them even more. And that's even not apparent. If somebody's living in my house, and we have had family members live in our house for extended periods of time, then we would ask them, even though they're adults, we need them to abide by our rules, because we have to live, too. Right? But there comes a time when you don't have to obey anymore, but you are bound to honor your parents as long as they're alive. So I am 47. We figured that out this week. I always forget how old I am. 47. And I still have to honor my mom. Doesn't mean I have to obey her. If she says, hey, Paul, I want you to move to Michigan and live next to us, and she wouldn't do that. But I'm like, no, mom, I love you, but I'm not going to do that. But if my mom said, hey, Paul, can you do this for me, and it's there, and it's easy, and I can do it, yes, mom, I'd be happy to do that. That's called honor. You see what I mean? Honor means you find ways to show your respect to your parents as long as they live. You can't obey them, but you can honor them. And sometimes honoring someone is saying, Mom, you know I love you, but we have responsibilities. I have a new family. I have responsibilities here. And I'll help you any way I can, but I have other responsibilities. And so let's figure out how to do this right now. I knew of a man years ago, and he wasn't from even this state, But the children grew up, and the children would live across town. And the parents would be like, hey, can you come over? My faucet's dripping. And the parents expected them to just drop whatever they were doing and come over and fix the drippy faucet. And if they didn't, it was like they were a bad child. Well, that's not. That's not honoring. It's like, hey, mom, I'll call you a plumber. Or I'll be there in a couple of days. Now, if the basement's flooding, filling up by the minute, and you know what to do, it'd be a good idea to run over there. But sometimes, hey, I'm sitting on the couch, and I'm hungry. Can you run over and make me a sandwich? Because I don't feel like getting up and getting it. You think that's crazy, things like that happen. and you're a bad child if you don't follow through. So it's up to you to have wisdom to know okay. How do I honor in a way that fulfills the Bible, but how do I also take care of my responsibilities and my family now? And so honor thy father and mother. Notice this, why do we honor thy father and mother? Which is the first commandment with promise, what does that mean? Verse three, that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth. So the Bible here says the honor that you give to your parents will have an effect on the happiness and longevity of the rest of your life. How's that possible? Well, first of all, it's supernatural, right? Secondly, think about what we learned this morning. Give, and it shall be given unto you, give honor, And one of these days, someone in your family might just give you the honor. You know, in the Bible, for much of the history of the world, when parents got to be to a certain age, their children would have to take care of them. Right? There were no nursing homes. There were no assisted living places. And still, much of the world have several generations living in either a larger house or a compound or something like that because They just understand that this is part of our duty. Our parents took care of us when we were younger, and now it's our duty to take care of them. What do you think happens if your children watch you disrespect and dishonor your children for 30 years? What are you teaching them? You're teaching them to dishonor their parents. See how all that comes around? I've said this for years and it's kind of off the topic, but an apropos illustration. If you talk the church down when you're not in church, what are you teaching your children? Don't be surprised when they get old enough, they don't have to come here anymore, they don't. If you run the preacher down, don't be surprised that whenever you get in trouble and you hope the preacher can help, he's not going to be able to. And this is that given it shall be given you, but it's also we we are modeling for future generations. So first of all, I do it for the Lord, because regardless of what anybody else does, I want to obey and honor the Lord. And the Lord says, honor the Lord, honor your father and mother. But ultimately, in a practical sense, we're also teaching those that are coming behind us to act in the same way. Make sense to you? Honor thy father. mother and there's gonna come a day when our parents are gone some of you your parents are in heaven and you wish you could do more you wish you could show them that honor and there's gonna come a day when you can't at the same time you cannot allow the demands of people that you're supposed to honor to negatively influence your home family which is your primary responsibility make sense to you And so, let's move on. Honor the Lord. Honor father and mother. Look at 1 Timothy chapter 5. 1 Timothy chapter 5. Now let's read verses one through three. Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren, the elder women as mothers, the younger as sisters with all purity. Honor widows that are widows indeed. And so here it specifically says to honor widows, but the tenor of the passage is that you honor the elders. that you honor the elders. The word elder in the epistles, sometimes it talks about older people, and sometimes it talks about the office of a pastor. I'll show you the difference in a minute. In this passage, it's clearly talking about the elderly, or those who are older than you, rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father. And then it goes on to say the younger men as brethren, the elder women as mothers, the younger as sisters. So clearly this is talking about the relationship of the younger to the older. And younger people need to learn to respect the older. Do you see that in the world today? Look up here, buddy. You see that in the world today? How little respect there is from the younger people to the older people? They were showing videos, and I hate to even see these things, but sometimes they'll even show them on the news. An elderly person walking down the street in New York City getting attacked. This lady walking up the stairs in the subway, and some guy walks behind her and just shoves her down the stairs. People being pushed in front of subway trains and buses. Elderly people being attacked, people being carjacked. It's like, where does this come from? Well, it starts with chipping away at this idea that, hey, if you are young and strong and capable, then you need to honor those who have lived life before you. They may not be as strong as you are. They may not have the stamina you have. They certainly have more wisdom. And they have paid their dues. and their due respect. These are the people that built the houses and roads and businesses that we all enjoy today, and if you have no connection to the previous generations, you're in deep trouble. The truth is, those kind of people will burn the world down around themselves, because they don't respect anything, even themselves. But notice it says honor widows specifically. Widows were in the Bible were in a tough place, especially if they had no sons. So the way this would work is. If if someone was a widow, their husband died and they had sons or children and that children were supposed to take care of them, if they if their husband died and they had no children that could take care of them, it literally became the responsibility of the church. the church would organize to care for these godly ladies. And it even goes through a list of things, how you can tell if someone is a widow indeed, a godly woman, and so on, even in the Bible times. Some people would try to game the systems and get the benefits of being a godly widow while they were out rousing in sin and such. And so God put some important rules on that, but we need to honor widows, honor the elderly. Do you stand up if an elderly person needs your seat? You know that's in the Bible, Leviticus 19.32. You can look it up later. Talks about standing up around the elderly. The Bible gives you ways of how to respect those around you. If an elder starts talking, do you close your mouth and listen? That's one way we can show respect. Oh, it's the same old stories. Yeah. And listen, because one day they're not going to be there to tell them. And one day you're going to be old. Oh, they're so slow. I have to take them out. It takes so long. Well, these days you'll be slow. Well, these days you'll need help. However, I remember my grandma, she went to be with the Lord a year ago. She had Parkinson's, and I went to visit her one time, and he wanted to go to the store, so I took her to the store. She said, Paul, Paul, go in there and buy me some lottery tickets. And I said, Grandma, I love you, and I don't mind, I'll honor you, but I'm not going to buy you lottery tickets. And so she got out of the car and went in and bought lottery tickets herself. it's amazing the motive when someone has the motivation you know she's got her little Walker you know heading over to the you really want those tickets don't you but that's that's the difference between saying I'm gonna honor you when I can but there's also lines to where I'm not gonna violate my conscience or what I believe the Lord wants I look at first Timothy chapter 5 verse 17 Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor. especially they who labor in the word and doctrine for the scripture saith thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn and the labor is worthy of his reward against an elder received not an accusation but before two or three witnesses them that sin rebuke before all that others also may fear and so here it's talking about the honor of a pastor and so In verses one through three, it's talking about elders in the sense of someone that's older. There are three words in the Bible that talk about the office of the pastor. The first, obviously, is pastor. That speaks of the pastor's role to lead and guide and teach. The second is Bishop. You notice that the Catholic Church has bishops and stuff. Why don't Baptists have bishops? Well, you do, and it's me. My name's Bishop Paul Chapman. And sometimes you go up in the city, and you'll find these churches, and they have on the sign, Pastor, Evangelist, Deacon, Apostle, Bishop, Joe Jackson. You know, and they have all these titles. technically I'm a bishop what does that speak of that speaks of my role to oversee a bishop's just an overseer someone who would oversee the church and who's responsible for it and in the third office of a pastor is that of elder an elder speaks of the counselor the one who has the wisdom of an elder and maybe not elder in age but elder in the things of the lord and so they know the scriptures they have experience in spiritual things and so the bible here is talking about a an elder that rules well that fulfills his biblical obligations be counted worthy of double honor especially those that labor in the word and in doctrine so if a church has a pastor that is fulfilling the biblical responsibilities and that is laboring in the word and the doctrine then there is a special a special respect given to them and listen you folks take good care of me i have no problems i'm not trying to fix anything i'm just teaching you the bible i'm very pleased with where our church is right now but you've got to understand Pastors who faithfully teach the Word of God without error are few and far between. Pastors that really work hard to fulfill the Bible elements and be who God wants them to be, you can't just find them anywhere. That's why there's churches all over the place that are looking for a pastor, right? And so I have always tried to give my pastor honor. And you folks, I sense that you seek and work hard. We're not talking, you know, sometimes people say, oh, man worship. We're so far away from man worship, it's ridiculous to even talk about. There is, if you had an idol of me, it would probably look a lot like Buddha. You know, maybe just like a Buddha with a little hairpiece on top. And that's a good visual picture, isn't it? You go by and rub my belly for good luck. You know, sometimes people are like, oh, man worship. We're so far away from man worship. I've never worshiped a man. I don't ever plan to worship a man. But giving someone respect who's serving the Lord, that's a very biblical thing. And so that's why we do our best to honor other preachers. By the way, I went out to eat with a preacher last Sunday night that was older than me. He's been in the ministry 32 years. He started his church 32 years ago. I've been here 20. The entire time we're together, I defer to him. And we have conversations on a normal level. What do you want to eat? What do you want to eat? Where do you want to go? I'll go wherever you want to go. And there's that deference that comes with an honoring that I think is important. We're gonna have preachers come this year and we have preachers come through and I always try to honor them for the position and the things that they have held. Let me give you a last few. Look at Romans. Book of Romans chapter 13. We said honor the Lord, honor father and mother, honor the elders, honor the preachers, Romans chapter 13. The Bible says we give honor to whom honor is due. Look at Romans chapter 13 and verse 7. Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute, custom to whom custom, Fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. There are people and roles and positions that deserve honor that we're supposed to give honor to. It's important that you understand the office deserves honor. For example, I was talking to someone some time ago. They were having a hard time respecting someone in their life that was in a parental role and that the parent had not acted honorably. But the bitterness that was eating them alive for the negative feelings they held toward their parent, I had to teach them that even if the person is not honorable, the office is honorable. The office of father is honorable. The office of mother is honorable. I think the office of the United States president is honorable. It's an honorable office. I think it's a tragedy with what we've got going on today. And they just came out with a Department of Justice report on Biden that said he broke the law, but they did not want to charge him because they didn't feel like he was competent to stand trial. Look it up. It's true. It's very true. And so if someone's not competent enough to stand trial, how are they competent enough to run the country? And the answer is they're not. Haven't been for a long time. However, the office is honorable. I think policemen, whatever you think of policemen, I think the office of policemen is an honorable office. They might mistreat me sometimes. By the way, I have been. I've been pulled out of a car. I've been held over a weekend for something that I didn't do. That's tough to take. I know that there are bad ones out there. But you also gotta understand, he might be being rough with me when I didn't do anything, But every time he walks up to a car, he doesn't know what's in the car, especially in the climate today. And all that Black Lives Matter stuff, which, by the way, it didn't take too much to figure out that that was more than just about racial justice. There was just very evil underpinnings to that. And all you have to do is even do a little research today. The whole thing where we stood up for the policemen around here. We put signs in the lawn. And I said, our church might get graffitied. We might get broken into just for simply saying, we pray for and support the local police, law enforcement, and firefighters. It was so funny. We'd put signs out there, and then people would drive by, and in the night, they would steal them. Well, they didn't know I bought like 50 of them. And we kept putting them further and further into the lawn. And so every time they'd steal them, we'd just put more out. You know, Patrick would come in, oh, the sign's gone again. You know, he'd go out and put some more out. And then some other people would go out and put some more out. And we kept putting them further and further in the lawn so they would have to stop their car, open their door, get out, climb up the little rock wall, come into the yard, go back to their, climb down the rock wall. And I got a lot of joy just watching these people thinking, man, this is a lot of work to take this sign down. And over and over and over. And finally, they just gave up. How are the places doing that don't have enough policemen? They doing better or worse? See, whenever you've removed the honor, everything starts to crumble. Your home will crumble, your marriage will crumble. The number one need of every husband is reverence, the Bible says. That's honor. I love him, I just don't respect him. You might as well put a gun in his gut and pull the trigger. Because he will never feel loved if he doesn't feel respected. I love her, I just can't stand her. That's no better. A woman needs to feel loved so she can feel respected. Respect is the glue that holds it all together. And here the Bible says, give honor to whom honor is due. If someone is honorable on their own, then give them honor. There are, I look around the room, we have some honorable people in this room and thank God for you. Thank God for your smart choices, your commitment to serve the Lord, the choices you make every single week to put God first and try to live a moral life in an increasingly wicked world. Well done. That's honorable. There are also offices that are honorable. We honor those. Let me show you the last one. Look at Romans chapter 12, verse 10. Speaking of honor, Romans chapter 12, verse 10. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honor preferring one another. This speaks about giving the people around you honor. One way that you do that is by deference. We talked about that before. Deference. Do you know that if you always have to have your way, you're not going to have very many friends? If you always have to have your way, you're not going to have close family. If you always have to have your way, you're going to have a pretty rough life. Because when you demand your way, it's lifting you up above the other person, especially when there's no right or wrong. It's just preference. I want to read a last verse to you. You can turn there if you like. 1 Peter 2, verse 17. The Bible says, honor all men. Love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. And this is the last one. We honor all men. Don't miss this thought. Every human is due a certain amount of respect because they're made in the image of God. Good human, bad human, they're made in the image of God. Nice human, mean human, smart human, foolish human, they're made in the image of God. I want you to notice the difference between honor and something that says, I'm gonna give you more respect because of the color of your skin. I'm gonna give you less respect because of the color of your skin. I'm gonna give you more or less respect depending on what part of town you come from, or how much cash you have in the bank, or what kind of clothes you wear, or how much money your parents have, or what your accent is. You see how shallow that is? Truly shallow. God says honor all men. There is a level of respect that is due for everybody because they're made in the image of God. And when you settle that in your own heart, you stop seeing, oh listen, the world today wants you to cut everybody into all these little pieces and all these little identifiable groups and find out who's got it the worst and who's the most oppressed and how awful you have it. It is a scheme. It is foolishness. It is, use a good Midwestern term, baloney. My pastor used to say it's hogwash. What's that, look it up? Foolishness. I don't need any other reason to respect you than you are living, breathing, human being made in the image of God. And that's enough. Right? And so what do we do? We honor the Lord. We honor father and mother. We honor the elderly. We honor the elders, the preachers. We give honor to whom honor is due. And we honor all men. I want you to start thinking about this this week. Look around for respect and honor in our society. When's the last time you saw a TV show where the dad was honored by the children? When's the last time you heard someone talk about wanting to be honorable? You know, in some cultures, the highest hope is just an honorable death. What does that even mean? Where for us, it would mean, I want to die serving Jesus. I want to be faithful to God until I see him. In the Christian worldview, that's an honorable death. How do you be honorable? How do you honor your marriage? I want to be faithful to my wife. There's all kinds of ways we can honor. And what you'll see is that honor is the mortar between the bricks that holds everything together. Amen? Honor. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for the Bible truths about honoring. Help us to practice it, to notice it, to see it. Lord, help us to honor one another. to honor you and all these groups that we should, help us to have just a fundamental respect for you, for your people, for those around us. And Lord, we pray that as the world gets further and further away from these