Holy moly did Ben step in it yesterday.
He then spent the entire day defending himself from a mob with pitchforks.
Alright, now that we've lost the people who just think I'm out here shilling for Ben Shapiro and The Daily Wire, let me focus on the most important post that Ben dropped.
I'm going to breeze past the whole infrastructure and idea of Social Security here. As a 34-year-old man, I have never expected to see a penny of the money that the government stole from me under the program. Long before we printed trillions of dollars in 2020 or Joe Biden hit the $34-trillion watermark on the national debt, I knew that program was sunk.
The idea of trusting the government with control of our financial security in our later years was really dumb. Generations of Americans fell for the biggest scam in human history.
You might feel you are owed Social Security, and you are, but you aren't going to get it. Whatever was left is going to Enrique and his 10-20 million illegal friends shacked up on the taxpayer dime in hotels across America.
So let's put that in the rearview. Ben Shapiro is right about the absurdity of Social Security and the moral wrong of putting our elderly out to pasture, but the reason he's right goes much deeper than that.
Let's focus on the timeless truths that will still be around when there's no one even alive who remembers what "Social Security" even meant.
From the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible:
This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them — for this is their lot. Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil — this is a gift of God. They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.
Ben is right about people needing purpose.
But what he didn't expand on is why. He said it as a matter of fact. America's founders would call it "self evident."
But why?
Why is it that we wither and fade when we lose our purpose? I've got a doggo sleeping next to me as I write this and she could care less about purpose. All she cares about is eating, sleeping, belly rubs, and the mailman.
The reason is simple: We are made in God's image.
Not only is this the basis for the "certain inalienable rights" that underpin America itself, but it's the reason why life is meaningless to us without purpose.
There's no reason you can't stop clocking into a tedious 9-to-5 at age 65. In fact, I would encourage it. If you have been wise enough to save up and become your own master, it gives you an immense opportunity to use the last years of your life to glorify God with activities and work you truly enjoy.
But there's nothing in the Bible (or the common sense God gave you) that says retiring to go drink beer on the golf course or your boat is a good idea.
For the Christian (and I'm about to speak to fellow Christians here), this should be a no-brainer. The Apostle Paul's admonition to run a good race and fight a good fight doesn't mean he retired early. No, Paul traveled the world as a poor missionary, accepting meager offerings and making tent canvas to get by, then was jailed and executed by Caesar.
At the beginning of his missions work, Jesus Christ himself said this about Paul:
I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.
There is no idle moment for the Christian in this life. The Holy Spirit is constantly pouring new wine into new wineskins, working a pinch of yeast into the dough of this world's kingdoms to wrestle it away from Satan's grasp.
Don't you see it?
Don't you see the work God is doing?
The Law of Moses, as Paul writes in Romans, was powerless to save. The Law tells us where we fall short, but not how to be saved.
"But the gift is not like the trespass."
Satan can use the Law to stifle and condemn. His name means "Accuser," after all. But there is no accusation that can stand against those who trust in the free gift that was Christ dying for our wrongdoing. Christ paid the debt and those who place their trust in him have their sin paid for - not in part, but in full.
That kind of thing can't be stopped. Satan tried to put walls around it in the Roman Empire. He tried to put walls around it by focusing church leaders on new rules and traditions that ended up binding them again as slaves to the Law. He tried sending armies - perhaps those treasure-seeking Vikings could kill the helpless Christians.
But it didn't work. Wherever his craft was employed, the Gospel spread faster. When Mohammed was choked by the "angel" in the cave outside Mecca and thought it was a demon, his wife, who was obsessed with him becoming a holy man, told him it was a messenger of God. A new, violent religion directly opposed to the core teachings of the Bible arose, attempting to not only deny Christ in word, but at the point of a sword.
It still didn't work!
Pagan Europe was now Christian, and in the garden of biblical teaching it bloomed. Reason, science, art, engineering - Satan could not stop the advancement. Soon, there were Christians headed on boats across the ocean to escape religious persecution. They founded a new country, one built on the idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Then those Christians proceeded to send generations of their wealth to missions and development work around the world.
Now we've entered the age of global community and communication and people are coming to Christ in every nation on the planet. China, the world's most advanced police state, can't control it.
The speck of yeast in the dough has become a worldwide wildfire.
...on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
Satan has tried to counter the flourishing with poison from the inside. Marx was perhaps his greatest pupil in the West.
Behind him, and the socialist movements that killed millions, there are the machinations of proud-but-small-minded men who wish to build "democratic" empires on the frame of secular scientism.
When Charles Spurgeon was preaching in the late 1800s in England, people were leaving churches in droves. The industrial revolution was in full swing. The West had been won. Charles Darwin had a framework for life that didn't include God.
And yet, over a century later, even as the embers of the West cool, there are a rising number of young people searching for meaning. South America is rapidly igniting into flame as people come to Christ. Iran has had one of the highest per-capita rates of conversion to Christianity in the world.
Every time Satan tries to stop the hemorrhage of his territory with new ideologies and force, he loses twice his ground without God striking a single return blow. And He doesn't need to. He already made his fatal blow.
And God said to the serpent,
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.
It. Is. Finished.
This brings me back to retirement.
The question of when to retire and what financial systems we implement to that end is up for debate. You can spend your energy arguing about how to use corks to try and plug up bowling-ball-sized holes on that ship, or you can put your energy toward more productive things - toward a fight that really matters.
Ben Shapiro understands that humans are created for a purpose. He knows we are to work hard, provide for our families, have children, and above all, to honor God.
As a Jewish man still under the Law, he doesn't see the work of the Spirit. He doesn't see the lordship of Christ or His banner that is advancing across the world.
But he understands that what's wrong with us in America is not necessarily when we retired, but that we retire at all. The fact that so many people only think of "work" as a weekly paycheck is perhaps the biggest problem. Work is not only your paycheck. Work is how you use your talents to provide for your family and glorify God.
Because we are in a battle for this world, the Christian does not get to retire. He may free himself from his servitude to the cubicle or the factory floor, but his service to Christ does not have an expiration date.
Getting older means there is a shift in roles, duties, and abilities, not a return to carefree childhood.
The world is on fire. The Spirit is advancing the kingdom of God. It is growing from the smallest of seeds into a tree that fills the whole earth, and all the birds will come and nest in its branches. Satan is absolutely powerless to stop it.
If you want to be part of that story, not just the money-earning thing we call "work," then roll up your sleeves. Young people, this means that you must build wealth to leave an inheritance for your children and provide for the resourcing of the Church. Old people, this means you must give of what you have saved and use your latter days to disciple and lead, so that snakes and wolves don't take over the sheepfold.
(For other advice go and read 1 and 2 Timothy.)
But let's get over this silly idea of retirement.
Don't you know there's a war on?
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