 Well bless you. It is an honor to be with you again, and I so enjoy your pastor Joey Rogers and his wife Rita and Thank you again pastor for having me here. It's a great honor and also being with Jeff and Shane I found out that Jeff and I spoke at something together like 20 years ago. Well back to the history Well, I mentioned this this morning, but the most common form of government is gangs Right if we were to get rid of all the laws and all the police what would happen It would be fine for a couple days Then people would rob the stores and when they realized they weren't caught they'd start robbing houses And then you would have to organize your neighborhood and you'd have somebody to defend as your captain and then the bad guys and so gangs and so a King is nothing more than a glorified gang leader and then you go through these six thousand years of world history and it's gangs and Pharaohs and Caesars and Kaisers and Sultans and Tsars and Maharajas and a till of the hun Gang is con and they keep getting bigger and bigger because with military advancements Kings can kill more people and with technological Advancements they can track more people and so wherever there's a king You have to believe the way the king says what the king believes the king to believes if you do if you do not Believe the way your king does it's considered treason and the king would kill you and so let's look at the reformation started in 1517 and Percentages of countries began to be Protestant in some state Catholic and Then you had the Iron Duke of Alba He was sent by the king of Spain to Antwerp Holland and he killed ten thousand Dutch reform Protestants left their bodies in the streets and then you had the Queen of France Catherine de Medici and about ten percent of France is Huguenot and they have a leader named Henry of Navarre and So the Queen Organizes a marriage of her daughter Margaret to the main Protestant leader Henry of Navarre in Paris a couple days after the wedding She has her soldiers pulled chains across the streets So the carriages cannot get out of town and she sends her soldiers house to house and they killed thirty thousand Protestant leaders it's called the same Bartholomew's Day massacre and So you have this situation in Europe of What are we supposed to do with Romans chapter 13? Let everyone be subject to the governing authority for there is no authority except that which God has established the author is Existence established by God, but what if the authority literally has a mandate to kill your wife and kids? Are you supposed to say okay? Here they are kill them and so in the so you had reformers protesting and they were nicknamed Protestants and One of them was John Calvin He says we are subject to the men who rule over us But subject only in the Lord if they command anything against him Let us not pay the lease regard to it and So this is like the scripture in the Bible children obey your parents But what if there's a bad parent who tells the kid to sell themselves into prostitution and kill the neighbor is the child Supposed to obey that parent No, the child obeys the parent as long as the parents telling them to do something that lines up with God's word So you obey the government as long as the government is telling you to do something that lines up with God's word Why would God tell you to do something in his word and then tell you to submit to a government that tells you not to do What he just got done telling you to do and So Martin Luther King, Jr.'s letter from the Birmingham Jail 1963 said one may well ask how can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others? The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws just and unjust He goes on when not one not only has a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws Conversely one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws How does one determine whether law is just or unjust a just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God So you have kings for most of world history and you got to believe the way the king does and then the Reformation starts and then you got a group of people saying wait a second if Samuel Rutherford wrote a book called Lex Rex Lex means law Rex means King and so the law is above the king and So when the king stops obeying God's law You don't have to obey the king anymore. And so the Calvinist period since developed a way for people to rule themselves without a king it's called the covenant form of government and Everybody has to be involved with it and they got their idea from ancient Israel that first 400 years out of Egypt before King saw First time in world history, but on 1400 BC Israel comes out of Egypt millions of people no king and It worked because the priests taught the law and so the covenant form of government is Where you get blessings from God you voluntarily share them with your neighbor because you're doing it as unto God You get rights from your creator You're fair to your neighbor because you're accountable to God who is not a respecter of persons and so Where did they get their idea? From that first 400 years out of Egypt before King saw it's the book of judges We don't really realize how unique that period of history is That there's millions of people and no king and it worked because everyone was taught the law and so it's this idea that You have an opportunity to steal nobody's around you know You can get away with it and then you think God is watching me. He wants me to be fair He's gonna hold me accountable in the future. Maybe I should hesitate stealing and it creates something in your head called the conscience If everybody in the country really believes this you can maintain complete order with no please and so that's what they had in ancient Israel and so it's called the Hebrew Republic and these Reformers these Puritan scholars looked to this and they were nicknamed Christian Hebraists James Harrington John Sadler whose sister Ann Sadler married John Harvard. That's why they taught Hebrew at Yale and Harvard So in a sense King Saul is the divider between England and America You're like King Saul didn't he live like thousands of years earlier, right? The kings of England looked to the Bible for their authority, but they looked to the anointed King Saul and on The Calvinist Puritans looked to the Bible for their authority, but they looked to the pre-King Saul period There's 400 years millions of people know King and so is the Calvinist Puritans that founded New England that turned into America Jesus says upon this rock I'll build my church the word he uses Ecclesia. Ech means out of cleasy means a calling They had 6,000 citizens in the Greek city of Athens They would call them out to their marketplace to deliberate to decide to get involved in fixing the walls in the Navy and teaching the kids There was no king to tell them what to do Who's the people that had to decide what to do and they all work together and Jesus chose that word? He's talking about his body Everybody has to be a part an eye and ear a foot and so in this Congregational model of church government the pastor's job is to teach everyone how to have their own personal Relationship with God the father through Jesus Christ that died on the cross to pay for their sins And then the pastor coaches each believer to become a mature Christian you get in the habit of reading through the Bible yourself You get in the habit of praying every day and then plug into the body and do something Because a nursery children's service junior high outreach because everything that's alive takes in and gives out For every muscle to grow it has to be exercised for you to grow as a Christian You don't just hear a good sermon you hear a good sermon and get filled with the Holy Spirit They put yourself in a position where there's a need and the Holy Spirit will use you to meet the need Right. We've all been there, right? You're around somebody and they're depressed or discouraged and you find yourself talking to them And you you are saying some really wise things That's like really ministering to them in the back of your mind thinking that's good stuff Well, it's not you it's the Holy Spirit speaking through you and the Holy Spirit knows exactly what that person needs to hear And he's right and and God blesses you with money and then he puts you in a position where there's somebody with the need Right, you can meet the need and so this for a form of government's called the congregational and The king didn't like it the king of England liked the hierarchical model of church government because he was at the top and My point my clicker in the right place. I don't know if it needs to wake up or something. Let's see here Okay, there we go. So the The attitude was no bishop. No king So this congregational model that turned into the Baptist that turned into the Congregationalists that turned into the Presbyterians and even turned into the Quaker It was that the only people that came to the church were the ones who were drawn there by the Holy Spirit and The churches were independent and there was no bishop and the king said no no We're gonna have the bishop's the word Episcopal means Bishop and so the king wanted the hierarchical structure Right. He's the head. He's got the Archbishop of Canterbury Archbishop of York and the deanries and vickers and curates and rectors And it's a clergy lady model the clergy does all the ministry and the lady is lazy and watches Versus the congregational model with a pastor's job is to train each one of you to do the work of the ministry and This is why I hated the co vid response so much because it was changing church structure Instead of getting the body together and the older lady sees the younger mom She looks a little Frazzled and says honey, what's wrong? And she's like all the kids and the finances and the husband and she's like let me pray for you and Then the older guys sees the younger guy. Hey, we're having a men's Bible study. Come on You know and ministry is taking place without the pastor having to organize it all Just by getting the body of Christ together just by everybody being taught that you're the body You're supposed to be involved in the work of the ministry and everybody fill with the Holy Spirit Fill with the word of God around somebody with the need water seeks its own level The Holy Spirit will draw you and you'll minister and it's ministry taking place Well the co vid response changed that to say we're not gonna do any meeting together You just go home and watch a good sermon Well, you can take in the best sermon in the world But you can't get what he had a witness to your pillow. It's like you take him, but you can't give out and So um, so the king of England did not like the congregational model of church government and so one of the stories is This the Baptist and they were brand-new started there were anti-baptists in Europe This was in England and there was Thomas Smith John hell wise Thomas hell wise John Merton and if you notice the name of that book says John Smith the Baptist Thomas hell wise first Baptist church in England and the underneath of that says with fresh light upon the pilgrims father's church the pilgrims with their pastor John Robinson branched off of this Baptist church Right. They were a Baptist church model, right? Everybody's involved We don't have any bishop the king's not telling us what to do. So They got arrested they got put in the Newgate prison Where they died and so John Merton who dies in the Newgate prison. They don't give you food in The English prison you have to have some friend that misses you and find out where's where's pastor Joey? I don't know and your friends would bring you food and They also didn't give you anything to write with Wasn't like, you know, Howard Johnson where they have the little postcards and pens and so His friend brings him a bottle of milk and instead of a court It had a wad of paper and when the guard wasn't around they he unfolded the paper It was John Merton He unfolds the paper takes a splinter dips it in milk and he writes out his pamphlets the milk dries It's clear and then he folds it up puts it in the empty bottle His friend takes it home and unfolds it and holds it above a candle and the heat of the candle turned the milk brown And they could read what he wrote. They types at it. They printed the pamphlets and the government's like How's he getting that out of the prison? Oh, and so the early Baptist called it the milk of the word because he's riding it in milk And one of the things John Merton wrote was no man ought to be persecuted for his religion Another thing he wrote the practices of Christ and his disciples teaches No such thing as compelling men by persecution and affliction to obey the gospel and So another Baptist founder Thomas Hellwise who dies in the Newgate prison. He writes The king is a mortal man and not God Therefore he has no power over the mortal soul of his subjects to make laws and ordinances for them to set spiritual lords over them For men's religion to God is betwixt God and themselves the king shall not answer for it Neither may the king be judged between God and men in other words if the government can stand there on the day of judgment and Answer for why you believed something fine believe whatever the government tells you But if the government's not going to be there on the day of judgment, you are accountable to God for your own conscience The kings didn't like that they wanted you to believe the way they tell you to believe and so King James says I will make them Conform themselves or I will harry them out of the land And so these separatists pilgrims that they flee to the Netherlands and after 12 years Spain threatens to attack and they flee to the New World. They were going to go to Jamestown and submit to the king's government They get blown off course land in Massachusetts They try sailing south but off the coast to Cape Cod. It's really shallow 3000 ships have sunk off the coast to Cape Cod And so the captain says too dangerous goes back to Plymouth, Iraq and says everyone off the boat and the people say we have a problem There's no king appointed person in our boat Who's gonna tell us what to do right and so they do something unique They give themselves the authority to start a government. It's called the Mayflower compact And it says we in you presence of God what? Covenant ourselves together into a civil body politic they take their church form of government everybody's covenant together and they make it their community form of government everybody works together and This was a polarity change in the flow of power on planet earth Instead of top-down ruled by kings and pharaohs and Caesars and Kaisers and sultans as ours Who ruled through fear and have really big armies it's ruled by we just 102 of us in this little boat We're all church members and we agree to submit to these laws and and so in the womb of the Mayflower is conceived the child the self-government and They got their idea from ancient Israel that first 400 years out of Egypt before King Saul It's a covenant It's the difference between a dead pyramid rule top down through fear and a living tree where every root and every tiny Capillary root sucks in nutrients to keep the thing alive. It's a bottom-up form of government Everybody's involved in church. Everybody's involved in the community and so instead of divine right of kings it's we the people and Pilgrim pastor John Robinson said we are knit together as a body In covenant of the Lord tied to care for each other's good So do you don't just get together in a prayer group and pray for each other you commit to each other you're like I'm there for you you can count on me and John Winthrop said this love of I'm Christians is a real thing necessary to the body of Christ We ought to account ourselves knit together by this bond of love. We must make one another's condition our own Rejoice together mourn together labor suffer together. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us and so Oz Guinness said Covenantal ideas in England were the lost cause But they became the winning cause in New England covenant shaped constitutionalism the American Constitution is a nationalized secularized form of Covenant Covenant lies behind Constitution and the word federal is Latin for covenant We have a covenant form of government that came from these New England pastors that came from the Reformation from the Bible what part of the Bible that first 400 years out of Egypt before King Saul And both Jeff and Shane were talking about ancient Israel being a model for us right? And so they literally drew from ancient Israel in setting up our government so the King turns up the heat and Now you have 20,000 Puritans flooding into New England in the Great Puritan migration and you have pastors and their churches setting up cities and You pastor John Lothrop in his church founded Bardstable, Massachusetts a pastor Roger Williams in his church found that Providence Rhode Island in the first Baptist Church in America Reverend John Wheelwright in his church found that Exeter, New Hampshire and Reverend Thomas Hooker in his church found that Hartford, Connecticut At this time you have Muslim Sultans Persian Kings and Indian Maharajas and Russian Zars and Chinese emperors and African chieftains and Kings of Spain France and Austria the whole world as kings and here in America you have pastors and their churches founding cities and Coming up with the laws for the cities, so let's look at Hartford Thomas Hooker in his church flee found Hartford and his church members come to him and ask him to preach a sermon on how They should set up their government and he gives a sermon in 1638 titled the foundation of authorities late firstly in the free Consent of the people this is reflected in our declaration government from the consent of the governed And this is different from Europe because the kings of Europe did not ask the people for their consent I've got an army you do what I tell you His sermon goes on the privilege of election belongs to the people. This is reflected in our Constitution. We the people and His sermon is written down. It becomes the fundamental orders of Connecticut and it's used as the Constitution of Connecticut from 1639 up until 1818 Connecticut's using the pastor sermon as their Constitution and So here is a plaque in England Thomas Hooker founder of the state of Connecticut father of American Democracy another plaque in England Thomas Hooker purits and clergymen reputed father of American Democracy and here is a statue of Thomas Hooker holds in a Bible on the Capitol grounds in Hartford at the base It says leading his people through the wilderness. He found that Hartford on this side He preached the sermon which inspired the fundamental orders. It was the first written Constitution that created a government Another plaque it says Thomas Hooker here Minister Thomas Hooker peerless leader in New England thought life in both church and state Another plaque Thomas Hooker the preacher statesmen Who based all civil authority on the free consent of the people? This was a big deal in world history that we don't appreciate until you realize that there's pharaohs and Caesars and Kaiser's Insulted desires just basically taking that sin and Nimrod and just magnifying it through technology And he one of them would have been happy to be the Antichrist and it's all top-down ruling through fear and here He comes up with the opposite. It's through the consent to the people. It's bottom up and then you have another plaque It says here priests that Thomas Hooker is famous sermon the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people and The representatives of the people adopt his sermon as the fundamental orders of Connecticut. What do they say? The people can join ourselves to be as one public state or Commonwealth. Who are the people? It's pastor Thomas Hooker and his church. You have a church group forming itself into a public state Very similar to the pilgrims 102 of them on the Mayflower and we covenant ourselves together into a civil body politic a church group Pruning itself into a political group America started as a church plan Now why did they do that to preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus? Which we now profess they picked the form of government that would best preserve the preaching of the gospel and Then another plaque lots of plaques this one says Thomas Hooker's congregation Established the form of government upon which the present Constitution of the United States is modeled. Do you grasp the significance of this? We have ancient Israel 400 years before King Saul and then this is the Hebrew Republic That was looked at by these reformers the Puritans the Calvinists that they turned into the government in New England Everybody's involved and this turns into our US Constitution And so in New England instead of separation of church and state it was the pastors and their churches that created the state How could you say pastor don't preach on politics when it's the pastor sermon? That's their Constitution How could you say church members don't get involved in politics when all there was in the city of Hartford was the church members? And so you the word polis is the Greek word for city Politics is simply the business of the city and all there was in the city Hartford was the church And so everybody's involved in church everybody's involved in the community. They have one building called the meeting house That's where the pastor would teach the Bible and that's where they would gather together and do their city business The word synagogue means meeting house. That's where the rabbi would teach the law And that's where they would gather together and do their city business And so when the Revolutionary War starts the British send over a military governor Thomas gauge and he outlaws meeting houses Democracies too prevalent in America. We don't need the people meeting and giving their consent to stuff You just obey government mandates if the government mandates it you jump you are a zombie you are a robot You do what you're told and America's rock look We have a century under our belt of us giving consent to stuff It doesn't happen unless we give consent to it And so we saw this top-down pushing against the bottom up and the bottom up people won and set up our country, right? And so the 1600s these Calvinist Puritans have a great plan Where we can rule ourselves without a king. It's called a covenant plan. Everybody has to agree to it Everybody has to be a part of it After a century it got a little dry and these Calvinist Puritans were nicknamed old lights It was a great plan, but to some it was only a plan and They said yeah, God's got a plan for your life marriage family church government find out what's in the plan put it into place Some took it to the extreme and said God already planned who's going to heaven who's going to hell So don't even bother sharing the gospel and it got a little dry And so David Brainerd got expelled from Yale because he said his professor was as spiritual as a chair They reprimanded the students of Yale because they went into the nearby town of New Haven and they were Presenting the gospel to strangers on the street. It's like no, no, no You only preach the gospel when you're wearing the black robe and you're in the church, right? They considered it as disrespectful to the gospel to just be sharing it on the street and and so these were the old lights and so in comes the new lights and These emphasized revival that it's more than a plan You have to have an experience with Jesus and when you do you're not going to do worldly things anymore You're not going to be involved in in unholy things like government So we have the old lights saying hey We got a covenant plan we can rule ourselves without a king But the new lights says no no it's not it's more than a plan it's a personal experience with Jesus But to some it's so personal. It's only personal and you're going to withdraw So let's look at where the pietus come from 1517 Martin Luther starts the Reformation because he had a personal Revelation that's a just shielded by faith very personal But so much so he was willing to stand up to the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor and say unless you can prove me wrong from scripture Here I stand so help me God very personal to Martin Luther, but some German princes want a break from Rome And they go this is my chance kingdom of mine. I just decided you are all now Lutherans The people in the kingdom are like, okay, okay, we're Lutheran. What do we believe so for the people in the kingdom? It's not the same personal revelation that Mark Luther had it's just a new state doctrine And so a revival movement starts called pietism That said being a christians more than doctrine you have to have an experience with Jesus And when you do your life will change and you won't do worldly things anymore like Like going to bars and brothels and lewd theater and get involved in worldly government This is where that thought came from that says we only preach the gospel We don't even get involved in politics I'm a little more spiritual than you are because I'm not involved in politics You're still getting involved in worldly stuff, you know and and I'm I've reached a new spiritual level And I'm more spiritual than you are and it's got that virtue signaling pride and and so there were actually German princes Right that donated money to the pietists so they would teach their people not to get involved in the princess business And so it turned into the German concept of the two kingdoms the kingdom of the church And the kingdom of the government and the two don't touch Four centuries of that in Germany allowed hitler to put Jews on train cars And they were going past the churches crying out for help when the church's response was well That's the government doing that and we're the church and we can't get involved in government stuff So let's just sing praise songs to Jesus louder Can anybody see there's something wrong with that picture? And so let's recap the puritan 1600s old lights. It was good They had a plan we could rule ourselves without a king bad. It was so planned focused It was only a plan and it became spiritually dry pietus 1700s called new lights Good a personal relationship with Jesus bad. It was so personal. It was only personal Now these pietus did spark revivals and these german lutheran pietus influenced Count Ludwig von Zinsendorf the meravians who went missionaries around the world and they influenced the Wesley's who influenced george wittfield to preach the great awakening revival. That was all great But the big question is why can't it be both? Right and so a covenant plan and a personal experience So we yes, we it's a personal experience with Jesus But you want to be involved in government so you can leave your kids a country where they can have a personal experience with Jesus Because if you don't get involved what they are teaching these kids will undermine their faith They're teaching that number one. There's no god, but if he does exist He is messed up and he's putting men and women's bodies and you have to have operations to fix it He is either unorganized or he's not powerful enough or worse yet He's sadistic and it's like they're teaching these and if that behavior sex outside of marriage is not sin Arguably there are no sins and if there's no sins you don't need to save you And so if you're not involved and they teach that stuff It's going to undermine the faith so your kids won't have a chance to have a personal experience with Jesus Now the most important thing is to bring people to christ But the second most important thing is to preserve the freedom to do the most important thing If you really believe the gospel is the answer you're going to be involved wanting to preserve the freedom to preach it And so I have a question For those that think they're being holy by not being involved. What do you do with numbers chapter 30? It's an obscure chapter in the bible half a dozen scenarios of where silence equals consent one If a daughter binds herself with a vow while living in her father's house in her youth And her father hears her vow and holds his peace Then all her vows shall stand But if her father over rules are on the day he hears then none of her vows shall stand and the lord will release her That's come down to us as vows in a wedding ceremony And the pastor tells the church members If you are silent when you hear these vows you are giving your consent to the vows right the uh If anyone president knows of any reason why this couple should not be joined together in holy matrimony speak now Or forever hold your peace if you're holding your peace you're giving your consent. It's called the rule of tacit admission It's in black law dictionary at admission reasonably inferrable from a party's failure to act or speak And it is uh in our constitution Article one section seven Congress passes the bill gives the bill to the president If any bill shall not be returned by the president within 10 days The same shall be law in like manner as if he had signed it All he has to do is set the bill on his desk and be silent and do nothing and the the law the constitution is It becomes law as if he had signed it just because he was silent And so if a church member silence gives consent to wedding vows it gives consent to other things And if they're killing babies in the community and the church members they're silent They're giving consent to killing babies And if you give consent to sin You share in the guilt of the sin as an accessory and you'll share in the judgment So leviticus 20 any israelite or foreigner residing in israel who sacrifices any of his children to molak is to be put to death If the members of the community close their eyes when that man sacrifices one of his children to molak I myself will set my face against him and his family will cut them off from their people together All you have to do is close your eyes when they do it and you're guilty And so in california they actually had a bill to kill a baby 28 days after birth And enough pastor says we can't be silent and black pastor is hispanic Asian white they all go to sacramental and they pressure him to change the wording of it and Then you have the apostle paul acts 22 And he's talking to the lord and when the blood of thy martyr steven was shed I also was standing by consenting to his death paul did not throw a stone paul did not say a word But he knew he was guilty for the death of steven by standing there silent while somebody else killed him Proverbs 24 rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death don't stand back and let them die Don't try to disclaim responsibility by saying you didn't know about it For god who knows all hearts knows yours and he knows you knew and he will repay everyone according to his deeds You know mordecai goes to ester and says there is a mandate from the government to kill the jews If you remain silent at this time deliverance for the jews will arise from another place But you and your father's family will perish And then you have an interesting numbers 20 Moses and erin are called to the door of the tabernacle And the lord spake to moses take the rod gather the assembly thou and erin speak to the rock And it shall give forth water And moses gathers the assembly lifts up his hand and with his rod he smote the rock twice And water came out abundantly end of the chapter Lord said to moses erin will not enter the land because both of you rebelled against my command at the waters of maraba It's like both erin didn't do anything erin didn't say anything Yeah, that's just it He heard god tell moses speak to the rocks only two people at the door of the tabernacle moses and erin He heard god tell moses speak to the rock when moses lifted up the rod the first time and hit the rock It probably took erin by surprise When moses lifted up the rod the second time erin knew what was coming And he was silent He didn't protest He didn't say moses hold it. I was there at the door. I heard god say speak to the rock. No, he was silent and in that instant erin was guilty moses was a sin of commission erin's was a sin of omission Leviticus five any person a person sins because he did not speak up Even though he was an eyewitness to a case or knew what happened anyone who failed to testify is guilty Uh martin Luther king jr. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he helps to perpetuate it He who accepts evil without protesting it Is really cooperating with it Now everyone knows this verse leviticus 1918 love your neighbor as yourself Do you know the verse right before it? Confront your neighbor directly so you will not be held guilty for their sin So in ancient israel, they're loving each other And they're correcting each other there was no police in ancient israel. It was up to the people to be the enforcement as well Until they tell you oh if your kids going through transition just love them just accept them No, you love your kid and you correct your kid Right, you don't let kids decide what to eat. They need candy all day long. You're the adult and uh And another translation says rebuke your neighbor directly And you will not incur guilt because of because of him in the new testament says of your brother sin rebuke him And so they have a woke tactic and it's to guilt trip christians into being more christian than christ If you're christian, you will be silent While we teach your kids the trans agenda. I have a question. Would jesus teach that agenda? Jesus taught he who made them in the beginning made a male and female these little boys and girls made in the image of god So they're trying to tell you if you are really christian you will be silent and give your consent to us teaching something that jesus would never teach Right, so if you're really christian you won't act like christ Yet jesus said if you cause one of these little ones who trusted me to fall into sin It will be better for you to be thrown to the sea with a large mill stoner on your neck So how can teachers who cannot even define what a woman is be capable of telling a boy? He's supposed to be a girl They don't even know what a girl is. How can they even define it? How can they tell what's going to happen? And so it's going to be rude awakening For church members who think they are beating spiritual by being silent and not involved when they realize by their silence They're giving consent to sin. They're inviting the judgment of god on their heads A scriptural case can be made that god cares about the children And proverbs 22 a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children And so the answer is local local local And god wants us to get involved if churches and can be concerned about what the children in and out of the womb Are being taught in their schools, right? Then the high races will take care of themselves if pastors and churches can just take responsibility for what's being taught I ran for congress three times. I raised millions of dollars. I could tell you all about it Most people they're like i'll never do that It's like But you drive by that school every day and there are more people in your church than vote in the school board election Just get a couple churches to agree on some mama bear and vote her in And then fill up the school board meeting early and give your support As power concentrates into fewer and fewer hands globally God's counterbalance is to get more and more people involved locally I was talking to pastor and shane and jeff over lunch and we were talking about you know the future I thought you know god knows the future But in a sense god knows all the possible futures And he tells you what they are And he even tells you how to choose and he lets you choose and he's smart enough to know how you're gonna choose So dude around me 28 god says okay We got a couple possible futures here If you harken to the voice of the lord your future you'll be blessed coming in blessed coming out head and not the tail Right here's another future if you do not harken to the voice of the lord The diseases of egypt will come upon you the stranger will come in amongst you and rise up above you and they'll be the head and you'll be the tail Jeremiah goes to the prophet zedekiah And says two possible futures you go out surrender to the king of bablon drusom will be spared You don't surrender to the king of bablon drusom will be burnt to the ground And I think as we're coming close to the end god's like okay If you get all excited you you do the work of the lord Then who knows he might put it off like he put it off for you know joseiah And if we harden our hearts that no way he's gonna say okay. We're gonna let this hit the fan quicker, you know I'm not an expert at that. I'll leave it to the to the scholars, but um, but here's a thought Maybe god is letting the evil be exposed To expose the condition of our hearts I mean think of it He's trying to see how much will be stomach how much will we put up with What will it take to get us to do something? And if we can be silent doing nothing just waiting for jesus to come and take us out of this mess Then by our silence we're giving consent to the sins of the city And the thought is uh, who do you think you're gonna meet when you're raptured jesus? Do you think he cares about the little children? Yeah Do you think he's gonna say why were you silent when these little children that I love made in my image were being mutilated? It's like let's do all we can while we're here let right let's occupy until he comes and um Jesus warned in the last days because evil shall abound the love of many will wax cold You know ezekiel was given a vision by the lord And he cried the lord cried caused them that have charge over the city to draw near behold six men came every man with a Destroying weapon in his hand And he called to the man clothed the linen who had the writer's ink on his side and the lord said to him Go through the midst of the city put a mark on the foreheads of those who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it And to the others he said go after him through the city and slay old and young But do not come near anyone on whom is the mark and begin at my sanctuary What's the difference between being slain and not does your heart sigh and cry over the abominations done in the city You know, I uh was listening to kim walker smith leads praise and worship and she uh has a Version of the song hosanna hosanna in the high is and she has the choir of little children in the background it's adorable and uh There's a refrain in there that says break my heart for what breaks yours Everything I am for the kingdom's cause. It's like do you think it breaks? Jesus's heart to see these little kids being taught these lies And then to have their body now there are there are detransitioners one of them recently testified before congress choley and uh she uh Said that she was just 15 years old and she was like confused going through your normal adolescent time of searching and that They basically walked her through a mastectomy and all these different operations and now she's older and she's like What did you do to me? Why didn't you stop me? There's another detransitioner this poor girl and she Has her phone out and she says I just shaved my head They told me I have male patterned baldness And my hair will never come back And I don't know what to say other than uh, this is what happens when a girl takes testosterone for five years by And then another girl said I rejected being a woman before I knew what a woman was It tears your heart and um And then there's the sound of freedom that Jim cavizel starred in and it Talks about america being the destination for the sex trafficking of these children And church members are silent waiting for jesus to come back I think god is like pulling the curtain back and letting us see satan for who he is I was talking to Jeff and shane and pastor and they were saying these different cities There are wickens that go down to the city parks and they're doing their hexes and spells and it's spreading and And it's like god is pulling back the curtain And you're seeing satan clubs on high school campuses satan worshiping grammy's satan trans designers for close for target It's like okay, it's wizard of odds. We're pulling back the curtain. You're gonna see the guy behind the curtain and at the same time Christians are getting true christians are getting bolder for jesus than ever before and jesus is manifesting himself and god's like We're coming to the end of this romance story and you got to make your choice God or the devil Right real clear. We're not going to hide around where you make your choice Here's the satan come out of the closet. There's god being bolder than ever before make your choice now And you know here's an interesting verse in the bible We read it a lot to times, but let's slow it down jesus asked the disciples who do men say that i am And some say Well, you're john the baptist some say you're a lied to some say you're a jeremiah or one of the prophets And of course peter says you're the christ, but let's look at his who is john the baptist He had guts to stand up to the corrupt king heron Who was elijah? He stood up to the corrupt king ahab Who is jeremiah? He stood up to the corrupt king zenikaya and they're mistaken jesus for this Jesus his first sermon ended with them wanting to push him off a cliff Another sermon ended with them picking up stones to stone him another sermon ends with people saying this is a difficult saying Who can bear it and they walk with him no more because they were wanting to have a free lunch with more multiplied loads of bread and fishes Jesus was invited to somebody's house for dinner And the Pharisee knows noticed he didn't wash his hands and jesus said you Pharisees are more concerned about the outside of the Helping out the inside you're like a sepulcher pretty outside as a gray but inside full of dead men's bones And the attorney says jesus by saying that you're insulting his lawyers Well, he said let me tell you about your lawyers you eat burdens on people too heavy to carry don't have to finger yourself You hold the keys of knowledge and don't go in and you don't lend anybody else go in He's laying into him and then the chapter ends and you wonder if they ever got around to eating dinner It's like no, I think they pushed him out on the street. This is our loving jesus to the prideful He was tough as nails To the humble he was his lovingness can be god resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of god and he will exalt you and um, you look at the the scriptures That's the sin of satan was pride He was prideful and and that we're humble says moses was the humblest guy on earth You fall on the rock and you're broken the rock falls on you and you're crushed You fall on your rock and you're broke. Well, that that means you voluntarily Repent you voluntarily say god. I'm a sinner Right and then he exalts you he lifts you up But if you're prideful when you come to the lord, guess what you're gonna meet the tough side of god And if this is the way jesus is maybe That's the way the the followers should be That's the way apostle paul was paul comes into a city Some people believe and they're healed and other ones want to stone him to death If jesus is on the inside of you and you come into a city or in a community you can expect the same reaction Some people are believe and they embrace and they're humble and others are pride and they're gonna hate you and want to kill you And if that doesn't happen And you can have go into a community in the outing community and and nobody's no maybe maybe jesus didn't come in with you I mean Let's look at peter Here is peter. He is around a fire with a group A girl gets in his face and says you are with jesus and you can just picture peter looking around the fire and everybody's eyeing him And he says i never met the guy It's like that's it peter you came so fast But after the resurrection peter is filled with the holy spirit and the sanhedrin says We told you never to speak in that name again And peter says it's we must obey god rather than men Suddenly peter doesn't care what people think about him You know i was thinking maybe one of the evidences of being filled with the holy spirit is standing up to corrupt government Be not afraid of their faces is what the lord told jeremiah. Some may say well i'm not gonna do anything but god knows my heart Right well. Yeah, but god knew abraham's heart But he wanted to see abraham be willing to take his son isaac to the top of mount mariah I mean imagine going to a guy watching football and you say hey When was the last time you told your wife you love her and it's like uh, I can't remember but she knows my heart It's like okay When was the last time you did anything to show your wife you love her uh, I can't remember but she knows my heart It's like dude. We need to have a little talk People say god knows my heart Yes, he does and he wants to hear some words out of your mouth and he wants to see some actions I think as we get closer to this last time these last ages the end of the age I think he's letting the evil show itself to see if we're gonna say something or do something And again, we're the pride of christ every romance novel builds up to a decision-making moment I had all the chick flicks. I used to say hallmark movies But I don't really watch those my anymore but other ones but but it builds up to this point And everybody's looking forward to this part of the movie and there's a what a forsaking of all others and choosing the one And as we get closer to the end times I think god is choosing his pride. He's like he said okay, and some people are gonna choose the all others They're gonna want to be liked and friended and followed and they don't want to be cancelled And they don't want to be blocked and they don't want to be not invited to some party in there And and because of their family and their relationships of whatever clique or group that they're in They're called they're gonna say uh, I'm just gonna shy away from jesus You know it says in the bible that says many believe on jesus but would not do so publicly Because they were afraid to be and put out of the synagogue for they love the praises of men more than the praise of god And jesus says how is it you care about the honor of men than than the rather than the honor of god So I think god is pushing the world as we get closer to this end times He's like, okay, we got to speed this up and he's pushing the world to a decision-making moment You know what a cell divides some stuff goes to the right some stuff goes to the left I think he's pushing us some people are gonna do evil And some people are gonna be silent in the face of the evil And others are gonna be like, you know, I tolerated something I didn't feel good about and then I stretched the rubber band and I tolerated something else I didn't feel good about but i'm sorry. I can't go with hysterectomies on eight-year-old girls because they went through a tomboy phase I'm sorry. I can't castrate a little boy because he played with the sister's dolls And you cut the rubber band and it snaps back and you get more excited about jesus than ever before So as we anticipate the lord's return, I don't think he wants us to sit there and wait wait wait I think he was out there to do all that we can Right For his glory Now I I loved shane's talking about time and everything and I put together a new book. It's called believe And it sort of presents the biggest picture And it's why did god make us any way? You know in 2003 they focused the powerful Hubble telescope on a spot in the sky where there was nothing Tiny spot the size of a grain of sand held between your fingers at arms length against the night sky Tiny spot nothing there After 11 days they developed the images in that spot Was 10 000 galaxies With hundreds of billions of stars in each galaxy It's called the Hubble ultra deep space field It's the furthest picture ever taken away from planet earth and this is the picture This is not an artist rendition This is the picture and every dot you see is a galaxy with hundreds of billions of stars And now with the james web telescope they can see it even clearer and you can see the red shift Light travels in waves with blue being the shortest fastest way red being the slowest longest way The red shift means you're seeing the slow part of it. You're seeing these galaxies moving away from us They've looked in other different directions. They now estimate the observable universe is 93 billion light years across and still expanding at the speed of light And the largest star they found is stevens and 2-18. It's a super gas giant It's so large if you were to place stevens and 2-18 in our solar system It would engulf the orbit of Saturn the sixth planet from the sun We're the third planet from the sun Could you imagine one single star that enormous? And god made it all and he made you Why would he make you what could you possibly offer a being that is that powerful? Nothing except maybe something What's a galaxy anyway? It's a bunch of rocks Hot rocks cold rocks vaporizer rocks molten rocks a rock cannot love you So at some time in eternity past god said been there done that I can make everything I would really like someone in my image that could love me Now it gets interesting because love by definition must be voluntary The moment it's forced it evaporates So in this context of everything god controls time matter space energy He intentionally created one tiny thing. He does not control your will Now he could control it if he wanted to But that would defeat the very reason he made us different than everything else He doesn't need your love. He's not incomplete in your love somehow completes him He doesn't need your love, but he wants it And the more you love someone the more you want that someone to love you back God loves you infinitely He has an infinite desire for you to love him back But he'll never force you because the moment he would force you to love him He himself would know he's forcing you to love him and he would know your response is not a love response And you're made in his image What's the most important thing in your life? Well somewhere near the top of the list. It's loving and being loved Could it be that that's important to god? Now god loves everything he created But the question is could what he created love him back In adamant things like galaxies can't love animals follow instincts I looked up the word angel in the king james bible. It appears 289 times Never once is the word love used in any verse to describe an angel's relationship with god The word angel means messenger and they deliver god's messages to Ezekiel and daniel and mary and and they deliver god's judgments in egypt and smite the the midi knights and they are Heavenly witnesses jesus has all confessed you before the angels. They rejoice when a sinner converts. They praise god They worship god they glorify god But they are not made in the image of god and jesus did not die on the cross for angels They are mighty beings. They are intelligent beings, but they were made for a purpose What purpose were you made for? We're not mighty. We're not very smart Why would god make us? Well, guess what the word love is used all throughout the bible to describe men and women's relationship with god Love the lord your god with all your heart so mind and strength Psalms 91 because he said his love upon me therefore i will deliver him jesus rose from the dead and said peter do you love me We are beings uniquely created with the ability to love god back But for love to be loved it must be voluntary Because if he were to force us to love him he himself would know he's forcing us to love him in our response Would not be a love response and so he'll never force us There's another thing How can god give us free will to love him with But still be in control of everything God created light And light is a photon which is a perpendicular wave in the electromagnetic field that travels at 186,000 miles per second And when god said let there be light he stretched out the electromagnetic spectrum all over the universe And visible lights one small part of the spectrum You got gamma rays and infrared rays and radio waves and he spread it all out stretched out the heavens But Einstein's theory of relativity Is the closer you can travel approaching the speed of light for you time would slow down And if you could travel the speed of light for you time would stand still God created light. He's faster than light. So for god time stands still We'll never comprehend that but there is a verse in the bible that says a day with the lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day Imagine experiencing one day as if it was a thousand years In other words, we are living in slow motion compared to god God exists in the ever present now I am that I am When you're in god's presence, you cannot think about the past you cannot think about the future You can't even think you just experience i'm in the presence of all power and all love and all beauty and all awesomeness And your response would be involuntary So for god to create our reality he had to create a little space time bubble where everything moves in slow motion compared to now Right and so out he creates this So we think of the speed of light as fast from god's point of view. It's slow In physics. It's called the speed of causality and it's the delay between cause and effect The fastest two points in the universe can communicate in a vacuum So it's like a yardstick to keep everything stepping a delay in effect because if there was no delay Everything would happen right now and the whole universe would shrink to an infinitesimally small spot is what the physicists say And and everything where everything happened now So for him to create our reality to he had to throw it stretch it out So it didn't all happen now and he created time. Now. Why is that important? We get to make our little free will decisions in time But he's outside of time so we can readjust every electron in the universe so that his will is going to take place So it's our limited free will in the context of his unlimited sovereign will You have gps on your phone. You make a wrong turn it recalculates What if the guy in the car next you is making a wrong turn and his is recalculating at the same time What if everybody in the city is making wrong turns and it's all recalculating What if everybody in the world is making right turns wrong turns But god's outside of time he can readjust every single electron in the universe So that his will is going to take place. So it's our limited free will in the context of his unlimited sovereign will And it works because he's outside of time So god created us as free will beings that can love him. He created time. So he's still in control. There's a third thing He has to hide himself because if he ever revealed himself to you In all of his universe creating omnipotent power brighter than a trillion trillion sons Your response if he didn't melt Would be like the apostle john the book of revelation. I fell at his feet is dead It would be an instantaneous involuntary response in the presence of all power and all awesomeness and all love and all beauty It would be in involuntary response And god's like I can do involuntary all eternity long. I'm interested in this voluntary thing So he has to hide himself people say if god's real, why doesn't he show himself? Because the moment he would show himself your free will is gone And the presence of all power and all beauty, right? So he has to hide himself and the same hiding of himself that allows us to have free will necessitates that we have faith I was thinking of a way of explaining it Imagine a billionaire has a son who goes to college and he flies in on his private jet Drives up in his Lamborghini. He's got Rolex watch gold rings fancy clothes He's going to have every girl on campus wanting to meet him But if he lays that aside and drives up in a clunker He's got holes in his jeans all the uppity girls are going to ignore him But then there's a girl that likes to study with him in the library And they eat together in the cafeteria and they become friends And she takes heat from the clique for hanging around this nobody guy, but she believes in him They fall in love they get engaged and then one day he says Hey, I want to take you back to meet my dad And you're like driving up to this castle mansion to state and the girl's like whoa, you didn't tell me about all this He knows that she loves him for him not because of all of his stuff If Jesus would have come to earth and all of his glory you'd have every political ladder climber I'm your friend. I'm your friend now. He was born in a manger says there's nothing in his countness that would make us want to desire him So god makes us as free will beings that can love him back He creates time so that he's still in control. He hides himself so that we have an opportunity to use our free will But there's a last thing he's just and he cannot help it He's just in mathematical equations. There's constants and variables The constant is god is just the variable who takes the judgment you are a substitute God is just he cannot change his nature Everything he makes is laws laws of planetary motion laws of gravity laws of physics laws of operating everything's laws And he has laws for human behavior and he can't change himself. He is a god of laws And by being just means he has to judge every sin Because if god does not judge a sin by default his silence would be giving consent to the sin Like in a wedding ceremony if you're silent you're giving consent And if god gives consent to one sin one time He denies his just nature. He denies himself. He ungod to himself. He's kicked out of heaven And he is not going to get kicked out of heaven and he is not going to deny himself And he is going to judge every sin so he could never be loved back Because even if he creates free will beings creates time So he's still in control hides himself so that we have an opportunity to use our free will But if we step out of line one time he has to judge us because if he doesn't judge our sin He's giving consent to our sin and he's denying himself and he can't deny himself so he could never be loved back Until he came up with a plan He actually had the plan before he created the first electron And the plan was his own son would become man And only as a man could god die on a cross to pay for our sins Charles Wesley wrote to him amazing love how could it be that thou my god should die for me So god is just and that he judges every sin But he's loving that he provided the land to take the judgment for the sin As shame was saying Abraham and Isaac going to the top of mont maryah Isaac says Father we have the wood for the sacrifice. We have the coals for the sacrifice But where's the sacrifice and Abraham says son god will provide himself a sacrifice And has a double meaning I'm trusting god will have the ram up in the bush, but the others god will provide himself Has the sacrifice and that's what happened jesus the second person of the trinity The only begotten son of god in the plan of redemption that was hidden from ages It was a hidden plan It says if the princes of this world had known they never would have crucified the lord of glory The apostle paul called the mystery of the gospel in this hidden plan God became man and took the judgment of a just god upon himself on the cross That we deserved he took that judgment in our place And you think okay, there's there's one jesus and there's billions of us And we've all sinned fallen short of the glory god. How how can that balance god's just it has to balance Jesus is divine and he experienced judgment in a dimension. We will never comprehend It says a day with the lord is as a thousand years jesus experienced that day on the cross as if it was a thousand years You know i've read through the book of revelation a thousand times still trying to figure it out But one thing seems clear It's god that is pouring out the vials of judgment in the book of revelation Lamb breaks the seal angel throws the center angel blows the trumpet. It's like why is that god's a just god He has to judge every sin he missed along the way So you can't get 10 000 years into eternity and say god there was a sin way back when and and you were silent Were you giving consent to sin? Is there a party this unjust we didn't know about? Uh, uh, it says the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever and the angels cry out righteous and true are your judgments Oh lord, nobody's gonna question for the rest of eternity that god judged sin But that's the final judgment. He won't do any more judging for the rest of eternity But in that sense jesus had the book of revelation judgment poured out on his head He took the judgment for every sin that everybody would ever do upon himself on the cross Experience it as if it was a thousand years That's why he was sweating drops of blood You know, I have a degree in accounting. So I like things that balance you take an eternal being jesus Who is innocent? suffering for a finite limited period of time It's equal to all of us finite limited beings who are guilty suffering for an eternal period of time Let me say that again an eternal being who is innocent suffering for a finite period of time It's equal to all of us finite beings who are guilty suffering for an eternal period of time infinity times finite equals finite times infinity An unlimited being suffering for a limited period of time is equal to all of us limited beings suffering for an unlimited period of time. Jesus literally suffered the equivalent of eternal damnation in all of our places. He is the only one who could have done it and out of love for the Father and out of love for you and me, he became the Lamb. He took the wrath of a just God upon himself on the cross. And then he rose from the dead to prove he was who he said he was. This way you and I can approach this universe creating omnipotent, all powerful and all just God without having to worry about being judged. The Lamb is His way to love you without having to judge you. That He can love you for the rest of eternity and you can freely love Him back for the rest of eternity without you ever have to worry about being judged because all the judgment you deserve went on the Lamb, His Son that He provided. And then Jesus rose from the dead to prove he was who he said he was. And then he fills you with the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. And then the Holy Spirit reaches out through you to share the love of God with a lost and dying world in the few days that we have left before Jesus' return. So instead of you doing good works hoping to earn brownie points with God, you're already accepted by God through faith in the blood of the Lamb and it's God through the power of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity reaching out through you, love the unlovable, close the naked, feed the hunger, rescue those unjustly sent into death. This is your time that you get to be a part of God, the eternal God of the universe loving you and using you. There's nothing more exciting than letting God use you to be a part of His plan. God bless you.