So happy 250th birthday. Yeah, praise the Lord.
You know, we're trying to put a special emphasis this morning on the whole thing because it only
happens 250 years and so we're going to have to wait for this to happen again.
But there's so many people who say this country was not founded on Judeo-Christian principles.
It was not founded as a Christian nation, etc.
Our universities are pushing that really, really hard.
So we thought, well, we're going to push back on that a little bit this morning.
Here is the first prayer of the Continental Congress, September 7th, 1774, at 9 a.m.
Oh, Lord, our Heavenly Father.
Sure doesn't sound like Islam, does it?
High and mighty King of kings and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers
on earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the kingdoms, empires,
and governments.
Look down in mercy.
We beseech thee on these, our American states, who have fled to thee, not from thee, to thee,
from the wrath of the oppressor and throne themselves on thy gracious protection, desiring
to be henceforth dependent only on thee.
To thee have they appealed for the righteousness of their cause.
To thee do they now look up for that countenance and support which thou alone canst give.
We'll jump down to the second paragraph.
Be thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the counsels of this honorable assembly.
This is the first Congress.
Asking for God's wisdom.
Enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation, that the scene of
blood may be speedily closed, that order, harmony, and peace may be effectually restored,
and truth and justice, religion and piety, prevail and flourish amongst the people.
Preserve the health of their bodies and vigor of their minds.
Shower down on them and the millions they here represent such temporal blessings as thou
seeest expedient for them in this world, and crown them with everlasting glory in
the world to come.
All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, thy Son, and our Saviour.
They founded this nation on the basis of Christianity and called for God to use it
and flow in it and flow through it.
And this nation has been a lighthouse to the world.
In fact, one little fact that, of course, the news media will never share.
We... I think Mary is the one who got the information from Robbie Dawkins.
He is a missionary to the Muslim world and that realm over there.
One of the things that was happening over there that we were not informed of,
that President Trump responded to was the Christians were in Iran and in that part
of the world were begging and asking for America to step in and stop it because
according to the numbers that the missionaries put out and Robbie put them online,
a minimum of 30,000 Christians in Iran have been killed in the last, I'll just say year,
I think it's less, it's like last six or eight months.
They were slaughtering them wholesale.
Minimum of 30,000, they have estimates up over 50,000 Christians
and they were begging for the United States to step in
because nobody else would do it.
See, that's America.
Of course, we get painted as dirt because, well, we have no business over there.
It's like a modern day crusade.
Somebody's got to go in and shut the thing down.
I mean, if we were being slaughtered in this country, wouldn't we pray
that someone come and rescue us?
So it's thank God for the Christian founding of this nation.
I want to touch something else real quick here.
We're showing during prayer.
I'm going to take the time to show it again.
It's a video by Paul Harvey that talks about the 56 signers of the Constitution
because we have usually a very flowered view of what happened to these people.
And I want to apply it in a very specific way.
Dale, by the way, has his new book out in the four-year Courageous Christianity
which goes right hand in hand with everything that we're going to talk about
or we're going to touch right now.
Mary said it in prayer, I'm going to say it again.
For anything good to take place, somebody has to sacrifice.
That's just the way this world runs.
It's the way it is.
For any good to come out of your family, somebody has got to sacrifice.
Typically mom and dad.
And when mom and dad are not willing to sacrifice, then one runs, they split.
Things happen.
For anything good to come out of the kingdom or for the kingdom on this earth,
God's looking at us to sacrifice.
That's a popular subject. Apparently you didn't know that.
Nobody's amenning.
The Bible emphasizes sacrificing for the kingdom of God
as a core aspect of discipleship.
So we can figure out of where disciples are not
by are we sacrificing for the kingdom.
This involves prioritizing God above personal comfort,
possessions, relationship, and even life itself.
In other words, you have to throw the syncristic world view out.
You can't be in syncretism and be sacrificing for the kingdom
because syncretism is just the opposite.
We prioritize our personal comfort, possessions, relationships,
and even life itself.
That's the priority in syncretism.
In the kingdom, we sacrifice these things,
often described as an offering of a living sacrifice,
denying self or giving up what hinders full commitment to Christ.
Jesus modeled the ultimate sacrifice.
Sacrificing for the kingdom isn't about earning salvation,
which is by grace through Christ once for all sacrifice,
but responding to what Jesus did with wholehearted devotions.
It may involve time, resources, relationships, comfort, or even reputation.
The New Testament frames this as joyful and worthwhile
because the kingdom's value far exceeds the cost of our sacrifices.
That's good.
This is a dated video, so if it looks a little bit older,
that's what the deal is.
Information is still absolutely relevant.
As you know, Paul Harvey is not with us anymore.
But he lays out, you know, we kind of look at the founders of this nation
and the people who signed that declaration in some kind of glorious, wonderful.
It was awesome for them to do that mindset.
We don't have a clue what was sacrificed to found this land,
if for no other reason, for the spread of gospel throughout the world,
for the saving of the rest of the Christians in Iran who haven't been killed yet.
Did you know that right now they are going door to day?
They is Islam, the Muslims, that military.
They are going to door to door in Nigeria, house to house,
finding the Christians, dragging them out,
and now their favorite thing is they are digging big holes
and either they kill them and drop them in the hole and bury them
or they have been burying them alive.
Pile them in the hole and cover them with dirt,
because they won't deny Christ.
And we are worried about tithing.
It kind of puts it in perspective, doesn't it?
Watch this video, this is really good.
Americans the how and the why of our beloved Republic
are so much better known and understood than the who.
The United States of America was born in 1776,
but it was conceived 169 years before that.
The earliest settlers had watered the new world with much sweat.
They had built substantial holdings for themselves, for their families,
and when the time came to separate themselves from a tyranny and ocean away,
at best it meant starting all over again after the ravages of war.
Researching what you are about to hear
gave a whole new dimension to my reverence for our nation's first citizens.
All others of the world's revolutions before and since
were initiated by men who had nothing to lose.
Nothing to lose.
Our founders had everything to lose.
And nothing to gain.
Except one thing.
Hello Americans, I'm Paul Harvey.
You remember the cherry tree fiction,
a long time after you have forgotten the more earth-shaking history-making episodes
in the life of George Washington.
You have misplaced in your memory the details of Ben Franklin's statesmanship,
but you remember his flying a kite.
Joyce Kilmer was a great military hero.
But the only thing you personally recall about him is his poetic tribute to trees.
Maybe of this current decade that which will be remembered best
will not be its wars and its moon rockets or its crumbling frontiers
or the giants who lived and died.
Maybe all that will survive to linger in the day-by-day vocabulary
of generations yet unborn may be the...
the songs of a Memphis minstrel or the reincarnation of electric automobiles.
But for any eve of the 4th of July,
I, Paul Harvey, do herewith bequeath unto you something to remember.
You may not be able to quote one line from the Declaration of Independence at this moment.
Henceforth, you'll always be able to quote at least one line.
It's in the last paragraph where you will recall when I remind you
it says we mutually pledged to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
In the Pennsylvania State House that's now called Independence Hall in Philadelphia,
the best men from each of the colonies sat down together.
This was a very fortunate hour in our nation's history.
One of those rare occasions in the lives of men when we had greatness to spare.
These were men of means, well educated, 24 were lawyers and jurists.
Nine were farmers, owners of large plantations.
On June 11, a committee sat down to draw up a Declaration of Independence
where we were going to tell the British Fatherland no more rule by red coats.
Below the dam, a ruthless foreign rule, a stream of freedom was running shallow and muddy.
And we were going to like a fuse to dynamite that dam.
This pact, as Burke later put it, was a partnership between the living and the dead and the yet unborn.
There was no bigotry, there was no demagoguery in this group, all had shared hardships.
Jefferson finished a draft of the document in 17 days.
Congress adopted it in July in so much as familiar history.
But now, King George III had denounced all rebels in America as traitors,
punishment for treason was hanging.
The names now so familiar to you from the several signatures on that Declaration of Independence,
the names were kept secret for six months,
for each knew the full meaning of that magnificent last paragraph
in which his signature pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor.
Fifty-six men placed their names beneath that pledge.
Fifty-six men knew when they signed that they were risking everything.
They knew if they won this fight, the best they could expect would be years of hardship and a struggling nation.
And if they lost, they'd face a hangman's rope.
But they signed the pledge.
And here is the documented fate of that Gallant Fifty-six.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, wealthy planter, trader,
saw his ships swept from the seas to pay his debts.
He lost his home and all of his properties and died in rags.
Thomas Lynch Jr., who signed that pledge,
was a third-generation rice grower, aristocrat,
large plantation owner after he signed his health failed,
his wife and he set out for France to regain his failing health.
Their ship never got to France, was never heard from again.
Thomas McKean of Delaware was so harassed by the enemy
that he was forced to move his family five times in five months.
He served in Congress without pay, his family in poverty and in hiding.
Vandals looted the properties of Ellery and Clymer and Hall and Gwinnett and Walton and Hayward
and Rutledge and Middleton.
Thomas Nelson Jr. of Virginia raised $2 million on his own signature
to provision our allies, the French fleet.
After the war, he personally paid back the loans, wiped out his entire estate
and he was never reimbursed by his government.
In the final battle for Yorktown, he, Nelson, urged General Washington
to fire on his Nelson's own home, which was occupied by Cornwallis.
It was destroyed.
Thomas Nelson Jr. had pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor.
The Hessians seized the home of Francis Hopkinson of New Jersey.
Francis Lewis had his home and everything destroyed, his wife imprisoned.
She died within a few months.
Richard Stockton, who signed that declaration, was captured and mistreated.
His health broken to the extent that he died at 51, his estate was pillaged.
Thomas Hayward Jr. was captured when Charleston fell.
John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside while she was dying.
Their 13 children fled in all directions for their lives.
His fields and grist mill were laid waste.
For more than a year, he lived in forests and caves and returned home after the war
to find his wife dead, his children gone, his properties gone.
And he died a few weeks later of exhaustion and a broken heart.
Lewis Morris saw his land destroyed, his family scattered.
Philip Livingston died within a few months from the hardships of the war.
John Hancock, history remembers best due to a quirk of fate rather than anything he stood for.
That great sweeping signature attesting to his vanity. Towers over the others.
One of the wealthiest men in New England.
And yet he stood outside Boston one terrible night of the war.
And he said,
Burn Boston, though it makes John Hancock a beggar, if the public good requires it.
So he too lived up to the pledge.
Of the 56, few were long to survive.
Five were captured by the British and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes from Rhode Island to Charleston.
Sacked, looted, occupied by the enemy or burned.
Two lost their sons in the army.
One had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 died in the war from its hardships or from its more merciful bullets.
I don't know what impression you had had of the men who met that summer in Philadelphia.
But I think it's important that we remember this about them.
They were not poor men.
They were not wild-eyed pirates.
These were men of means.
They were rich men, most of them.
And had enjoyed much ease and luxury in their personal living.
Not hungry men.
Certainly not terrorists.
Not irresponsible, malcontents.
Not fanatical incendiaries.
These men were prosperous men.
Wealthy landowners.
They were substantially secure in their prosperity.
They had everything to lose.
But they considered liberty, and this is as much as I shall say of it.
They had learned that liberty is so much more important than security.
That they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
And they fulfilled their pledge.
And they paid the price.
And freedom was born.
I pray the trend in the youngest generation continues to grow.
And return back to some realms of patriotism.
Because we had a slump for a number of years in this country.
And we have a whole group of people.
I won't put ages to it.
But they're not the old people, and they're not the youngest people.
They fit in between some place.
Where even the Christians want nothing to do with making sure this country stays a godly nation.
It's like it's beneath them spiritually.
I'm too spiritual to get involved in that stupidity.
And what we don't realize, those people, through their blood and their sacrifice,
made it possible for us to have the spiritual freedom we have.
And without it, we wouldn't have it.
And if we don't cherish it, we will lose it.
Islam is actively after this nation right now.
And in numerous places, it's already flexed its muscles.
And this isn't going to end well if we don't take serious the reason they laid it all down.
And be willing to support that.
So how many of you...
Most of us, I think, no Dale.
How many of you have never heard of Dale Worthington?
Anybody?
Oh, there's a few of you.
Okay. Well, let me briefly introduce him.
Dale and Sue have become good friends.
And he is one of the chaplains to the state capital in St. Paul.
And has worked there for years and years trying to keep the Christian influence there.
We've partnered with them for Restore Minnesota,
which again is trying to restore godly values and righteousness back to this state,
which is so desperately needed.
And he is continually...
He just came back from numerous places where now this Restore Minnesota
and the principles of it are spreading in this nation.
So it's an honor to not only have him.
He's kind of... he comes here often enough.
He runs the cat team here.
I would talk about Todd and Deeta a bit, but they're not here.
So, well, snooze you lose.
But he comes often and is laboring hard with he and his wife to get things done.
And you know what? There was 56 men who signed the Constitution.
There were 56 families, many wives who paid the price with the men.
You can't be in the ministry and the wife gets off scot-free.
She's in the ministry too.
And you can't put your name to things and stand for God
and the wife gets off scot-free.
So thank you, Sue, for supporting him.
Dale, come.
We're going to let you take us someplace this morning.
How's that?
I got the inside button. I always say, you know, so I got one of the two.
It's great to see you. It's great to be with you.
Mama Sally, it's awfully good to see you.
Ken, yeah.
You knew I had to do that.
To those of you who are online, welcome.
Why do those 56 men do that?
Why would they, with all of their comfort, with all of their wealth,
with all of their security, why were they willing to do that?
That's what we're going to talk a little bit about today.
Yes, it's our 250th.
If you were not aware of that, you've been under a rock for about, you know, 10 months.
I mean, everything for this last year has been preparing us for what happened yesterday.
I'm not talking about the storm,
but about the celebration of America's 250th birthday.
Few nations in the history of the world last 250 years,
particularly under the same constitution.
Our constitution is the longest living constitution in history and that concurrently.
There's something significant about that.
There's something significant about why those 56 put everything on the line.
And that's kind of what I've been asked to give us a little bit about,
so we can talk about celebrating America.
That's a little bit different idea than what we've been dealing with for about the last six years.
In fact, some of you here, some of you online, might be,
I want to celebrate this thing?
Pastor Vern mentioned that soon I've been doing some traveling.
It has been, it's been weird for us.
I mean, because we're never gone outside of Minnesota
as much as we have been gone over the last two months or so.
Been to Washington D.C. twice, meeting with some certain key people while we're in D.C.
Then we were at a conference that we got to share at in Ohio.
We were in South Dakota speaking to some groups throughout South Dakota.
This last week, Friday morning, we got home.
But we were gone from last...
After I preached down in New Preg, you know, a couple hours from here,
after I preached in New Preg last Sunday, we got on a plane.
We were in Tennessee all week.
And doing exactly what Pastor Vern was talking about.
That is people in different pockets of the country are starting to get awakened to the idea
that it's us, it's us, the church.
It's the body of Christ that needs to wake up out of complacency
and then take that and go into action mode
based on the gospel, not just based on human emotion
or some sort of human drive.
But what's a gospel?
What I want to be able to demonstrate to you today
is because of the gospel, those 56 men signed that document.
It's because of the gospel.
It wasn't because of politics.
No, that's right.
Now, you're saying, yep, and I'm hearing the...
What documentation do we have?
Because we probably need to look at that a little bit.
What led to them bringing in Pastor Jacob Duchet
to pray that prayer?
I remember when former Senator Dan Hall,
while he was Senator from Burnsville,
here in our Minnesota State Capitol,
opened up on the opening day of legislation.
He was asked to give the opening prayer
and he said, instead of me just praying,
I'm going to read the first official prayer
and he read that whole prayer.
He closed it off just as it says
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior, amen.
And as soon as he did that,
pandemonium from the president's podium
and from a particular senator sitting right there,
because I was there,
jumped up and it all broke loose
because he dared name the name Jesus Christ
in our State House.
Now, enough of you have heard us
give lots of presentations here
on that particular issue.
I'm not going to go into detail about that,
but here's one thing that is very intriguing to me
and that is, as Sue and I were with
a number of people in those three states I mentioned
outside of D.C., but when we were in Ohio,
South Dakota and in Tennessee.
If you know anything about those states,
one of the key questions people from those states asked is
what are we doing bringing in somebody from Minnesota
to talk to us?
Would you have a question?
And it was because, for a number of reasons,
but we got a presentation on the three W's
being worshipers, watchmen and warriors.
And primarily it was the watchmen piece
that they were asking about
because, for instance, Tennessee right now
they're only about 15 years behind Minnesota.
And they needed to hear that Pastor Vernon was talking about
the Islamic influence here in Minnesota,
the Islamic Republic takeover of Minnesota
and it's not just Islam, it's communism.
It's called the red-green-blue axis.
We just don't have time to go into it.
It's communism, Islam and globalism.
And here's what I discovered while we're traveling
in places like the free state of South Dakota.
And why they're asking the question,
why would we bring somebody from Minnesota into South Dakota?
They're not under the same religious cloud
of oppression that we are here in Minnesota.
You've heard my wife give her a talk on identity
and she talks about an encounter with God that she had
and this religious cloud of oppression, the spiritual cloud.
I experienced what she was talking about
because while in all of those states
I would get every now and again, I would check
what was going on back here in Minnesota
and I'd go to some of the primary sources
like the Star and Sickle.
Some of you know it as the Star Tribune.
Every article, every article on the front page
was about something negative, something wrong, something bad
and I started going back saying,
when is the last time, when is the last time
there has been anything on the front page
that would give any sense of encouragement or lifting up
and what continues to happen as we continue
to read that stuff if you do
or as you continue to plug into mainstream media
if you do, you need to know
that you are being programmed to be held down
and it's obvious when you're not here
when you're in another state in this United States
that's not doing that.
So the question would be why here?
Well anybody who's ever seen the book
Minnesota The Revival State from 1860 to 1960
understands that Minnesota is meant to lead
the revival that Pastor Verne is talking about.
It's supposed to come down through Canada
just over the border from northern Minnesota
and it's supposed to feed the rest of the nation
so we are the primary target in many ways
of our spiritual enemy who's got a grip
on this state for a while.
I mean this state held the headquarters
for the American Communist Party
up in the Iron Range for years.
Now look, this is not political.
This is spiritual. Some of you are saying
I thought I came to church this morning.
Welcome to church!
This is not political because the heart
of communism is atheism
as we would call God.
In fact, I would call it replacement God
because for communism God is government
and government will dictate everything
about your life.
They'll tell you where you go to school
if you get to go to school.
It will dictate where you live.
It will dictate where you even get a car
and if you get a car, you might wait for 10 years
after you put your down payment before you get your car.
They'll tell you virtually everything about your life
and how do we know some of that?
All right, I'm going to say
a really naughty word right now.
FIFA.
Now some of you...
World Cup soccer.
All of you know I played football and baseball.
Soccer was not my thing.
I want to say soccer is not even a sport.
That's not good.
It's the world's number one sport.
And I've got to support it now
because my granddaughter is playing
and she's really good.
So for me it wasn't a sport
because that's something...
I can't even call them two left feet
because some people can play with left feet.
But the whole world is coming to the United States
and guess what the world is saying
about the United States?
That, what you see on the screen,
they're saying we had no idea.
This isn't what we were taught in our countries.
We were taught about this about America
and that about America and this about...
and then they come here and say, that's not true at all.
They're saying, my God,
I'm going to the grocery stores.
I've never seen so much food.
I've never seen so many aisles.
Gasoline stations where gas is under $7 a gallon.
You can go from state to state
and nobody asks questions about it.
Yeah.
The country is beautiful.
And then you've got freedom here that we don't have.
And the world is discovering
what many of us have forgotten.
Yeah.
And many of us tend to take for granted
and then we live under this cloud
of all the information of how bad it is,
how bad we are.
And we've got to apologize for this
and apologize for that.
Look,
if you think I'm ever going to apologize
for the color of my skin,
that would be like slapping God in the face
because it's his mistake.
And if our friend Kendall Qualls was here
or Christopher Brooks, who lives in Isanti,
or other men of color, Dominique Sims,
some of you don't even know Dominique.
We were with Dominique yesterday.
Black men love the Lord.
Did God make a mistake because they're black?
No.
So we've got to be careful what we buy into, folks.
Okay, I probably should get moving on
because I haven't gotten into my presentation yet.
Vern told me I had to be done by 4.30.
Pastor Igor says,
but my kids eat a lot earlier than that
so I'll get moving with her, ain't it?
The Ukrainian Jesus.
I see this a lot of Igor and Tanya.
It's so much fun right now.
I have the mic and he doesn't.
Okay.
When in the course of human events
it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with another
and to assume among the powers of the earth
the separate and equal station
to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them
a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
requires that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths
truths
we hold these truths
to be self-evident
as my friend, former congresswoman from Ohio, Bobby Kuhn says
or as any idiot would understand.
That's how he describes it.
All men are created equal
and all are endowed by their Creator.
Not the government.
All men.
See it wasn't just about America
it was a statement about all men, all women everywhere.
That's the key unique driving force
of the Declaration of Independence.
It was the first historical document
that gave recognition
that every human being on the planet
is endowed by our Creator
with certain unalienable rights
and among those, not exclusive all of them
but among those are life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness
and that governments are instituted among men
to secure those rights.
Deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed.
Yeah, I know it's correct. I just read it.
Yeah, I'm just kidding.
Yeah, just kidding.
So, where did this come from?
What drove this?
Who instigated this whole pursuit
for independence, for freedom?
And guys, I don't know if you can put this
on the screen back there.
Oh, there you go. Thank you.
That way I don't have to just keep
flipping my head around, but that helps me too.
Thanks.
But who instigated?
Who started this whole thing?
How did this happen?
Well, it started by pastors in the church.
The United States of America
was founded by Christ-centered pastors
and their congregations.
And it was what they taught those men
who showed up in Philadelphia.
It's the study that those men did
under those pastors and under the universities
like Harvard, which was a Christ-centered
university at the time,
Yale, which was a Christ-centered
university at the time.
It's what they learned about the scriptures
that caused them to move forward here.
So here's a little history just real quick.
And I'm just bullet points.
1215, we get this document called
the Magna Carta.
What was the Magna Carta?
The Magna Carta was the leaders in England
pulling the king together in a little
roundtable discussion and looking him
in the eyes and saying,
you only rule us because we let you.
You don't have a divine right
from God.
You don't get to be our tyrant.
You don't get to be our oppressor.
You don't get to be the one who gives
laws or be the one who determines
which laws we all have to follow.
We stop that now.
This is a bold move in history.
That had never happened because every king
in history thought that they had the right
to, here's what the law is.
I'm the final say on the law.
You will follow me or you die.
And all these leaders in England came together
and said, it stops here, stops now.
That's Dale's short version of the Magna Carta.
Which then, let's jump forward,
because even in watching Paul Harvey,
when he said 1776,
when he said it goes back 169 years ago,
what's he referring to?
He's referring to Reverend Robert Hunt
and landing at Cape Henry in 1607.
We don't have time to go in all this,
but we've spent a lot of time
in other times I've been here
talking about the event.
But what happened in that event?
When they came across,
what was the first thing they did
when they finally landed
after a really tough trip?
They did not plant the flag of England.
They planted a cross at Cape Henry.
And that cross is now still there under concrete
because the wooden crosses kept getting destroyed
so they have to keep putting a new one.
But the key event, the very first thing that happened
when the first people came from England
is they hit their knees on the shore.
They planted a cross
and they prayed a prayer of dedication and covenant
saying that we are completely dedicating this land
to the Lordship of Jesus.
We are making a covenant with God in heaven
that we will be the ones to take his gospel
of Jesus Christ to all of the inhabitants of this land
and when others come here,
we are going to tell them
you're going to buy into that
by not only taking the gospel to all of this land
and remember, they're in Cape Henry.
They had no idea how far north or south it went.
They had no idea how far west it went.
They had no clue.
But they did say that this new land,
here's our covenant with God.
This new land would be the central place
in the world along with England at the time
to take the gospel to the whole world.
That was the dedication that started this nation
in 1607.
That led to when the pilgrims came over
in 1620 on the Mayflower
and they were heading to Virginia
and they got off course
because of the time of year they came
because of the currents and all that.
And they only missed Virginia by something like 600 miles
just slightly.
And they ended up at Plymouth Rock.
They're up in Massachusetts.
But before they get off the boat,
they create a document under Governor William Bradford
who, when he was a teenager,
he was the one who screwed the mansion
who was protecting those who were studying the Bible
illegally because it wasn't the official King James.
And so King James was that.
So he'd be hiding to let them know
if the King's men were coming.
Now he's grown up.
He's an adult.
He'd been raised under John Robinson
when they were in the Netherlands.
They get over here to the United States
and he says before we get off the boat,
we're gonna form this Mayflower compact
and in the Mayflower compact it says
we are forming a civil body politic.
We're forming a government.
And this government is meant to bring glory to God,
honor the King,
and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's what the Mayflower compact...
I know I'm shouting.
I just get excited.
This stuff pumps me up.
I don't know if it pumps you up.
If nothing else, you will leave awake today.
But that's the Mayflower compact.
Mayflower compact was to acknowledge
the centrality of Jesus Christ
for this nation and our politics,
our government.
And many of you,
and I saw enough hands go up
that you need to understand
when we talk about politics in church.
And I know politics comes from the Latin.
Polly meaning many
and tics meaning blood-sucking insects.
We get that.
But what it really is supposed to mean
is effective governance.
So God created government
and politics is effectively doing government.
Unless you're in Minnesota.
No.
Where we've got to fight for that to happen again.
I'm going to get to that.
I just gave you a precursor
of where we're going.
Now, the Articles of Confederation
with John Winthrop,
when he came across on the Arabella in 1643,
I'm going to get to that
a little bit more in detail here shortly.
But it was when those folks in New England
started to put in the colonies and grow,
it was the clergy of New England.
It keeps going off and on that screen up there.
Just letting you guys know.
So as a clergy of New England
that instigated this whole pursuit for freedom
throughout and they did it more than 100 years
before the War for Independence.
What you think about that?
The messaging for freedom.
The messaging for not necessarily separation
but the idea of the royal charters.
The concept that the king signed off on
was the experiment in self-government
not just being under a crown over there
but we're going to regulate ourselves
and we're going to do it under scriptural terms.
Because they're not doing it over there.
And when they're over there
it wasn't just England, it was anywhere in Europe.
Because there was this combination
of the church and the government
that was a very unholy alliance
and we were not going to create something like that.
They were going to create something new.
But the pastors were setting this
more than 100 years before the War for Independence.
Four of the most influential thought leaders
four of the six most influential thought leaders
in that era from 100 years before
all the way up to the founding era
four of them were pastors.
They were preachers.
They actually used the Bible
to speak to cultural issues.
Can you imagine that?
See you can.
You've got a pastor who's got guts to do that.
I don't say, yeah, two of them.
Three of them?
Okay, Pastor Mary, yep.
Okay.
Why do I say it took guts?
Because in today's climate
over 86% of the pastors in the United States
will not teach their congregations
what the Bible says about cultural issues.
Because they're afraid they're going to offend somebody.
They're afraid of what check is going to walk out the door
because they're going to offend some Republican
or some Democrat for speaking biblical truth.
Let them leave.
You don't sacrifice truth for emotional response.
And you certainly don't do it
because you have more fear of your church board
than you have fear of the Lord.
That is a dilemma in the United States today.
See, that's part of the problem that we had
while we were this week in Tennessee.
Tennessee has been so...
it's not just in the Bible Belt.
It's the buckle.
I mean, when you think of Tennessee, right?
Here's what happens, though.
You get really complacent as a Christian.
It's always been Christian.
So it always will be Christian.
And don't look at the fact that the same
communists in Islamist jihadists
who've taken over Minnesota
are now taking over Chattanooga,
Memphis, Knoxville and Nashville.
Don't look at the fact that they're taking over Texas.
So we got to understand
we are in a war spiritually
and it's a war of ideologies.
What's the primary ideology?
Is Christ Lord or is he not?
That's the ideology.
We're not going to go pick into each one
of the individual ideologies
in which each one pushes
because of all the major ideologies
and they all hate each other.
The one thing they unify on is
the friend of my friend...
The friend of my friend is...
Anyway, if I hate him,
they hate him, we're friends.
I don't know why I can't remember this.
That's the first time I've stumbled on that one.
I can't remember why I did that.
Anyway, but that's what's going on in the country.
That's what's going on in Minnesota.
That's the spiritual nature of our battle.
Who are these six?
Reverend Thomas Hooker,
Reverend Roger Williams,
John Wise, Jonathan Mayhew,
Richard Bland and Benjamin Franklin.
Hooker is from Connecticut
and he based a lot of this.
He wrote the Constitution for Connecticut
and everything he did came from
reading the gospel, from studying scriptures.
Roger Williams, Rhode Island,
and he was famous...
I just don't have time to go in all six of these.
At some point, maybe we'll do a whole workshop
on something like this.
John Wise, pastor in Massachusetts.
I'll show you Massachusetts.
Mayhew was up in Massachusetts.
Richard Bland was a statesman in Virginia,
cousin to Thomas Jefferson.
The guy wrote brilliantly and again
what drove his writing as a statesman
was the scriptures.
And then Benjamin Franklin.
Anybody seen the movie Great Awakening yet?
A few of you have.
I'd recommend you go see it.
It's a very well done movie
on preacher George Whitfield
coming from England a number of times.
Coming into America being a big part
of the Great Awakening
because Great Awakening starts with prayer
and Bible study
and proclaiming the gospel.
And when people wake up
and the Lord gets a hold of their lives
things change.
And they change culturally.
And Benjamin Franklin
was at the heart of that.
In fact, a lot of people don't even know
that Benjamin Franklin started a Christian college
because he's supposed to be our big deist.
Yeah.
Right?
So what these guys all had together
what they contributed together
here are at least six things
and you can probably see any better than I can
because I've got this big light
that is shining right in my eyes.
So let me get to where I can...
So you got government by consent of the governed.
You've got religious liberty
and the liberty of conscience.
You've got biblical limits on civil rulers.
You've got a blank screen again.
Um...
Okay.
You've got constitutional government grounded in law
rather than on arbitrary power.
You've got practical statesmanship, diplomacy
and national unity.
You know, we had pretty good national unity
up until 2008.
I'm going to stop on that one right there
because we don't have time for that
but you can imagine where I'm going.
I mean, what changed in 2008?
A conviction that liberty requires
virtue, morality
and accountability under a higher law.
That's when we look at
among these rights are life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness.
If you don't understand
how they were speaking back then
you don't understand that the pursuit of happiness
has absolutely nothing to do
with what you do to increase your holdings
your assets, your checkbook.
Amen.
The focal point of pursuit of happiness
is based on what Jesus calls
here's what makes a person happy
read the sermon on the mount
start in Matthew chapter 5
where it says happy are those
who
and none of it has to do with your checkbook.
Now, I
don't want to jump on the other side of the ditch
I pray to God
that he will prosper all of you mightily
there's nothing scriptually against that
I wish that every one of you
were millionaires and multi...
I wish all of you worked for Elon Musk
because
if you did you'd all be multi-millionaires right now
even if you're the janitor
I want you to hear
the duplicity of the left
the duplicity of the left is
the people at the top make way too much money
so we have to raise minimum wage laws
so everybody gets paid fair
and you got to take money from the rich guy
to give it to the poor guy
and eventually we can all be poor together
because poor people can't help poor people
right
and Elon Musk just blew their argument out of the water
and because they said
he just became the first trillionaire
we can never let another guy become a trillionaire
he did it by creating hundreds
of multi-millionaires
isn't that what you guys have been asking for?
yeah
but they don't want to go there because
it proves our point
I wish I had time
okay, John Wise
John Wise became known
as the father of democracy
some of the principles that we get from John Wise
is taxation
without representation
is tyranny
now for those of you who would read through
the whole Declaration of Independence
you'll discover that the whole idea of taxation
without representation is like
item number 17
out of 27 or 28
specific offenses
I mean if you
you want to get offended
read what offended these guys
read what the king did
and for Wise, now again
this guy is living 100 years before
he's back in 1687
and he's talking about taxation without representation
is tyranny
we live in Minnesota
taxation with representation is tyranny
which just means
we've got to get righteous people in the office
so we can fix this
Proverbs 29, 2
when the righteous rule the people rejoice
when the wicked rule the people groan
when righteous people are in office
they won't steal your money
Consent of the govern
is the basis of biblical government
John Wise
100 years before
where did he get that?
you ever heard of an old testament guy named Saul
when Israel said we want a king
and Samuel says you don't want a king
yeah we want a king
and they go to God and say God
we're removing you from being king
because we want a human king
like everybody else
we want to be like everybody else
how stupid is that?
how many parents are in the room
and how many of you love it when your kids say
everybody else has one of those
well good for them
I'm happy for them
and in our day
I think it was
if they all go jump off a bridge
you're going to jump off the bridge with them
if they're all going to go play in the freeway
you're going to play in the freeway
I mean this is how
our parents treated us
they didn't say oh really honey
everybody's got one
then let's get you three
you know
the kings
still had to be under the pressure
There is a principle that the people of Israel said we will follow you because the people could depose their kings.
And so as you study the Old Testament come in the New Testament, even in the New Testament leaders, they had to be governed by the people
or they would become tyrannical oppressors like the Caesars of Rome over Israel, like certain Greek leaders.
And you know I don't want to go there because I'm Greek, I'm half Greek.
But you know, they were nasty.
Okay? So the biblical principle is consent by the governed.
And all men are equal and endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights.
And I've already beaten that one.
So if you go to John Wise's hometown of Ipswich, Massachusetts, you go to their home page today.
This is their seal. This is on their home page right now, today.
The birthplace of American independence. Look at the date.
1687, a full hundred years before our Constitution was signed.
And it's because men like John Wise, Mayhew and the others kept preaching about
here's what the Bible says about living under a government and freedom by the consent of the governed.
And they established that and they kept drilling this in and drilling this in.
And so you finally get to later on in our declaration after all of the grievances.
And nor have we been wanting inattentions to our British brethren.
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature
to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
That's just really fancy language for saying they want to steal the freedoms that we're entitled to.
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our immigration and settlement here.
That's a direct quote from the declaration. What are they talking about?
What were those circumstances to which they were referring?
And that was the fact that they envisioned from the beginning
a Christian nation and an end to tyranny.
That we would live under the reign of Christ through a human established government
that would function under biblical principles throughout all the land
and the people would follow biblical morality because even John Adams said
the Constitution is only for a moral and virtuous people.
It is unfit for any other. How are we doing today?
What's happened to the idea of morality and virtue today?
How much do we see people wanting to follow our Constitution today?
When Sue and I had the last two trips, we were in DC.
We went to the National Archives. We got to see the originals.
Man, it stirs you.
And they're in these protected cases.
The declaration is fading in ink.
It's up to us to make sure it doesn't fade in reality.
Boy, I hadn't thought about that one. Thanks, Dean.
I hadn't thought about that until right now.
So maybe that's a word of knowledge? I don't know.
So this is what they're envisioning.
All right. Click.
Now it's not clicking, guys. Give me the next slide, please.
Since this is not working.
Okay. So what is meant by the term Christian nation?
Okay. A nation ruled by law based on the teachings of the Bible
and the Judeo-Christian ethic. That's what we're talking about.
We're not talking about creating a theocracy from the standpoint of saying
we have a human being in office in any level
and that person now becomes the spokesperson for God
and we all acquiesce to that person.
No.
We don't have that here.
I don't care what you think about Donald Trump.
I don't care what you think or thought about Joe Biden.
I don't care what you think or thought about Trump before.
I don't care what you think about Barack Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan.
I don't care. None of them were the spokesperson for God.
And most of us say, really, you're going to tell me that?
Like, that's a revelation?
Thank you. Some of you...
Where we screw up is
we put somebody in office
and we don't just judge them by their policies.
We judge them to their likeability factor.
Which has nothing to do with their policies.
Necessarily.
Donald Trump, 80-year-old,
rough, gruff, Queens, New Yorker.
He's like a Cyrus or a Jehu.
He is a bull in a china shop, kind of a guy.
And Minnesota nice hates that.
Don't like the...
And it's not just Minnesota. It's picked up around the...
People don't like the personality.
And I say, you know what?
My mother, God rest her soul.
She was 89 when she passed away a few years ago.
And she was a Brooklyn, New Yorker,
transplanted to California.
I get New York.
If Donald Trump was a woman, he'd be my mother.
You can't go on personality.
You go on that.
Ouch.
The royal charters.
If you study the royal charters,
that's what the documents were that the king signed
when he sent these people from England.
And they came to America.
Virtually all of the royal charters
commended them for going to start
Christ-centered communities.
Go read the charters yourself.
And the biggest reason, and when you read through
all of the 27 reasons why they wanted independence
is because the king broke the charters.
And he did it to the point of putting troops
on the ground here, taking over people's homes,
killing people, robbing, raping, pillaging.
This was not a bunch of rebels
standing up to fight because they disliked somebody.
This were people fighting for their lives
in a war of self-defense.
You're not going to get that from the school system.
But they made it clear specifically
because they said, we've got to let the world know
why would we do this?
Here are the specific reasons, okay?
Mayfire Compact, we've already done that one.
Well, I don't know why this is doing that,
but here you go.
How about the United Confederation of New England colonies?
This goes back to what I said earlier
about Jonathan Winthrop on the Arabella
and the Articles of Confederation of 1643.
And here's what they said.
Because remember, this is under that
declaration statement of we've reminded them
of our immigration, why we came,
and here's what they wrote.
Here's what the people who came with Winthrop
wrote from New England.
Whereas, we all came into these parts of America
with one and the same end and aim.
Here's our purpose. Here's why we gave it all up there.
Here's why we came here. We came to do this.
Namely, to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ
and to enjoy the liberties of the gospel
in purity with peace.
This is why we came.
This is why we established our communities.
This is just how we want to live.
We want to live under the Lordship of Jesus
and we just want to live in peace and security
and harmony with ourselves
and, oh, by the way, with whoever else is here.
It was Roger Williams early on
that made the case, okay, if we go into some land
and there's somebody else that lives there,
we're not just going to take it from them.
We want to live side by side and cohabit with them.
And if we need more land,
we will pay them a fair price for it.
That was how they did it.
And when Pennsylvania came along
and William Penn, in the founding of Pennsylvania,
one of the first things they did is say,
okay, we're going to abolish slavery.
That was one of the first moves,
was to abolish slavery.
And they actually put a law in Pennsylvania
and then went to two or three other states
and by the time the news got to King George,
he said, I'm the one who gets to determine
what the legal laws are.
Those are not legal laws.
You can't do that.
You must have slavery.
It was the king, not the guys living in America,
that perpetuated slavery.
So for all those who might be online
pushing for reparations, ask England.
It's their fault.
Go back to the king.
It's not what our people wanted.
King George III was to Americans
what Pharaoh was to the ancient Hebrew people.
I want you to think about that.
I want you to think about what Moses and Aaron
and the Hebrew people had to go through
with the Pharaoh of Egypt
before they were finally set free.
And in the minds of the leaders of them,
their analogy was King George
is as bad as that Pharaoh.
It was a spiritual liberation
that they were looking for.
And spiritual liberation leads to physical liberation.
And now you get set free from something
so you then have the liberty to go pursue something different.
But you've got to be freed from the enslavement,
from the oppression, from the tyranny,
and that's what caused them to act
because they kept dealing with all kinds of stuff.
Now, you can't read that.
I can't read that.
Over here I can read it.
So forgive me that side of the room
with my back to you.
I just stuck up here,
started in 1764.
And up to 1775,
different things that the King of England
put in place to encroach upon
and enhance his tyrannical
taxation and other operations
against the American colonists
simply because he was acting like pharaoh,
sticking his thumb on the people
saying you will remain under my control.
So there was a sugar act in 1764,
the currency act of 1764,
the stamp act of 65, the quartering act,
the Decoratory Act, the Townshed Act,
the Boston Massacre, T Act,
coercive acts, the shot heard around the world
and the declaration of causes and necessities
of taking up arms.
And you're wondering, what are all these acts?
We've got a whole course that we teach that,
we just can't do it here.
But these were the things that kept putting you
under greater oppression
from some government bureaucrat
that reported and the King said
this is how it's going to be,
we've got to keep those people under control.
They are too free, they are getting too prosperous,
they are becoming a threat to us
because they don't need my kingship.
And so I need to remind them
that they are under my kingship
and I'm not going to give them any more freedom.
In fact, I'm going to start taking their rights away from them.
That's what was going on with these things.
And the people of America said,
what is going on?
And finally, a year before our Declaration of Independence,
John Dickinson from Pennsylvania
and Thomas Jefferson
wrote that document,
the necessity, the declaration
of the causes
and necessity for taking up arms.
This was the Declaration of Independence
a year before the Declaration of Independence
that was telling the people of America
it's getting way out of hand
we are writing to you as the leaders
of all of these different colonies
get armed, get ready.
And right now if you need to act physically,
do it. That was what they were doing back then.
That's why we have a second amendment.
So that the government
cannot do what the king was doing
to the people.
So that leaves us to
two brothers.
I love this story.
Some of you have heard it.
You get to hear it again.
But this story I'm going to tell you,
it reflects a lot of the
mindset of what's going on today.
So these two brothers,
you've got John Peter Gabriel Muehlenberg
and you've got Frederick Augustus Muehlenberg.
They were born German family
up in Pennsylvania.
As they finally, as they grew,
Augustus became a pastor
at a church in New York. His younger brother
became a pastor down in Virginia.
He pastored in two different churches.
One was an American speaking church.
The other was a German speaking church.
And Peter also got
involved in local politics.
Like the local assembly, even the state assembly.
And Augustus said,
you're a Christian.
You don't belong in politics.
You're a pastor. You're only supposed
to be in the pulpit.
What are you doing?
And so you have these two brothers doing this.
And they did, you know, verbally.
They sparred because
Peter was really engaged.
And Augustus, you know,
he just said, don't do that.
That's not what
we pulpit guys are supposed to do.
We just preach the gospel.
We don't practice.
We just preach it.
Well,
Peter is known for
being part of, and you see at the top,
the black robe regimen.
He preached a sermon on Ecclesiastes.
And Ecclesiastes says there's a time for this,
a time for that, a time for this, a time for that.
And he gets to, there's a time for peace
and there's a time for war.
And then he stops. He says,
and now is a time
for war.
And the reason why he was called part of the black robe regimen
is the preachers wore black robes.
And he took off his black robe
and underneath the black robe,
he was an officer in the Virginia
militia. And he said,
it is now time for war.
And he marched down the center aisle.
And instead of just
being the
pastor at the back shaking hands
so he could hear, nice sermon,
preacher. Nice sermon.
Thank you very much. Good sermon.
And which is about the last thing any of us preaching want to hear.
We don't care if you think it's nicer.
We just want to hear the truth and go practice it.
So
he's back there and he's not shaking hands.
He's giving them a pen. He says,
see that table go sign up. He recruited 300 men
from that sermon to join the militia.
He rose to the rank
of Major General. I believe there was only
26 that rose to that rank.
I keep forgetting whether it was 26 or 19.
But there are very few that rose to the rank
of Major General in the
Revolutionary War. And if you go to
Washington D.C. today and you go into our capital
building in the rotunda are eight
huge murals. They're like 20 feet by
40 feet. They're magnificent. I mean
there's the actual Christian baptism
of Pocahontas. Apparently
Disney got it wrong.
There's
there's these eight beautiful
and one is the surrender
the final surrender of the
Revolutionary War and sitting on one
of the horses is Peter
Muhlenberg.
It's right there. It's
gorgeous.
I'm trying to build this up so some of you
will actually go there.
.
All along the way during the Revolutionary
War Augustus kept I mean he just
riddled his brother for this kind of
action until
Augustus had to flee
from New York
because the British overtook New York
he he had to go back he
fled to Pennsylvania to active active
his parents home and and he still
held this we're not going to do this
we're not going to be involved in politics
until he found out the British burned
down his church
then he decided
I better get involved in government
and he worked his way up through the
Pennsylvania House and he became America's
first speaker of the House in Congress
because
Christians belonging government
Christians are supposed to help
lead the way not leave the way
just
one family
so what are the
We're threats to our freedom and liberty today.
There's a few. There's secular humanism, which is atheism.
We're good without God. We're just good people. We're so good. We're nice.
And we're getting better, because evolution makes us better.
Socialism, communism, Marxism, all the same thing. Government is God.
Fascism, government is God in the person who's running it.
Islam, Sharia, false God, Satan.
Hello. Oh, we're all part of the same family, because we all come from Abraham. Wrong.
Okay, that's another... I mean, some of you are at our Islamic presentation
a couple of months back, whatever it was, and Shahram was here.
I mean, you guys are... you're well-educated on this issue.
Here's the biggest threat. Christians who don't show up to vote.
That's our biggest threat. I'm serious.
We had, I believe, in the last election here in Minnesota, 200,000 of one particular party
didn't show up and vote, and Christians tend to flock towards that party more than the other
because they still have a voice in that party. So let me be real clear.
Democrats want nothing to do with God. Republicans still let you have a voice.
I'm not here to push either party. I'm just letting you know that's the truth.
I've watched since 2013 the political divide spread, and the political divide is not this political divide.
It is a spiritual divide. One side wants nothing to do with God.
They want to shut down Jesus. They want nothing to do with anything our founding fathers that I just told you.
They want nothing to do with that. The Republicans at least... some of them.
Yes.
And you've heard me say it before. The Republican Party is a train wreck.
It's a dumpster fire as a party.
Democrat Party's Chernobyl.
Look at the platforms. At least, at least understand that...
Because we're coming up to midterms, folks. That's why I'm hammering on this.
One of the reasons we ended up with the trifecta the other way that really messed us all up in 2023.
It gave us the highest tax increase in the history of the state of Minnesota.
It's caused over $500 million per year in business productivity to leave this state.
And it's been replaced by those coming in for welfare.
They spent the revenue, the surplus, $18 billion.
They not only spent the $18 billion surplus, they overspent it by adding another $2.5 billion to it.
Then they raised the budget. Then they increased taxes by 10%.
And it's going to go up again because we who are working have to pay for those who aren't.
Because those who are productive are leaving.
But we're welcoming communities.
Do you see the spiritual dilemma there? It's not that we don't welcome the strangers.
It's not that we don't welcome the foreigner.
But we have a constitutional and biblical way to handle that and we're not doing it that way here.
They've taken a spiritual issue and they've put it into a political agenda
because certain people just want power over your lives and we continue to give them power when we don't show up.
Now, I know I'm speaking to the choir.
But some of you have never heard me before and some of you are saying,
thank God and I'll never listen to you again. That's okay.
Some of you online, you're getting ready to write your email to Pastor Vern.
So it's 1-800-CALL-VERN if you want it on the phone.
Sometimes the truth just has to wake us up.
And now the issue is how do we behave and how do we act once we hear it?
And this is going to be a major way to go apply it.
And I'm not telling you to go support a particular party,
but I am asking you to go study the candidates that you get to vote for
and identify the candidates that best represent the biblical values you were taught in this church.
And if a candidate does not pass the test of the biblical values that are taught in this church,
don't vote for them.
Now, also, you're not going to find someone you agree with 100% of the time.
There is an organization in here in Minnesota, I'm not going to name their names,
but they continue to go and they eat their own.
Their only target is the people in their own party, and here's why.
Because they label them with a certain label in that party,
and here's how you get the label.
You don't agree with me 100% of the time.
So if you don't agree with me 100% of the time, you're wrong.
And that's how they present themselves.
Do you agree with anybody 100% of the time?
All the married people say, no.
Single people say, really, that's not how marriage works?
No!
We need to stand up as biblical citizens in the nation God created.
He created every nation.
He doesn't love America more than he loves other nations.
But we made a covenant with God at our founding that said we would be His light to the world.
And up until recently, we have been.
And the world is coming here saying, wow, all this stuff we've heard about you just ain't so.
It's time for America to rise again.
And the way America rises again is for Christians to rise again.
And the way for Christians to rise again is for us to get down on our knees and submit to the Holy Spirit.
And let that move us into what we do culturally.
So please, I'm begging you. I am begging you.
Do that. Show up and vote.
But make sure you go talk to the people in your own spheres of influence.
And when they say, eh, my vote doesn't count.
Well, we wouldn't have had the dilemma we had in 2023 in a particular district here in Minnesota
where the Christian conservative lost his seat.
And it was a safe seat.
But he lost his seat.
And it went to the other side. We get the trifecta.
He lost his seat by 28 votes.
He showed up at church the following Sunday.
And many people at his church said,
What happened?
You had such a lead.
We all knew you were going to win.
We knew it was so safe we didn't vote.
And he lost by 28 votes.
And we get what we got.
Don't tell me your one vote doesn't count.
One vote adds up to other votes.
And they count.
Now, again, I know I'm basically preaching the choir.
And a few of you are just kind of saying,
Wow, I hadn't thought about that one before.
Here's what I wonder.
Because we also get those Christians who say,
Pastor, you love this one.
God's in control. God's the one who puts kings on the throne,
takes, you know, presidents.
God is not in control. God's in charge.
We're in partnership.
I wonder how many men and women of faith
that God said this is my man for that seat
never got elected because we didn't show up.
That hit me like a ton of bricks earlier this week
because I'd really never thought of that before
because I hadn't thought about our partnership with the Lord.
We're in partnership.
So God ultimately is in charge,
but he leaves some control up to what we do.
We have responsibility.
We have what our founders in here called duty.
We had the opportunity this fall to put into office
those who would follow what our founders gave us.
We need to help them. We need to get to work.
We need to show up.
Our freedom, our children's freedom,
our great-grandchildren's freedom
is what we're fighting for.
It's not about us.
It wasn't about them.
They made it when they said our lives,
our fortunes, our sacred honor.
It's because they included all the people
that were going to be coming down the road.
You and me, 250 years later.
We are fighting for those following us.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America
and General Congress assembled,
appealing to the supreme judge of the world
for the rectitude of our intentions
due in the name and by authority
of the good people of these colonies,
solemnly publish and declare
that these united colonies are,
and of a right ought to be,
absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown,
and that all political connection
between them and the state of Great Britain
is and ought to be totally dissolved.
And that as free and independent states,
they have full power to levy war,
conclude peace, contract alliances,
establish commerce,
and to do all other action things
which independent states may do
of their right.
And for the support
of this declaration...
weren't a church who makes decorations all the time?
Think about that.
Support of this declaration
with a firm reliance
on the protection of divine providence.
With a firm reliance
on the protection of God Almighty
who by the way is spelled out in the treaty of Paris
as the undivided Holy Trinity.
Our treaty when the war ended.
Thank you for that real.
Our treaty starts out by saying
in the name of the most holy undivided Trinity
and they set the agreement of peace
because we're under the Trinity.
We mutually pledge to each other
our lives, our fortunes,
our sacred honor.
Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters,
we can and must do nothing less.
Amen.
Whatever you do, don't leave here
saying that was about politics.
Because if you still think it's about politics,
you weren't listening.
You had your mind already shut.
This is one of those kind of services.
We are fighting for the heart
of the gospel, godliness, righteousness,
godly morality,
and the freedom to remain
our lineages remain Christian in our own country.
This is not about politics.
Now, politics are affected by this.
And that's the order it should be.
The politics, the governing of a people,
the governing of a nation, that's what politics
basically stands for, is supposed to be under God,
not God under the government.
So, yeah, it affects it.
But, you know, I had someone, Dale,
had someone criticize me online
for believing in the seven mountains of influence.
I think most of us...
if you don't know what the seven mountains of influence are, Google it.
And it's like, well, typical,
won't fill in the blanks, preacher,
supporting the seven mountains of influence.
Yeah, I do.
Because Christianity is supposed to influence all the world.
All of culture is supposed to be influenced by Christianity.
Now, you remember the word Paul used in 1 Corinthians 14,
the word idiot is not someone who is emotionally,
mentally arrested or damaged or challenged.
The word Paul used, which comes out of the Greek,
is someone who is extremely ignorant and untrained.
Paul used the word twice in 1 Corinthians 14,
dealing with speaking in tongues,
and applied it to the people who don't believe in it.
Well, sometimes I like to use that word in reference to,
you're a Christian,
and you actually believe
we're not supposed to influence this world,
including the government we live under.
We're not supposed to influence it for Jesus.
You're the first Corinthians 14 kind of idiot.
You are so unlearned, so ignorant,
probably thinking you know it all.
But you can't engage online because it just turns nasty.
You just got to leave it alone and go,
whatever.
And all the other birds of a feather will flock together.
That's right, these preachers nowadays.
It's like, yep, that's me.
I'm actually trying to influence the world for Jesus.
Yep, I'll own it.
That's me.
All of it, the educational system,
the government, entertainment,
the whole works.
I'm actually trying to do something.
Guilty.
So don't leave saying, well, I was just political mourning.
Don't be an idiot.
I mean, you can't leave here.
Honestly, you can't leave here saying,
well, that was about politics.
That was about restoring our country
and celebrating what our founding fathers put in place
and restoring it back to why are we here
for the furtherance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's why this country was founded.
That is not politics.
So Lord, thank you for this beautiful, awesome country
you've given to us.
I pray every generation begins to see
more and more and more
how the things of God,
like it says in your word, Lord,
we have to at times defend the faith.
Yes, there's times we proclaim the faith.
There's times we spread the faith, the gospel.
And then there's times we have to stand up
and say, nope, we're defending today.
Lord, turn the Christians of this nation.
Wake them up out of their slumber, out of their sleep.
Wake them up so that we actually defend
the scriptural faith.
And take a stand on it.
And gain back the ground we've lost
so the gospel again can be spread
in an unhindered manner in Jesus' name.
Amen.