WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.480 The Lord calls us to trouble, the Lord wants trouble to be afraid of us because he is inside us 2 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:14.160 as we walk into the battle. You just heard this in the last song, is that where God is in the battle, 3 00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:19.600 okay? So what that means is if you're going through hell, something's going on in your life, 4 00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:23.440 you know God is there. But let me, let me flip it and say if everything's fine in your life, 5 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:29.840 you need to find a battle. Welcome to the City Light Church podcast. Thanks for joining us today. 6 00:00:30.080 --> 00:00:34.960 As we look into God's Word and discover the hope and truth that He has for us. 7 00:00:35.520 --> 00:00:41.360 If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at citylightnyc.com. 8 00:00:41.360 --> 00:00:49.280 That's citylightnyc.com. Pastor Boyan Jansik and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit 9 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:55.440 is already working in our hearts and minds. As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are 10 00:00:55.440 --> 00:01:02.240 deeply loved by God that you are surrounded by His grace and that He has a real hope and a future for 11 00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:12.480 you. Are you excited for Eric Mitaxis? This couldn't have worked out better that we, 12 00:01:14.800 --> 00:01:19.040 we as a church in our life groups, read the book letter to the American church 13 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:26.960 and that He's here as a capstone on that whole thing. And I'll tell you this, 14 00:01:28.080 --> 00:01:34.720 I first heard of Eric Mitaxis around 2012 after a couple of years after his Bonhopper book 15 00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:40.480 was out and it was the thing in pastoral circles. I don't even know if all the pastors read them, 16 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:45.680 but they like to carry it around with them. If you ever wonder what pastors do throughout the 17 00:01:45.680 --> 00:01:50.080 week, I don't do this anymore. They do a lot of things, but they also just go to like pastoral 18 00:01:50.080 --> 00:01:55.360 conferences together on how to pastor better. I stopped that because they always serve really bad 19 00:01:55.360 --> 00:02:02.880 chicken. It's like the same caterer at every one of those events. And everybody had that book 20 00:02:03.840 --> 00:02:11.840 and he was Mr. Popular here in New York City. And then I noticed that as the churches began to 21 00:02:11.840 --> 00:02:18.320 compromise more, and what I mean by that frankly is just go more woke. And you know how 22 00:02:18.320 --> 00:02:23.440 woke is him crept in? It crept in under the guise of compassion, which is wonderful, 23 00:02:23.440 --> 00:02:28.960 under the guise of love, and under the guise of tolerance, and it crept in slowly to where we 24 00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:36.960 then sacrificed the word of God in biblical integrity. And as I saw churches go that way by around 25 00:02:36.960 --> 00:02:44.000 2016, I mean his reputation here, his popularity went right down the tubes, but he did not compromise, 26 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:49.280 and he stayed true to the word of God. And I so honor that and I so respect that. The Lord needs 27 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:57.520 to raise up voices like this. I pray from right within our ranks. Spirit-filled voices that will stand 28 00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:03.440 up for the integrity of God's word and never ever back down. Won't you put your hands together as 29 00:03:03.440 --> 00:03:10.480 we welcome Eric Mataxis. So glad you're here. So glad. Thank you. I can't even believe 30 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:17.040 I can't believe the church like this exists in Astoria. Are you sure you're here today? 31 00:03:17.760 --> 00:03:22.240 Really? Pastor Bowai, praise the Lord for you. I can't tell you. You have no idea. You do 32 00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:28.160 have no idea. Now by the way, I was born in Astoria. And if you were not born in Astoria, shame on you. 33 00:03:29.040 --> 00:03:34.080 No, I had no choice in where I was born. You know, that's not true. I'm Greek. When you're Greek, 34 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:39.280 legally by law. You need to be born in Astoria. That's the way it breaks down. We don't want to 35 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:45.840 break the law. You know, Romans 13. You gotta go with it. So my mother rushed over here just in time. 36 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:53.280 No, my father came from Greece. My mother came from Germany. They met in an English class 37 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:58.400 in New York City. And you know, in English class, I'm not talking about studying Chaucer. 38 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:03.840 If you haven't heard of Chaucer, you need to go back to school. 39 00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:13.360 Yeah. But they met in an English class. And so I'm the son of European immigrants 40 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:19.040 to United States of America. My parents came here because they were smart enough, 41 00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:23.600 wise enough to understand that America is the best country in the history of the world. 42 00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:28.400 Doesn't mean it's perfect. In case I need to throw that in. In case you think I'm a Christian 43 00:04:28.400 --> 00:04:33.600 nationalist or whatever, whatever term. But they understand like what we have here is not normal. 44 00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:40.880 Okay, the opportunities have it. So they left, you know, East Germany and Greece to come here. And 45 00:04:41.760 --> 00:04:46.640 you know, when you're in Queens, like this is like, this is immigrant city, right? This is it. 46 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:52.720 People come here from other places. And usually if you come from the other side, as my mother and 47 00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:57.280 father did, and you lived through World War II, and you know what it is, literally to be hungry, 48 00:04:57.280 --> 00:05:02.640 many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times, you appreciate things. You think differently 49 00:05:02.640 --> 00:05:07.440 than your typical American. So I grew up in America, grew up here in Queens and in 50 00:05:07.440 --> 00:05:11.120 in Danbury, Connecticut. And when you're hanging around with American kids in American school, 51 00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:16.800 you realize if they don't get it, they think this is normal. This is not normal. Patriots have died 52 00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:22.000 so that we could have freedom and opportunity. And I didn't really come here to talk about America, 53 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:27.600 but when I talk about my mother and my father, it's impossible for me not to think about that, 54 00:05:27.600 --> 00:05:32.480 because they were immigrants. They had nothing to had accents. My mother still has an accent, 55 00:05:32.480 --> 00:05:38.560 right? My dad passed in January, but they didn't even try to teach me to love America. 56 00:05:38.640 --> 00:05:43.040 Like, you don't need to do that. If you tell the stories of how you grew up in communist, 57 00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:49.040 East Germany, do you understand? I need to break down for you. Communism is Satan's politics, 58 00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:55.040 okay? Communism by definition, Marxism by definition, atheistic, okay? Atheism is not neutral. 59 00:05:55.680 --> 00:06:00.640 Atheism is like devil worshipping in another name, because it's basically the enemy of God. 60 00:06:00.640 --> 00:06:05.600 The devil is the enemy of God. So don't, when people say secular or atheists, that's not neutral. 61 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:11.360 Now, the people might be nice people who are deluded, but if you live in a communist country, 62 00:06:11.360 --> 00:06:16.720 or you come from a family, okay? Anytime I meet somebody who's, you know, living in Miami, 63 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:21.600 they're from Cuba. They get it. I don't need to explain to them the satanic evil of that kind of 64 00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:27.760 thing, because they have lived it. It is nasty. It is evil. But if you grew up in America, you can't 65 00:06:27.760 --> 00:06:30.960 think, oh, we don't have evil anymore. We kind of evolved past that. Everything's okay. 66 00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:35.760 And no, there's evil as as much evil in the world today as there ever was. 67 00:06:36.800 --> 00:06:41.120 But we've been uniquely blessed and spoiled in America. So a lot of times we just, we don't get it. 68 00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:46.080 But if you grew up in a home like I did, where your parents are constantly telling you the stories 69 00:06:46.080 --> 00:06:50.800 of how they grew up, you're going to, you're going to get it. You, you understand. And so I was 70 00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:56.080 raised without even my parents trying to understand, there's the evil in the world. And what you have, 71 00:06:56.080 --> 00:07:01.680 you don't deserve it. And you shouldn't take it for granted. And so I kind of grew up with that. 72 00:07:01.680 --> 00:07:08.480 And you know, I should mention Rich is selling the books here. I wrote the book. I came to faith 73 00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:12.320 dramatically, miraculously. How many people believe in miracles? Do you believe miracles? 74 00:07:12.320 --> 00:07:16.240 Yeah. If you don't believe miracles, you're not a Christian. Just saying. I'm not judging, 75 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:22.880 but I'm just letting you know. I was saved very miraculously in a dream. The Lord spoke to me in 76 00:07:22.880 --> 00:07:27.520 a dream. It was mind blowing. Now, you got to understand, I went to Yale University, okay, which 77 00:07:27.520 --> 00:07:32.560 is a Marxist indoctrination camp. Did you know that? Yeah. Most of the Ivy League and all these 78 00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:36.320 elite universities, you got to think, oh, it was great, great, until you get there. And you're like, 79 00:07:36.320 --> 00:07:40.640 oh, so, but I was too foolish to know it at the time. You know, I was raised. I said in a working 80 00:07:40.640 --> 00:07:44.560 class home and you go to these places, you don't understand like you're drinking the coolate of 81 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:52.480 secular humanism, Marxism, whatever. And I didn't, I didn't really appreciate what I had. But as I 82 00:07:53.120 --> 00:07:57.840 moved on, I realized like, I don't believe anything. Whatever heartland values I picked up from my 83 00:07:57.840 --> 00:08:02.960 mom and dad, I lost because that's the job of places like Yale University is to kind of, you know, 84 00:08:02.960 --> 00:08:09.200 lead you down this path. And you're kind of drinking the secular humanist coolate of the cultural 85 00:08:09.200 --> 00:08:12.080 elites. We could put it that way, right? It's like, yeah, we all agree on that, right? There's no 86 00:08:12.080 --> 00:08:15.440 God, right? Right, right? Like America's not that great, right? You know, like it's kind of like the, 87 00:08:15.440 --> 00:08:21.120 you kind of like buy into this thing. So I graduated. I was very lost. And the Lord very dramatically 88 00:08:22.080 --> 00:08:27.120 saved me around my 25th birthday. I won't tell that story here. If I ever get invited back, 89 00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:32.320 I could tell that story another time. It's actually, I'll be honest with you. Don't clap. I'm not done yet. 90 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:39.680 But the fact is that it is really a miraculous story. I mean, it's one of those stories that, 91 00:08:39.680 --> 00:08:45.280 you know, I defy you to explain to me what it could be other than God because sometimes God 92 00:08:45.280 --> 00:08:49.360 shows up in a way that blows your mind. And there's no alternative to be like, oh, well, what could 93 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:54.640 it be? It's God, like you're stuck. So Jesus delivered me around my 25th birthday. But I wrote a book 94 00:08:55.360 --> 00:09:00.240 called Fish Out of Water, which I know Rich has here. But it's like, it's a story of my life growing 95 00:09:00.240 --> 00:09:08.400 up in that path. But God saved me around my 25th birthday. And it just changed everything. It just 96 00:09:08.400 --> 00:09:13.840 changed everything. And I think that, you know, when your conversion is dramatic, you can't 97 00:09:13.840 --> 00:09:19.840 see, it's like solving for X. You can see clearly before, after, you know, and if you raise in the 98 00:09:19.840 --> 00:09:24.480 faith, it could be more difficult because you're kind of, you know, but not by the way, being raised 99 00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:29.280 in the faith, that's better. It's better than drifting away into hell and sin and death and then 100 00:09:29.280 --> 00:09:35.440 having the Lord rescue you. But God will do what he's going to do. But it really, again, if I come 101 00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:41.760 back another time, I could tell the story, but it is amazing that God has got miracles. And I say 102 00:09:41.760 --> 00:09:46.400 this just because I think a lot of times people have a very intellectual faith. They're all theological 103 00:09:46.400 --> 00:09:53.440 and it's kind of like you buy into a philosophical system. Well, that's not it. Okay. It's about a 104 00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:59.040 personal relationship with a person, capital P. And there's a lot of people that identify as 105 00:09:59.040 --> 00:10:02.880 Christians, they don't really get that. And I'm here to encourage you to say that the Lord wants 106 00:10:02.880 --> 00:10:06.880 you to have a personal relationship. And he wants you to know that he wants to speak to you. Now, 107 00:10:06.880 --> 00:10:10.800 he's going to speak to every one of us differently. You know, I have friends that see in the spirit and 108 00:10:10.800 --> 00:10:16.960 they're seeing you see the angel. It's like, no, but they see it and then I'm making it up, right? 109 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:22.800 God is, you know, there's prophetic voices where God will deliver a prophetic thing and they say, 110 00:10:22.800 --> 00:10:26.640 God said this and this and this. Now, there's always going to be frauds and phonies. We know that. 111 00:10:26.640 --> 00:10:32.480 It doesn't mean there's no prophetic voices. I have a friend who's a fraud. No, I have a friend, 112 00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:41.360 a friend named Ken Fish, who he was a quantum physics major at Princeton, like insane genius, 113 00:10:41.360 --> 00:10:48.800 right? But he now has a ministry of healing and deliverance, right? And when you see that stuff, 114 00:10:48.800 --> 00:10:54.560 you go, that's God. That's real. People being delivered. Have you ever seen anybody? I had never 115 00:10:54.560 --> 00:10:58.480 seen this until 10 years ago. Somebody being delivered of a demon like right in front of you. 116 00:10:59.280 --> 00:11:05.600 Like when you see that, you go, like, what was that? What was that? Right? So I think I was, 117 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:10.960 some of you know, Jordan Peterson, right? I had him on my radio program and I was interviewing him. 118 00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:15.280 He interviewed me like a year ago, but I knew it was interviewing him. And he talks like in these 119 00:11:15.280 --> 00:11:18.960 kind of metaphorical things, like when he's talking about God, it's like this metaphorical thing, 120 00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:23.600 what again? And then he's talking about evil and the demonic, but he makes this metaphorical, 121 00:11:24.400 --> 00:11:29.280 and it's like, well, it operates on the metaphorical. It can be complicated, but Jesus did not cast out 122 00:11:29.280 --> 00:11:36.880 metaphors, right? Like it's real. It's like using the term like, oh, you're a tumor on the society, 123 00:11:36.880 --> 00:11:41.360 like it's a metaphor, but they're actual tumors and surgeons cut them out, like real literal 124 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:45.680 tumor. They're literal demons and stuff. And so I think a lot of times a lot of Christians have a 125 00:11:45.680 --> 00:11:50.720 faith that doesn't, it doesn't know the supernatural side of God, like it's all the intellectual side. 126 00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:56.000 The intellectual side is important, but you need to know God experientially too. God wants to 127 00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:02.720 speak to us. And so he's spoken to me many times over the years in different ways. And you know, 128 00:12:02.720 --> 00:12:08.800 if you have a really high view of God, if you love God and fear God, you take that seriously. 129 00:12:08.800 --> 00:12:13.760 You wouldn't say God said, but he didn't say. You're like, that's blasphemy if you say God said, 130 00:12:13.760 --> 00:12:21.360 but he didn't say. So it's just very important that we have that we have an experiential 131 00:12:21.360 --> 00:12:26.080 relationship with God and understand because I think if you don't, you can really lose your faith 132 00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:32.080 easily, right? It's just like some ideas. But no, if you know him, you're stuck because you know him. 133 00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:38.320 So like if things go wrong, it's like, well, I still I know God. And I know there was a reason I was 134 00:12:38.320 --> 00:12:47.120 saying all that, but I can't remember. No, actually, I'll tell you why I say that because some of 135 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:51.280 you have read already read my book Letter to the American Church. How many of you I'm just curious, 136 00:12:51.280 --> 00:12:56.400 how many of you have read the book? Okay, you guys can like go take a cigarette break because I'm 137 00:12:56.400 --> 00:13:04.000 just gonna talk about that. No, the the sequel to that book is called Religionless Christianity. 138 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:08.800 And that just came out. It's about the same length as my shortest books ever. But when I say about 139 00:13:08.800 --> 00:13:16.080 hearing from God, I've written, I don't know, 15 plus books over the years, but I've never ever 140 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:23.280 written a book like Letter to the American Church where I knew God spoke that to me. Now it's not 141 00:13:23.280 --> 00:13:29.200 like I got a download and I'm like, you know, ghost writing like no, no, no. But and this is what I'm 142 00:13:29.200 --> 00:13:33.360 saying like you have to learn how to hear from God because he speaks to each of us differently. We're 143 00:13:33.520 --> 00:13:39.840 all his children. He speaks to us in different way. We're all different, right? But I knew that God 144 00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:44.640 had given me this message. I never had that before, like a burning message from God. And I also never 145 00:13:44.640 --> 00:13:49.520 written a book for the church before. Every book I write, except these last two Letter to the American 146 00:13:49.520 --> 00:13:55.120 Church and the new one Religionless Christianity, I wrote for everybody. Another was every one of my 147 00:13:55.120 --> 00:14:00.160 books I want anybody could read it. It's not just for the church, but Letter to the American Church 148 00:14:00.160 --> 00:14:05.280 and Religionless Christianity, I wrote to the church. And I really felt this burning 149 00:14:05.920 --> 00:14:13.280 passion from the Lord like you got to write this. And so I wrote it. And honestly, I didn't expect 150 00:14:13.280 --> 00:14:18.880 it to, you know, do well or to whatever, you know, I just like sometimes the God says do something, 151 00:14:18.880 --> 00:14:25.520 you say, okay, Lord, okay, and you just do it. But I'm glad that he's been using it. I'm glad 152 00:14:25.520 --> 00:14:30.480 that churches like your church are reading it because unfortunately, it's important right now. 153 00:14:31.280 --> 00:14:36.800 I wish you were not, but we're in a weird place in history right now. We're in a very, very weird 154 00:14:36.800 --> 00:14:42.880 place. Now look, Romans 828, all things work together for good. Every bad thing 155 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:51.200 works together for good, for those that love the Lord and are called according to His purposes. 156 00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:54.880 So anybody who kind of like rips off half of that and says like, yeah, I think all things work 157 00:14:54.880 --> 00:15:05.680 out in the end. No, no, that's stupid. All things work together for good, for those who love God 158 00:15:06.560 --> 00:15:12.000 and call the according to His purposes, okay. So, but I say that because things have gone crazy 159 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:18.400 in America and in the world. And if you're not really paying attention, you might not understand, 160 00:15:18.400 --> 00:15:23.280 you might not be able to discern what is happening. But if you're a little older as I am, you could 161 00:15:23.280 --> 00:15:29.120 see like, what's going on now? We have never, never, never, never seen anything like this right now. 162 00:15:29.120 --> 00:15:36.560 We're seeing actual evil, right? But if you're Christian, you say all things work together for good, 163 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:41.520 for those that love the Lord. So in other words, what is happening now with all the lunacy that 164 00:15:41.520 --> 00:15:48.160 you're seeing? I'm here to tell you God is using it. Now, He can't use it unless you cooperate 165 00:15:48.960 --> 00:15:54.640 with Him. He will not force you to cooperate with Him. He has given you the freedom to ignore Him, 166 00:15:54.640 --> 00:16:00.800 to avoid Him, to do whatever you want. But if you know Him and love Him and are calling 167 00:16:00.800 --> 00:16:04.400 according to His purposes, you want to cooperate with Him. And so all these bad things that are 168 00:16:04.400 --> 00:16:10.800 happening, the Lord wants to use it number one to wake up His church. He wants us to be awake 169 00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:18.320 and we have not been awake. And that's bad, right? So the pastor was mentioning my Bonhoeffer book. 170 00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:24.480 When I wrote that book, I had no clue, no clue that God would use that book in the way He did, 171 00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:29.280 that it would be like a big thing. I believe me, trust me, I had no clue. But the Lord, 172 00:16:29.280 --> 00:16:32.880 you know, He knows what He's doing and He wanted to get that message out. Now, what's the message 173 00:16:32.880 --> 00:16:36.480 of the Bonhoeffer book? It's the same message that I talk about in the United of the American 174 00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:40.640 Church and in religion with Christianity. At the end of the day, the story of Bonhoeffer, 175 00:16:40.640 --> 00:16:47.760 it's a story of a man of God who sees evil rising and he sees the church not responding. 176 00:16:48.960 --> 00:16:56.000 And as a prophetic voice, he's saying, hey church, God has called you to stand against this evil. 177 00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:01.520 God has called you to speak against this evil. God has called you to go to war with this evil. 178 00:17:02.160 --> 00:17:08.080 Now, you don't go to war, you know, in the flesh, but you don't sit on your hands, 179 00:17:08.080 --> 00:17:13.840 you go to war against evil. When there's evil, God calls His people to stand against it, 180 00:17:13.840 --> 00:17:20.080 to advocate for truth and goodness. And sometimes the church says, nah, we don't want to do that. 181 00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:25.600 We just want to preach the gospel. We just want to do church. We just want to have a nice church 182 00:17:25.600 --> 00:17:33.360 service. And so does Satan want you to have a nice church service. Satan loves that kind of a 183 00:17:33.360 --> 00:17:39.360 church. That's Satan's church. Let's think about that. Let's think about that. When you say, 184 00:17:39.360 --> 00:17:42.960 I don't want to get involved. I don't want to get involved. So you're looking for a religious 185 00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:50.000 excuse to not get involved, right? That it looks good, but God knows His disobedience is wrong. 186 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.960 It is allowing evil to rise up. Now, that's the story of the German church. So if you read the 187 00:17:54.960 --> 00:18:01.920 Bondhofer book and you know, it's an amazing story. It is a dramatically fascinating story. 188 00:18:01.920 --> 00:18:06.720 I didn't invent it. I just wrote the story, right? I gave me the ability to tell the story. 189 00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:13.040 It's an amazing story. But at the heart of that story is this pastor who sees the German church 190 00:18:13.680 --> 00:18:20.080 flinching. He sees the German church using religious excuses to avoid doing the will of God. 191 00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:26.720 Now, what is more satanic than using religious excuses to avoid doing the will of God? 192 00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:31.920 What's more satanic than using scripture twisting it to avoid doing the will of God? 193 00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:37.440 Was there anybody more religious than the Pharisees and the religious leaders in Jesus' day? 194 00:18:38.240 --> 00:18:45.120 Jesus did not thunder against Hellenistic philosophy. He did not thunder against pagans. 195 00:18:46.080 --> 00:18:52.240 No, he thundered against the religious leaders because he said that is where the devil lives. 196 00:18:52.240 --> 00:18:58.240 If you're a Satan, where are you going to go? It's going to be the most satanic counterfeit conceivable 197 00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:02.640 to go among the religious, to fool people that are fooled by mere religion. 198 00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:08.160 And so we're dealing with that in our day, right? If you're the enemy, where are you going to go? 199 00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:12.960 You want to infiltrate the church. That's way better than trying to call people into open sin. 200 00:19:12.960 --> 00:19:16.160 Now, who needs that? Let's do it in a way that looks like virtue. 201 00:19:17.040 --> 00:19:24.160 Because again, sin is bad, but even worse than just sin is sin masquerading as virtue. 202 00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:29.600 That's satanic, right? So, Bon offer sees the church in Germany 203 00:19:31.120 --> 00:19:36.560 absolutely buying these lies, right? Romans 13, the scripture says, you know, whatever the 204 00:19:36.560 --> 00:19:42.640 government says, you do that. And he's thinking, excuse me, there's a whole other Bible beyond Romans 13, 205 00:19:43.280 --> 00:19:47.760 much of which says exactly the opposite. So you need the Holy Spirit. You need a personal 206 00:19:47.760 --> 00:19:51.760 relationship with the Lord to have discernment to understand what is God saying. If you want to 207 00:19:51.760 --> 00:19:57.760 cherry pick scripture verses, the devil does that. The devil did that when he quoted scripture to Jesus. 208 00:19:58.560 --> 00:20:03.840 So don't try to fool me by quoting scriptures. What is the Lord saying? What is a Holy Spirit saying? 209 00:20:03.840 --> 00:20:07.680 And so, one of us, a lot of the church in Germany, being very religious, and say, we just want to 210 00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:13.760 do nice church services. Well, Bon offer tried and tried to wake up the church, and he knew there was 211 00:20:13.760 --> 00:20:20.000 a little window of opportunity, right? Because sometimes I think we think, oh God, he's so gracious. 212 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:23.680 So give me a second chance, his third chance, where like, well, yeah, on one level, that's true, 213 00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:28.640 just like a lot of stuff is true on one level. On another level, it's not true. If you don't act by 214 00:20:28.640 --> 00:20:34.720 X time, it's over, right? You know, it's like you ever try to catch a plane and you miss it by one 215 00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:41.040 minute. Well, if you miss it by one minute or 40 minutes, it doesn't really matter. You're not 216 00:20:41.040 --> 00:20:47.760 graded on a curve. You missed it. You missed it. It's gone, right? So the fact of the matter is, 217 00:20:47.760 --> 00:20:52.000 you could say about an election. Oh, we only lost by two votes. Well, it doesn't really matter. If 218 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:56.400 you lose by a thousand votes, a million votes, one vote, that there's a reality in this world, 219 00:20:56.400 --> 00:21:01.040 right? God is a God of reality. He invented reality in case you wanted to know who did that. That was 220 00:21:01.040 --> 00:21:10.480 God. So when Bonhoeffer saw that the church in Germany, right, Hitler took control in early 1933, 221 00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:17.680 Bonhoeffer could see if the church rises against this evil. Now, a lot of people they didn't see it 222 00:21:17.680 --> 00:21:21.280 as evil. A lot of people were deluded. Just like people today are deluded. People in the church 223 00:21:21.280 --> 00:21:24.800 are deluded today. They don't know. They don't get it. Bonhoeffer was trying to wake them up. 224 00:21:25.760 --> 00:21:29.600 And he knew that they had like a year and a half or two years. Literally, that was it. 225 00:21:30.560 --> 00:21:37.840 Because the aggressiveness of evil, the aggressiveness of the Nazi campaign to infiltrate churches, 226 00:21:37.840 --> 00:21:44.000 to silence churches, to wipe out the opposition, it was lightning speed. And he knew that at some point, 227 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:51.760 it's over. So literally by about 1935, it was over, even before that. It was over. So Bonhoeffer was 228 00:21:51.760 --> 00:21:59.760 trying to wake up the church. The windows closing. And he knows eventually, they didn't stand. 229 00:21:59.760 --> 00:22:06.080 They did not stand. And we know today, I mean, if you read Letter to the American Church in particular, 230 00:22:06.080 --> 00:22:11.680 or Bonhoeffer, or the new book, Religionless Christianity, you know what happened, right? That 231 00:22:12.320 --> 00:22:19.360 at some point, I think he has Lewis said it, that God wants us to say that I will be done to him. 232 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:25.760 But at some point, if we don't do that, he says to us, at some point, okay, they will be done. 233 00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:34.880 Like, it's yours. You rejected me, and now we're going to see what you have wrought. 234 00:22:35.920 --> 00:22:41.360 And so Bonhoeffer knew by 1935 that the church had effectively said, we're not interested in fighting 235 00:22:41.360 --> 00:22:45.200 evil. We don't know if it's evil. Who's to say? It's complicated. It's nuanced. 236 00:22:45.680 --> 00:22:53.520 Because guess what? They really believed that. You can really, really believe stupid evil things. 237 00:22:54.480 --> 00:23:04.320 You know, you think Hitler thought I'm a bad guy? No. Evil is deceiving, right? So people can 238 00:23:04.320 --> 00:23:09.440 do evil things, and they don't know. So Bonhoeffer saw by 1935, it's over. The church said we're not 239 00:23:09.440 --> 00:23:16.000 interested in this, but we don't do politics. And he's like, well, is that a biblical idea? 240 00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:21.200 A lot of people kind of assume it's a biblical idea. I had a, I literally spoke to a pastor, 241 00:23:21.200 --> 00:23:27.040 he was a yesterday, a hugely important pastor. He's now retired, but I love this man. This is 242 00:23:27.040 --> 00:23:30.640 an amazing man. But he said to me on the phone, I didn't want to argue with him, I didn't have 243 00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:36.560 the energy. But he said to me on the phone, I would never endorse a political candidate, 244 00:23:36.560 --> 00:23:41.600 and who'd never endorse a political party. And he sounded very pious when he said that. And I'm 245 00:23:41.600 --> 00:23:49.840 thinking like, are you insane? But tons of pastors say that. Good pastors, this guy is one of the 246 00:23:49.840 --> 00:23:54.880 best, but he said that. And I thought, here's the problem, that's not biblical. But where did you 247 00:23:54.880 --> 00:24:01.040 get that idea that that's biblical? Where did you get that idea? If you imagine, it's 1850, okay? 248 00:24:01.520 --> 00:24:07.520 Slavery is on the ballot. And you say, we don't get into that in our church. We don't take a stand 249 00:24:07.520 --> 00:24:14.560 on slavery. Now today, we'd be like, that's nuts. Many, many pastors at that time, maybe because it 250 00:24:14.560 --> 00:24:21.440 didn't affect them. It was very convenient to say, we don't get into that. Well, God gets into that. 251 00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:27.760 That's a moral issue, but they say, we don't do politics. We just do church. That's the devil's 252 00:24:27.760 --> 00:24:33.600 kind of church, folks, that will not take a stand on slavery. But we're living through something now. 253 00:24:33.600 --> 00:24:39.680 It's the same thing. Evil comes up and says, oh, that's too political. So this pastor yesterday 254 00:24:39.680 --> 00:24:43.360 says this to me, and I was like, I just didn't want to get into it with him because I know he thinks 255 00:24:43.360 --> 00:24:49.040 right on all the issues, but he actually said, but I would never publicly endorse a candidate, 256 00:24:49.040 --> 00:24:53.840 or I would never publicly endorse a party. I'm thinking, nobody's telling you to worship a candidate, 257 00:24:54.560 --> 00:24:58.480 and nobody's telling you to worship a political party. Nobody's telling you to make an idol of politics. 258 00:24:58.480 --> 00:25:03.120 Every idol is satanic. You don't make an idol, but to say that you won't take a stand that you 259 00:25:03.120 --> 00:25:10.320 won't want to, why? Because you're afraid, you lose your 501C3 tax system. Is that why? You make 260 00:25:10.320 --> 00:25:13.200 it sound biblical, but it's because you're afraid the government will come after you. Do you ever 261 00:25:13.200 --> 00:25:20.160 occur to you? The government is wrong. Did it ever occur to you that that's not biblical? That's not 262 00:25:21.120 --> 00:25:25.280 even, it doesn't even square with our constitution, but you've just accepted it as a pastor because 263 00:25:25.280 --> 00:25:28.800 all pastors, no, we don't take a stand on that. We don't get political. We don't, I'm thinking, 264 00:25:29.440 --> 00:25:34.560 how can you, how can you say that? You don't make an idol of politics, but that has the devil 265 00:25:34.560 --> 00:25:40.640 gaslit you into thinking you don't talk politics. If slavery is on the ballot, you're going to say, 266 00:25:40.640 --> 00:25:46.320 we don't get into that, but there are many people who said that in the 1850s. There are many people 267 00:25:46.320 --> 00:25:51.680 that would not advocate publicly for Abraham Lincoln. Now, I would argue is because they didn't 268 00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:57.440 care if the slaves suffer. They just didn't care, but they wrapped it up in a nice religious bow. 269 00:25:57.440 --> 00:26:02.800 Oh, we just do church. Well, if you did God's church, if you were the church, you would stick 270 00:26:02.800 --> 00:26:09.520 your neck out and you wouldn't care what happens to you because you want to advocate for what God 271 00:26:09.520 --> 00:26:15.200 is advocating for. That slavery is a satanic abomination and they usually do everything in your 272 00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:18.320 power and people say, oh, you're being political. You'd be like, yeah, whatever. 273 00:26:19.280 --> 00:26:24.240 Shut up because I'm going to do what God told me to do. Don't try to gaslight me into being silent, 274 00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:29.040 but this and folks, you can always use those kind of arguments against religious people. I use 275 00:26:29.040 --> 00:26:33.120 religion in the negative sense, right? Oh, I'm so religious. All you need to do is call me a name, 276 00:26:33.120 --> 00:26:40.160 call me a Christian nationalist. Oh, okay, I'll shut up. Or call me a racist, right? It's like, 277 00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:44.240 are you a racist? You're not. Well, then why do you care if somebody called you a racist? 278 00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:49.920 But if you care that much about that, what do you do with God called you to do? And if you do 279 00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:54.160 what God called you to, I don't think you'll be doing anything racist, okay? But people will shut 280 00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:58.720 you down because that's the cup of that is never changed. And in Barnhofer's day, there would be 281 00:26:58.720 --> 00:27:03.040 kind of like, well, if you're getting involved, so you're not with the fewer or you're not with 282 00:27:03.040 --> 00:27:07.600 Germany or you don't care about Germany. You know, it's just to kind of bully people into silence. 283 00:27:08.240 --> 00:27:15.200 And Barnhofer could see that if the church was silenced, the satanic evil of the Nazis would 284 00:27:15.200 --> 00:27:19.840 rise. And it did. And now we can all sit here and we don't pat ourselves on the back. Oh, 285 00:27:19.840 --> 00:27:24.720 if I was there, I wouldn't have done that. But we're doing it today, okay? Because, because no, 286 00:27:24.720 --> 00:27:32.080 we're not going to, we're not, none of us is guilty of thinking maybe Hitler's okay, not today. 287 00:27:32.080 --> 00:27:38.240 But in 1934 in Germany, you didn't know where that was going. You might not know. You can, 288 00:27:38.240 --> 00:27:42.240 I'm going to play it safe. I'm going to sit on the sidelines. I don't want to get, I want to stick 289 00:27:42.240 --> 00:27:48.960 my neck out. Well, usually part of that is also just a pure lack of faith. Because if you really 290 00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:53.440 believe the God of the scriptures, now listen to this, if you really believe in the God of 291 00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:58.880 scriptures, you don't fear death. Now, why don't you fear death? Because you actually know, 292 00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:04.320 he defeated death on the cross and you'll never die. So even if they kill you, you don't die. 293 00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:08.400 Now, if you don't believe that, you're not really a Christian. A lot of Christians are kind of 294 00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:12.800 hedging that. Like, I don't know, I don't want any trouble. I don't want any trouble. The Lord calls 295 00:28:12.800 --> 00:28:19.440 us to trouble. The Lord wants trouble to be afraid of us because he is inside us as we walk into the 296 00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:26.560 battle. You just heard this in the last song. It is that where God is in the battle, okay? 297 00:28:26.560 --> 00:28:31.440 So what that means is, if you're going through hell, something's going on in your life, 298 00:28:31.440 --> 00:28:35.280 you know God is there. But let me, let me flip it and say, if everything's fine in your life, 299 00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:41.040 you need to find a battle. Now, is there, well, I don't want the, I don't want the battle. It's like, 300 00:28:41.040 --> 00:28:49.280 you don't understand. God is in the battle. God created you and saved you to go into the battle. 301 00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.000 Because you bring him into the battle. So if there's injustice in the world, you're saying, well, 302 00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:58.480 I don't want to bother. I don't want to, you know, let other people suffer. The Lord called you. 303 00:28:58.480 --> 00:29:04.960 He died for you to go into the battle. So when you see evil out there, the Lord calls you to the 304 00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:10.000 battle. And it means all kinds of stuff. And sometimes it means getting involved politically, 305 00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.640 right? And others, if you say, well, I don't care who gets elected, you know, that's not, 306 00:29:15.360 --> 00:29:19.920 that's not a gospel related issue. You want to bet that's not a gospel related issue. 307 00:29:19.920 --> 00:29:24.960 First of all, we are now dealing, I didn't say this in the earlier service, but you know, 308 00:29:25.840 --> 00:29:29.200 it's kind of funny, like people buy into an idea and it's a good idea at the time, 309 00:29:29.840 --> 00:29:34.720 but you understand the times change. So the certain things that never change, but there are other 310 00:29:34.720 --> 00:29:41.920 things. I mean, in 1985, you know, the face of the Democratic Party was tip O'Neill. Now, 311 00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:46.080 there's only a few people here old enough to remember tip O'Neill. But it's kind of like, it's 312 00:29:46.080 --> 00:29:50.880 another world. So when somebody says, well, I'm a Democrat, I'm going to, you'd be like, yeah, 313 00:29:50.880 --> 00:29:55.440 you know, we can, we can disagree on a lot of stuff. But when the face of the Democratic Party 314 00:29:55.440 --> 00:30:04.320 becomes Marxist atheism, now you got a problem. Now, I hope you understand this doesn't mean 315 00:30:05.040 --> 00:30:11.680 that everybody in the Republican Party is doing the right thing. Very, very, very far from the truth. 316 00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:18.800 There are many wicked people that are not advocating for God's principles in the Republican Party. 317 00:30:18.800 --> 00:30:25.760 But I got to tell you what the Democratic Party has become. Now, a lot of people just don't know 318 00:30:25.760 --> 00:30:29.760 this. And I realize they don't know that. And so, in a sense, they kind of look at you like, 319 00:30:29.760 --> 00:30:35.200 well, what are you talking about? But if you're paying any attention, what's being advocated now 320 00:30:35.840 --> 00:30:45.520 on a staggering level is Marxist atheism. It's not FDR's party. It's not JFK's party. 321 00:30:47.120 --> 00:30:51.840 They were patriots. They believed in America. They believed in all the stuff that everybody believes 322 00:30:51.840 --> 00:30:56.960 in. Over the decades, that has changed. And you have to acknowledge that. And you have 323 00:30:56.960 --> 00:31:03.440 to acknowledge that, first of all, we're never going to make an idol of politics. You know, I said 324 00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:09.120 that. Of course not. But to say I'm not going to do politics, you understand that's exactly what 325 00:31:09.120 --> 00:31:14.400 the church said in the 30s in Germany. He said, we don't want to get into that. There's evil rising. 326 00:31:15.120 --> 00:31:21.280 And fighting that evil part of that means being political. So, there's nothing in the scripture 327 00:31:21.360 --> 00:31:26.640 contrary to what many pastors think. This is if we don't do politics. Many of the best pastors and 328 00:31:26.640 --> 00:31:32.560 men of God throughout history have done a lot of politics. Can you imagine? Can you, I mean, just 329 00:31:32.560 --> 00:31:37.200 just think for a second, this country never would have come into being, if not for what we now 330 00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:43.120 call the Black Robe Regiment. Okay, these were pastors who are thundering from their pulpits about 331 00:31:43.120 --> 00:31:48.320 freedom versus tyranny. Didn't get more political than that. They were trying to overthrow a tyrannous 332 00:31:48.400 --> 00:31:57.360 British system, right? The pastors around the time of a civil war, they were thundering against 333 00:31:57.360 --> 00:32:02.640 slavery. And of course they were advocating for political candidate because there was one who 334 00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:06.560 was against slavery and there was one who was not. But then he said, well, we don't want to do politics. 335 00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:14.000 How could you not? How could you not advocate for God's purposes? So we're living in a time now 336 00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:19.120 where God is calling us to stand against evil. And sometimes that means being political. And 337 00:32:19.120 --> 00:32:24.240 this lie that we're not supposed to be political, I'll tell you, there was a tweet put out by 338 00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:30.320 a very well-known Christian rapper the other day, just the other day. And he had, 339 00:32:34.320 --> 00:32:43.600 that's what I'm talking about. And in the past he's been very politically liberal, right? 340 00:32:44.480 --> 00:32:55.040 But what you often find people saying who are advocating for bringing ungodly values to bear 341 00:32:55.040 --> 00:33:00.720 on politics, they hide behind the idea that we're not supposed to be political, right? Because they 342 00:33:00.720 --> 00:33:09.840 know that if you are saying, oh, let's not do politics, secular Marxist atheism wins. If the 343 00:33:09.840 --> 00:33:15.360 church would just step back, don't be political. These values over here will come in and fill that 344 00:33:15.360 --> 00:33:23.440 vacuum, right? So in this tweet, he was saying something like, which sounds so nice, it's so religious, 345 00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:29.440 right? Saying something like, well, we don't, we don't need to worry about who is elected. You know, 346 00:33:29.440 --> 00:33:32.800 God is on his throne. You've heard that one, right? Sounds very religious. Oh, God is on his throne. 347 00:33:32.800 --> 00:33:36.880 So don't worry about who's elected. Yeah, when Hitler's elected, I think you should be worried. 348 00:33:37.840 --> 00:33:42.400 Is God on his throne? Yeah, God's on his throne, but it's pretty irrelevant to all the Jews that are 349 00:33:42.400 --> 00:33:46.720 being gassed, right? So in other words, God is on his throne, no matter what, we praise the Lord, 350 00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:52.720 no matter what, we praise the Lord, no matter what, but it doesn't mean we don't do something 351 00:33:52.720 --> 00:33:59.200 if God gives us the opportunity to do something. Okay? I don't know if you realize, but I mean, 352 00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:04.000 I think I said in the last service, but the book, letter to the American church originally, 353 00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:10.240 the title of that was faith without works as dead, because that's a very important concept. 354 00:34:10.240 --> 00:34:12.960 It's all that he's saying. It's about faith, it's about faith, it's about faith. Faith without 355 00:34:12.960 --> 00:34:20.160 works as dead, you're supposed to act, all right? David killed Goliath and cut off his head. 356 00:34:21.360 --> 00:34:24.560 He needed to say, oh, God's on his throne. Look, Goliath, do his thing. 357 00:34:24.640 --> 00:34:33.840 Now, but that sounds so holy, right? Oh, God has on his throne, praise the Lord. I'm all about 358 00:34:33.840 --> 00:34:38.960 the kingdom. Well, if you're not about this world, you're probably not about the kingdom. 359 00:34:40.080 --> 00:34:43.760 You're not, you're not given a choice. Again, it's this very religious sounding choice. Like, 360 00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:48.640 I'm all about the kingdom. I'm not about America. Where did you get the idea, except from the devil 361 00:34:48.640 --> 00:34:54.240 that you had to choose? You're supposed to bring kingdom values into how you live in America. 362 00:34:54.240 --> 00:34:58.960 That's the Lord's will. That's why we have kingdom values. And we're still here in this world 363 00:34:58.960 --> 00:35:03.280 is to bring those values to bear to the extent that we can, right? We don't force people, 364 00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:09.840 but we advocate. We do what we can for what is right and good and true. So this idea that, 365 00:35:09.840 --> 00:35:14.160 oh, I'm all about kingdom values, because if I'm about America, that's Christian nationalism. 366 00:35:14.800 --> 00:35:18.480 Christian nationalism is the devil's term for actual Christianity. 367 00:35:19.200 --> 00:35:23.840 Live, lived out. You live it out, right? You know, patriots died so you could vote. 368 00:35:24.560 --> 00:35:29.040 They died, right? We're sitting here having a church service. Patriots died, fought and died. 369 00:35:29.040 --> 00:35:33.040 So that we could be free. We could vote. We could advocate for God's purposes politically 370 00:35:33.040 --> 00:35:35.680 in every other way. And people are like, no, no, no, I'm just about the kingdom. 371 00:35:36.560 --> 00:35:41.440 Well, again, if you're about the kingdom, you're going to bring kingdom values to bear in this 372 00:35:41.440 --> 00:35:45.440 world because you have the ability to do that. You didn't have the ability in the first century 373 00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:51.040 Rome to advocate politically. You couldn't do that, but people have died so that we could have a 374 00:35:51.040 --> 00:35:54.880 country where we govern ourselves and we could actually vote for people that we believe best 375 00:35:54.880 --> 00:36:00.480 represent us. Not they certainly don't represent us perfectly, okay? But if you say, oh, I don't 376 00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:04.960 care about that, then people who definitely don't represent you will come in and will bring the 377 00:36:04.960 --> 00:36:12.960 devil's values in and they will do really evil to people that Jesus loves, okay? Trans children, 378 00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:17.840 okay? They call them trenches. No such thing, okay? But the point is that you've got to care about 379 00:36:17.840 --> 00:36:23.440 them. You've got to care about what's being done to them. And people in the world, they don't know 380 00:36:23.440 --> 00:36:27.920 what to think. They're lost. They don't know that the scripture says we're creating God's image 381 00:36:27.920 --> 00:36:32.480 male and female. That's it. They don't know that. So they're like, who knows? I don't know, 382 00:36:32.480 --> 00:36:40.000 science. It's all very confusing. Well, you have to advocate because we know and we're obliged 383 00:36:40.240 --> 00:36:46.800 to speak out and God wants us to speak out and to advocate. And the idea that you need to choose 384 00:36:46.800 --> 00:36:52.160 between the kingdom of heaven or America, again, that's a devil's choice. That's not God's choice. 385 00:36:52.160 --> 00:36:56.560 That's like saying, like, you love Jesus, right? Because of that, you can't love your spouse. 386 00:36:56.560 --> 00:37:02.720 Easy. Carefully. You've got to choose. Hey, you've got to choose. Well, if I love the Lord, 387 00:37:02.720 --> 00:37:08.480 it's going to make me love my spouse more, not less. So this lie that you've got to choose, 388 00:37:08.480 --> 00:37:11.520 it's like, you love your family carefully. You can make an idol. Careful. Don't love them too much. 389 00:37:12.560 --> 00:37:18.000 You understand? This is satanic twisting of God's truth. So we're living in a time right now 390 00:37:19.040 --> 00:37:25.600 where the Lord wants us to be alive to what he's saying in history. And I don't have time to go 391 00:37:25.600 --> 00:37:29.520 into it. Maybe another time, honestly, I would love to come back and tell you, but I wrote a book 392 00:37:29.520 --> 00:37:36.000 called Is atheism Dead about science pointing to God on a level that would blow your mind. I mean, 393 00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:41.760 if you read the book, I think I'm laughing because Richard said that you can get all six books for 394 00:37:41.760 --> 00:37:45.760 $60. They're like, I think we're all losing money on that, Rich. I don't know what you're doing 395 00:37:45.760 --> 00:37:53.040 there. But, but that book alone, okay? Which again, I can preach on some other time, but I'll tell you, 396 00:37:53.040 --> 00:38:00.880 the evidence from science pointing to God, it is insane. It's overwhelming. I believe that the 397 00:38:00.880 --> 00:38:07.680 Lord wants his church to wake up and to advocate for his purposes and to make it possible for us in 398 00:38:07.680 --> 00:38:12.080 this country to have a new birth of freedom, to use the words of Abraham Lincoln, a new birth of 399 00:38:12.080 --> 00:38:19.120 freedom that we would see people blessed because I'm just here to say that when the church gets 400 00:38:19.120 --> 00:38:26.960 involved in politics and everything, can I tell you what? Other people will be blessed. Slavery 401 00:38:26.960 --> 00:38:33.440 will be abolished. Roe v. Wade might get overturned in the future. Oh, it happened, yeah. 402 00:38:34.400 --> 00:38:40.240 You know what people said to me? That will never happen. Don't vote in 2016. That'll never happen. 403 00:38:40.240 --> 00:38:45.360 That's Pine the Sky. You are nuts. That's not going to happen. I think it happened. Oh, good. 404 00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:52.560 People said, as I was growing up, the Soviet Union, that will never go away. That will never go away. 405 00:38:52.560 --> 00:38:59.120 We will never see the iron curtain go away. We will never see the people in those countries be free. 406 00:38:59.120 --> 00:39:02.800 That's never going to happen. East Germany will always be East Germany. That's where all my relatives 407 00:39:02.800 --> 00:39:13.920 were. It went away. You have no idea what God can do and will do. And the only way that none of 408 00:39:13.920 --> 00:39:19.280 these things will happen is if the church does nothing. Let me just close with this. At the end of 409 00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:24.000 the book, the sequel to the Letter to the Microchurch Religions Christianity, I say, if you went to 410 00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:29.440 George Washington in 1776 at the beginning of the revolution and you said to him, hey, George, 411 00:39:29.440 --> 00:39:35.040 how's it going? He would say, I'll tell you how it's going. It's going very, very, very poorly. 412 00:39:35.840 --> 00:39:41.200 It's going very poorly. It happened right here on this island, the Battle of Long Island, 413 00:39:41.200 --> 00:39:47.360 the Battle of Brooklyn. We should have been wiped out, murdered in the cradle before we got to 414 00:39:47.440 --> 00:39:53.520 do anything. If you asked him, how's it going in 1776? He would have said in the natural, right? It's 415 00:39:53.520 --> 00:40:00.000 going extremely poorly. And so a lot of people, a lot of religious people say, well, I guess God has 416 00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:07.440 decided. I guess it's over. I guess it's just time to go to the go to the go to the cellar, 417 00:40:07.440 --> 00:40:12.720 get out the slim gyms and the water purification. Jesus will be here in 10 minutes. Jesus coming, 418 00:40:12.720 --> 00:40:17.280 it's over. It's over. There's nothing you can do. That's the voice of the devil. There's 419 00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:22.160 nothing you can do. Don't fight. Don't fight. Just sit on your hands, don't do anything. So George 420 00:40:22.160 --> 00:40:30.320 Washington, at the time, knew that it was going very poorly. He knew that, but I believe he would have 421 00:40:30.320 --> 00:40:36.800 said it's going poorly, but if Providence, Capitol P, if God be with us in this cause of liberty, 422 00:40:37.760 --> 00:40:42.960 we will fight on and fight on and fight on. And if he gives us a victory, that's up to him, 423 00:40:42.960 --> 00:40:48.240 but it's up to us whether we fight on. And if the Lord calls you to fight for something and it looks 424 00:40:48.240 --> 00:40:53.440 like a losing battle, I think if you've read this scripture, you understand that's when God does 425 00:40:53.440 --> 00:40:58.480 His best work. So I'm here to tell you in America right now and in the world, things look bad. 426 00:40:59.360 --> 00:41:05.040 But if God's people will respond, if God's people will shake off these shackles, these lies, 427 00:41:05.040 --> 00:41:09.840 these religious lies, I said, don't get involved. Don't get involved. That's the voice of the 428 00:41:09.840 --> 00:41:15.120 devil, folks. God wants you to take your faith into every sphere for His purposes, not for your 429 00:41:15.120 --> 00:41:22.560 purposes, not for America's purposes, for His purposes, but He has called us to that. And I ask you 430 00:41:23.360 --> 00:41:29.840 to open your heart to how He would use you in that because He will use you. It's what He made 431 00:41:29.840 --> 00:41:36.320 you for. He called you to enter the battle because that's where He is. Praise the Lord. God bless you. 432 00:41:41.120 --> 00:41:45.920 This is the City Light Church podcast. If you've missed any part of today's message, 433 00:41:45.920 --> 00:41:50.960 or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jansik in City Light Church, visit us 434 00:41:50.960 --> 00:41:59.920 at citylightnyc.com. That's citylightnyc.com. Feel free to visit us online or in person anytime. 435 00:41:59.920 --> 00:42:04.880 We would love to connect with you. We pray that you have been encouraged today, 436 00:42:04.880 --> 00:42:10.080 that you have been reminded how much God loves you, and that you are surrounded by grace. 437 00:42:10.800 --> 00:42:15.840 Thank you for listening. Make sure that you subscribe to City Light Church podcast wherever you find 438 00:42:15.840 --> 00:42:21.280 your favorite podcasts worldwide.