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[0:00] Well today is what, the 18th? Okay, so we welcome you to our August 18th session of the men's class and we are glad for your presence. We are going to detour just a little bit for a couple of reasons and number one of which I am convinced that repetition is the mother of learning so you're going to get some older content this morning but at the same time we have had a brief interruption anyway from our study in the prophecy of Zechariah and frankly I find that it makes me a little antsy because I'm really kind of eager to get into some of the more prophetic material that is coming in Zechariah because it is jaw-dropping stuff that is coming up and I'm eager to get into it and it seems like something keeps coming up to keep us from making the progress that we want to make in Zechariah and the interruptions that we've had have contributed to that so this morning what I want to do is spend a little bit of time in review talking about the prophet and the ministry of the prophet because it's so very important to all of Revelation from Genesis to the book of Revelation and you really need to get a good firm handle on this office of the prophet and the first place I would ask you to turn to is Deuteronomy chapter 18

[1:33] Deuteronomy chapter 18 Moses is speaking and it is very near the end of his ministry and I'm going to just jump down into verse 17 of Deuteronomy 18 where we read the words of Moses saying and the Lord said to me they have spoken well I will raise up a prophet I want you to keep this particular verse in mind I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you and their countrymen is of course limited to Israel he's talking about Jews the one that he's going to raise up from among the countrymen will be a Jew just like you are he might add and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him and it shall come about that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name

[2:56] I myself will require it of him and all that is saying in a nutshell is this it's going to be a very very serious business to be called by the Lord to be a prophet to deliver a message and it's also going to be very very serious business to hear and heed what that prophet says because he will be a medium he will be a go-between between God and the audience whom the prophet is addressing and let's go now to Judges chapter 6 if we may fast forward a little bit Judges chapter 6 I want you to keep in mind now Moses is gone he's off the scene Israel has come off of their wilderness wandering they are situated in the promised land and they are enjoying a certain amount of liberty with the exception of a group of people who are referred to as the Midianites now these people are all related these Mid-Easterners are all related recall if you will that when Moses fled Egypt after he slew the Egyptian and took it on the Lamb where did he go?

[4:18] he went to Midian Midian Midian is in southern Saudi Arabia to this day that's where Midian is and the people who lived there were the Midianites and Moses married a Midianite woman and his father-in-law name was Jethro remember him?

[4:41] and Jethro was a Midianite and now we are reading about the Midianites who are going to be oppressing Israel and they are of course are descendants of that and we read beginning in chapter 6 of Judges then the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord gave them into the hands of Midian seven years this is a remarkable thing it is a way that God has of disciplining his own children and he is going to do it later with the Babylonians and Nebuchadnezzar and he is going to do it with the Assyrians who will invade the northern ten tribes and lead them into captivity he is going to do it eventually with the Romans he is going to do it with the Medes and the Persians and each and every time God is judging and disciplining his people he uses a heathen nation to do it and one would think that perhaps it would shame them the fact that

[5:47] God is using someone who isn't even related to himself to discipline his own people but that is exactly what God is doing and not only that but every time before he does it he warns his people if they don't change their ways and repent of their sin that's what's going to happen so he gave them fair warning about all of these who were going to oppress them and in each and every case they turned a deaf ear and in each and every case God brought upon them exactly what he said he would so the ministry of the prophets extremely important and we read in verse 2 the power of Midian prevailed against Israel because of Midian the sons of Israel made for themselves the dens which were in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds for it was when Israel had sown that the Midianites would come up with the Amalekites and the sons of the east and go up against them and these people are always warring and carrying on by the way

[6:57] I just want to inject this here because even though the text doesn't say it and I don't want to be guilty of reading into the text something that isn't there but I can assure you that something is here and what it is is the influence from the adversary Satan the adversary is the premier destroyer that's one of his names Apollyon and he wherever he goes however he operates he always does so through confusion and chaos and error everywhere he goes there's no truth in him he loves a high body count I am totally satisfied that the fingerprints of Satan are all over every conflict humanity has been involved in that involved the killing of his fellow human beings that's right down Satan's alley he thrives on that that's why he is known as the destroyer and the deceiver and everywhere there is conflict that arises he's got his finger in it you can be sure of that

[8:11] I know the text doesn't indicate that doesn't say that but in light of the fact that Paul says what he does in Colossians or 2nd Corinthians 4 and this is a passage everybody ought to remember that the God of this age blinds the minds of those that believe not he's the God of this world and he is in charge of so much and if you want to get some of his some of his activities read the first couple of chapters of the book of Job that will give us an insight into how he operates and he's very very effective of what he does and keep in mind he is a liar a deceiver a destroyer he creates chaos and confusion wherever he goes and by the way we've got a pretty fair share of confusion and chaos taking place in this nation as we speak and it is just it is just replete everywhere you look and it is virtually undeniable so we read in verse verse 6 so Israel was brought very low because of

[9:25] Midian very low means their morale was so low they could walk on it they are depressed and they are forlorn and they are beaten down and as a result they cry out to the Lord and it came about when the sons of Israel cried to the Lord on account of Midian and look at this that the Lord sent a prophet to the sons of Israel and he said to them thus says the Lord the God of Israel it was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the house of slavery and I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hands of all your oppressors and dispossessed them before you and gave you their land and I said to you I am the Lord your God you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live but you have not obeyed me now this is as simple as it can be disobedience is bound up in the heart of our humanity that's just the way we're made we want to be self-serving and self-seeking we want to run the show we want to call the own shots we don't want anybody telling us what to do not even God himself so here

[10:59] God is sending prophets to remind them folks this is why you're in the mess you're in remember what you were told you ignored it you thought you could overcome on your own and of course you could not and you did not the ministry of the prophet is one of the most misunderstood even in Christendom because so many think that prophets had the responsibility of foretelling the future and they did they did and almost in every case it was a warning sometimes it was a promise of future blessing and we'll see some instances of that also but the main ministry of the prophet was not to predict the future the main ministry of the prophet was to deliver information that was desperately needed by people who were in need so that if they would heed the information they could be delivered from or the calamity that was being promised could be prevented and it was all about the dissemination of information and fellas there is no way in the world that I can overemphasize that or tell you how important that is information is everything this is why the main responsibility that the prophet had was to deliver information and listen when you share the gospel with someone that's all you're doing you're delivering information you're telling them something that they need to know and the whole point of it is that they may absorb the information process the information and act on the information that is given that's the whole item in a nutshell of the preaching of the gospel is to give people a message so they can hear the message know and understand make a decision on the basis of the information given and the end result of course is the blessing of God so in well let's go to 2 Samuel chapter 11 we'll see another instance of this information and how it works 2 Samuel chapter 11 this is a very very familiar passage it happened in the spring at the time when the kings go out to battle that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel they destroyed the sons of

[13:51] Ammon the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah but David stayed at Jerusalem we are not told why but he did maybe he was just fatigued from battle in the previous conflicts maybe he was staying by the stuff and drawing up plans and strategy and who knows what but we read that when the evening came David arose from his bed walked around on the roof of the king's house and from the roof he saw a woman bathing and the woman was very beautiful in appearance now there is something about males and the eye gate it has a different effect on us than it has on women and that is by divine design because God designed man to be the initiator and he designed woman to be the responder so whatever it is that attracted you to the woman who became your wife

[15:04] I can assure you that it happened because of what you saw and when you saw that lovely creature you said to yourself hmm I wonder what her name is I wonder where she lives I wonder if she's available I wonder if she's interested and so on so on and it's all on the basis of what you see there is something about masculine ophthalmology that isn't the same for the female and by the way you've all heard of a peeping Tom haven't you of course you have have you ever heard of a peeping Jane a peeping Jane well nowadays with women demanding that they be the equal of men and everything I suspect that you can even find those but ordinarily it's a peeping Tom not a peeping Jane and all that suggests is we are attracted primarily to the opposite sex first and foremost on the basis of what we see and we like what we see and we begin inquiring further and one thing leads to another and the next thing you know you're going down the aisle with that person that's boy meets girl and that's the way

[16:28] God designed it and when David looked over there and saw this beautiful young creature bathing on the rooftop and by the way what is it with these rooftops anyway you've got to understand that in the biblical culture in the Middle East the rooftop was much like what we would consider patio in the first place they were almost all flat and they had a parapet around them so as small children couldn't fall off but on the rooftop there were all kinds of activities that would take place especially when it was very warm people would go up and have their meals on the rooftop to get a little bit of the breeze children would play on the rooftop sometimes there would be Bible studies on the rooftop Peter Peter went up on the rooftop to pray in Acts chapter chapter 10 when he had the vision let down from heaven with the all manner of the beast within it etc and he was on the house top praying so this is a very common kind of thing and people would sunbathe on the house tops and maybe that's what

[17:41] Bathsheba was doing although we're told she was taking a bath she was bathing herself and David sent and inquired about the woman now that was his that was his first mistake and I've often wondered it was obviously a servant that David sent and he might have been kind of like a you know kind of like a belay to David a right hand man and he called him over there and he said the woman over there yes yes your majesty I see her who is that I don't know well find out would you better still bring her to me and the man of course is duty bound to obey but he cannot help but wonder what's this all about why does he want to see her what is and of course he may have put two and two together very quickly and he's just carrying out orders so he goes over and he confronts

[18:45] Bathsheba and he says the king wants to see you so she is not in a position to refuse the king and we are told that she was very beautiful in appearance so David sent and inquired about the woman and said this is Bathsheba the daughter of Elam the wife of Uriah the Hittite now that's very interesting too because a Hittite was not a Jew Uriah was obviously a Gentile who was kind of like a hired gun if you will by the Israelites to fight against their enemies and he was one who was kind of volunteered from the outside and I'm sure was paid a soldier's pay to fight for the Israelites but he wasn't a Jew he was a Hittite he was a Gentile under a military kind of contract oh well they all did yeah well yeah they had harems his father before him had harems or Solomon after him he'll have the greatest of all of course but that was very common in that day and that's another subject that needs to be opened up but not here and now so we read that he lay with her which is another way of saying they slept together he had sex with her and when she had purified herself from her uncleanness she returned to her house and the woman conceived and she sent and told David and said

[20:18] I'm pregnant and I think you can assume that the possibility of David saying well I know someone who will take care of this problem that did not exist in that day so abortion I'm sure was out of the question and he saw nothing no way to repair this situation because she is going to have a child and to make a long story short he's got to come up with some kind of a scheme to cover for both Bathsheba and himself so the wheels start turning and he thinks hmm Uriah the Hittite he's one of my finer commanders etc I'm going to send word and messenger to Uriah the Hittite that I think he's been on the field long enough he needs to come home for a little bit of R&R and take it easy for a week or so and then he can go back to the fray so eventually Uriah gets that message and he comes home and the natural thought of course is that when he comes home he's going to sleep with his wife Bathsheba and in doing so of course they will have relations and the time will be just right and I will be able and

[21:37] Bathsheba will be able to blame the pregnancy on the R&R of her husband Uriah the Hittite slick got it all worked out but when Uriah came home and had that opportunity he proved himself to have more integrity than his commanding officer and Uriah reasoned this way why should I have the pleasure and the liberty of sleeping with my wife while my men out in the field are denied that ability to sleep with their wives I'm not going to do that I'm going to restrain myself and let me tell you something speaking as a man that probably took one hell of a man to do that the opportunity the temptation and all the rest of it and this man had integrity coming out his ears that David didn't have and he refused to enjoy the pleasures of his wife on that basis and David's plan was foiled and let's read on in verse 14 we read that David's got to do something you know he didn't go down verse 13 says that he got him drunk and he still wouldn't go down to his house and have sex with his wife and it came about in the morning

[23:09] David wrote a letter to Joab Joab is his commanding general and sent it by the hand of Uriah now Uriah is carrying a secret message that is his own death warrant and he doesn't even know it I mean this man Uriah is loyal to the hilt this guy has got integrity that won't quit and even if he were tempted to look at that note he's going to resist the temptation and he isn't going to do it and he's carrying this sealed directive from his boss David the king to his commander in the field Joab and he gives it to him and of course the message is you see to it that Joab is put in the most vulnerable position of the conflict so that he will not survive and Joab doesn't ask questions because he's a good soldier and his motto is tis not mine to reason why tis only mine to do or die and he carries out the directive and puts

[24:13] Joab where he is sure to be killed and he is and David is relieved and problem solved he thought until one day a prophet a pesky prophet raised up by God himself is sent into the presence of David the king and he gives him this story about this wealthy man that had all of this livestock and all of these lambs and his exposure available to him and he was going to have a feast and his next door neighbor had just one lamb and instead of him killing the animal from his flock of which he had many he went and took the singular lamb of his neighbor and slew it and David begins burning with rage and he's thinking to himself this is something that actually happened in my kingdom right under my nose

[25:21] I want to find out who that guy is and boy I'm going to take care of him and when it comes right down to it Nathan the prophet points his finger at David and says thou art the man and David collapses it's all out he knows who else knows the one who matters most knows that's for sure and David is simply a basket case he breaks down he acknowledges what he has done and if you want to get a picture of his repentance you'll find it in Psalm 51 where David pours out his heart and my point is and this is so important guys if you don't get anything else I hope you get this it is the reversal it is the change of heart and change of mind that David experienced when he was overcome with his sin and he cried out to God against thee and thee only have I sinned well he sinned against Uriah and he sinned against Bathsheba but ultimately all sin is against God ultimately and David has a meltdown and it is a well deserved meltdown and God restores him there's going to be consequences he's not going you see when God forgives you of your sin the forgiveness is real and genuine and as perfect as it can be but the forgiveness does not remove the consequences that arise from it

[27:14] Joe does this tie in with I think it's proverb your sin will find you out yeah absolutely it's a principle it's a principle absolutely absolutely there are always consequences we live in a cause and effect world it's inevitable it is a law that is ingrained in the universe it is called cause and effect and every effect has cause and there's no way in the world that you can escape it you cannot undo it but there is forgiveness for it and that's the thing that is so important and what we really really need to keep in mind and it is this the whole concept of repentance is something that is so grossly misunderstood and I I I I charge the Roman Catholics with that misunderstanding more than anyone else because they have associated the word repentance with penance which has to do with suffering some kind of negative effect or result because of your sin there's something you need to do to atone for your sin and in the standard

[28:38] Roman Catholic fair and I'm familiar with this because my wife was born and reared in Roman Catholicism and she filled me in on a lot of these things but but very often they are assigned to to saying a prayer of penance and the prayer may be the Lord's prayer our Father who art in heaven and the priest when you go to confess your sin the priest may assign to you 25 our fathers and that means you have to recite the Lord's prayer 25 times and there may be also 15 Hail Marys and you have to recite Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou and blessed is the fruit of thy womb and so on and then they have the rosary with the beads on it and the idea of course is to dissuade you from doing that again and sometimes someone is given a huge number of

[29:41] Hail Marys to say or whatever and you need the beads you need some to keep track of so that's penance but fellas there's nothing biblical about that at all that is a complete add-on by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and it is not repentance the word repent is a precious and priceless word because and I hope you never forget this listen repentance is God's silver bullet I don't believe in magic but if magic were involved repentance would be the magic and repentance means you change your mind you change your mind that means you reverse yourself from the attitude and position that you had when you did what you did repentance means you change your mind and it is such a powerful concept because what it involves is bringing yourself into right thinking aligning your thinking and your attitude with

[30:54] God's you come from your side which was wrong over to God's side which is right you take God's part against yourself and that's not easy to do I'll tell you what's a lot easier to do what's a lot easier to do is to rationalize what you did excuse what you did that's what's easy to do but to say you know what I did it I was wrong I have no excuse it's my fault and I take responsibility for it I'll tell you where you will find less of that than you will anywhere else and that's in Washington D.C.

[31:44] you will not find it there and when they say they apologize you know it's usually because they say something stupid and they get called out for it and then the demand is we demand that he apologize so he says okay I apologize that's it that's it he apologized hey that's nothing why is it nothing it's because he hasn't changed his mind he simply said I apologize I'm sorry he's not sorry the apology means nothing because apologizing without repentance is as phony as a three dollar bill when you apologize in a situation like that all you are seeking to do is take the pressure off from what you said but you haven't changed your mind about what you said you still think the same thing that caused you to say it in the first place so apology without repentance is worthless but the public they don't know that they think there is something magical about saying

[32:52] I apologize and it hasn't changed a thing fellas the important thing to remember is when you repent you have changed your mind that means you don't think what you thought before this is why I say and I know some people have a real problem with this because they see repentance as meaning that you have to what shall I say you have to add something to the gospel when you tell people that they need to repent of their sin and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ there are those who say no no no that's not right that is adding to the grace of God repentance is not necessary all you need to do is believe believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved but listen if you understand what the word repent means it means change your mind and the point that needs to be understood is a sinner cannot possibly believe in

[34:07] Jesus Christ and receive him as their savior without changing their mind what are they changing their mind about they have to change their mind from whatever it was they believed before they heard the information that's why when we preach the gospel we are giving people a reason to change their mind we are giving them information why should anybody change their mind about anything because you hear information that you did not have before and it causes you to act on it you may have before believed hey I'm not that bad I'm a pretty nice guy I'm a lot better than most people well you will not be able to believe in Jesus Christ unless you change your mind about that and if you take the position I don't even believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead well you cannot believe on him without changing your mind about that so it is axiomatic that the changing of the mind cannot cannot be omitted so that you just come and believe it is impossible there was something you believed before you came to

[35:27] Christ that is what you need to change your mind about and when you do you become a candidate for salvation I've got one more reference it's in Acts chapter 20 and Dan has a comment or question go ahead Dan when David repented he repented is this way God said he was a man after his own heart well that was part of it that was part of and David is the only man in all of scripture that is ever referred to as as one who is a man after God's own heart he's the only one that serves it and I think that the reason for that is is because David David was one who insisted on serving the Lord fully and of course that had to have been realized after this episode with Bathsheba but I think it was an awakening moment for David and as a result of that he was a changed man

[36:27] I think forever because that was a real crisis in his life and I want you to turn quickly to Acts chapter 20 Acts chapter 20 and we'll see this principle of repentance played out how it is very very strategic verse 17 Paul is delivering a message to the Ephesian elders he's got to leave them depart from them he knows he'll never see them again and we read and from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church and when they had come to him he said to them you yourselves know from the first day that I set foot in Asia how I was with you the whole time serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which came upon me through the plots of the Jews how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you publicly from house to house solemnly testifying to both

[37:42] Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ there is no possibility of having faith in Jesus Christ without repenting because before you come to faith in Christ you are already outside of Christ and the reason you are outside of Christ is because of what you believed back then that's why this statement is this question is so important that I've posed a number of times if what you now believe about these things is not true would you want to know it that is a critical critical question so the repentance has to be in place before beliefs can be realized and when someone changes their mind they do so on the basis of the information they have Christ died for your sins I didn't understand that I didn't realize that now

[38:43] I get it I changed my mind about my sin I changed my mind about Christ I changed my mind about salvation that's repentance then you are in a position to believe now question can you repent of your sin and not absolutely and I want to close with this story you may have heard it before I think I've told before I'm sure I've told before I don't know if I've told it the men's class or not but a man whom I greatly respected as a brother in the Lord outstanding Bible teacher was also a nuclear physicist and he was one who occupied a chair on the original atomic energy commission and some 55 years before the Lord called him home and one day he was on the board of directors for Ford Motor Company and he was going to drive up to

[39:45] Detroit for a board meeting and he was going to pick up a fellow board member that lived not too far from him there in Columbus and he swung over to pick him up and the guy got in the car and he said I understand that you do some preaching and Art said well yeah I do he said I pastor the church and he said I never gotten into religion much myself he said I guess I just don't have the faith I just don't believe that stuff but I understand that you do and Art said well yeah he says I you know I come to faith in Christ and he said well why don't you since we got to drive all the way to Detroit he said why why don't we just have a meaningful conversation and Art says what do you mean what would you like to talk about and he says well you're into all this religious stuff and everything he says why don't you tell me why it is that you believe that and then I'll give you my response to it and

[40:46] Art says okay so here they are driving along on their way to Detroit Michigan this board meeting and Art lays out the gospel the plan of salvation death burial and resurrection of Christ and the logic and the evidence behind the resurrection of Christ the identity of Christ and everything and this guy just sat there listening to the whole thing and they pulled in the parking lot of the four happening where this board meeting was going to be held and the guy looked at Art and he said you know something you've convinced me he said I see what you're saying I get it now I understand why you're into this and it all makes sense I've never heard this before but this all makes sense and Art said well what you need to do then you can do would you like to receive

[41:51] Christ as your savior right now oh no wait wait no I don't want to do anything like that and Art said but you said that you agreed that you've changed your thinking about what he did was he repented you've changed your thinking about this you've come to a different conclusion why wouldn't you want to receive Christ as your savior no that would mess up my whole life can you imagine that I believe everything you've said you've got a case I'm convinced but I'm not going to go that way because that would mess up my whole life and I don't know if that man ever did change his thinking about that but that is a case of being able to repent without believing and this is exactly

[42:53] I think why the apostle Paul said that I held back nothing teaching men everywhere that they need to repent toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ they go together wow comment or question yes Joe two things one you know Les Felden you're familiar with Les Felden obviously he his motto like is belief plus nothing belief in other words no works are necessary meaning there's nothing you have to do to receive Christ into your heart to be part of him to be part of but he doesn't mention like you just said that you have to admit you're a sinner that you believe you're a sinner he doesn't mention that at all and that seems to me to be a falling a failure of him in his ministry now you can comment about that secondly

[43:54] Peter in his gospel Peter's gospel said repent and be baptized does that repent that he says do you change your mind about who Jesus was exactly absolutely absolutely that was that was that was the burning issue from the time Jesus arrived on the scene what is the identity of this one is he or is he not the Messiah and in Caesarea Philippi when Jesus had the twelve together there he asked him and people everybody was talking about I mean this man was doing miracles and everything it was it was electric and Peter asked the twelve he said who do men say that that I the son of man am what are people saying what are you hearing and they say well some think that you're Elijah come back from the dead and some think that you are Elijah or that prophet and that prophet goes back by the way to Deuteronomy 18 the passage that we started out with that that prophet is going to be none other than

[45:05] Christ himself and and Jesus said well that's interesting what people are saying who do you say I am and Peter responded with you are the Messiah the anointed one the Christ the son of the living God and it was that confession upon which the church is built the identity of the person of Christ so okay other comments or questions anybody David yeah in all of your teachings that just so astonish me I am always relating what you're saying to today and you know when I make a comment to the effect of well what you're talking about are Democrats

[46:05] I'm not saying it to be funny I'm deadly serious why all the and I've told you that we have wandered from church to church to church until we found you and our question was always why isn't the church as a national entity organization you know all denominations included why is the church not teaching what the devil incarnate is today yeah well and that's a big D it's a big D they are alive and well and it is the big D so if all of the churches agree with and teach the destruction that the devil himself is causing why do none of them name the devil and I've got a follow on that after your answer

[47:28] I'll tell you I think I think probably I think probably the main reason and I cannot speak for others but probably the main reason is because the person of Satan the adversary is not regarded among the general population as being an actual person so many see a reference to Satan or to the devil as simply being a mythological name that is given to evil in general but not actually a person preachers well oh yeah there are a lot of preachers who believe that there are you know I'm sorry to say there are a lot of preachers who believe that but what I what I cannot escape from is what the scriptures so clearly teach about the personality of Satan beginning as early as the book of Job and we think that Job is probably a contemporary of Abraham goes back that far and when our Lord was confronted by the adversary in the gospels before he started his ministry what's referred to as the wilderness temptations

[48:48] Jesus was not confronted by an influence he was confronted by a person and this person is described as none other than Lucifer the star the son of the morning who through his own corruption because God created him as well as all the other angels created them with volition and he exercised a negative volition and Satan is very much alive and well on planet earth and I have absolutely no doubt no there's no chapter and verse that I can point to but I have no doubt no doubt in my mind at all that Satan was all over world war one all over world war two all over all wars and he influences people for evil and for his purposes he is a death merchant and for those who like to congratulate humanity for our technology and our improvements and our advances they need to be reminded that it is mankind mankind has succeeded in the murder and the death of his own species more in the last 100 years than in all of the millennia preceding put together simply simply because we have devised more effective efficient ways of killing people and we have done away with more human beings in the last 100 years which is supposed to be our greatest enlightenment our last 100 years we have killed more of our own kind than humanity has for all of human history preceding think of that

[50:37] Joe this ties in with what David says here what he says here and it's Zachariah I think one of the old prophets and I asked you about it one time before it seems it's coming right it says if you there's evil out there inequity out there and you as an individual are not telling that person about his evil and what he's doing wrong then he's going to go to hell okay and it's not going to be too good for you either but if you tell him if you're out there preaching saying hey you're doing wrong you're doing wrong whatever it is you're against what's doing wrong and you do it you save your soul your soul is saved now you know what scripture I'm talking about so I'm saying to David here I think we as individuals are not speaking out like we should be about Christ and the church itself as an institution is not speaking out as we were instructed to essentially

[51:38] I think that we're supposed to be doing that and we're not doing it I appreciate that and in there's a stack of books right there on the corner it's two minutes with the bible that Stan wrote it's a daily devotional dynamite material I mean dynamite material and in it just a few days ago he covered just one page you can read it two minutes and it's called I think it's called every person evangelism it was in the July or August early and Marie and I were reading it and it talks about the responsibility as well as the privilege that each of us has of communicating the gospel to others and it is something that all too many in the church are too eager to say well that's what we pay the preacher for and each and every one of us is supposed to be an evangel each of us has good news to communicate and we need to do that and by the way before I let you go I've got a couple of other things

[52:44] I want to share with you I got a little brochure in the mail the other day a stack of them from Tom Wanda many of you remember Tom he's come down and helped us a number of times with the county fairs and he and his wife live up in Wisconsin and he's come all the way down here to help us with that and I got a stack of little booklets from him just for a little and it's just I mean it speaks volumes it's just a little two page thing you just open it up and on the outside on the outside of it I'll show you some before you leave on the outside it says what has Jesus Christ done for you lately and you open it up there's just one opening you just open it up and there is a picture of the cross and the hands with the nail in it and I thought wow you know what that does listen how many times have

[53:46] I told you Christianity is a thinking faith no one comes to faith without doing some thinking and processing information and that little booklet it's not even a booklet it's just two pages is designed to do just one thing to make somebody think and they can look at that and even if they think I didn't do that for me I didn't ask him they've got it in their mind and it can work on them and it's just amazing what can be done with the germ of thought and how it can grow into something and in connection with what David said I feel that I need to say this about Democrats Democrats and Republicans both have their share of regenerate and unregenerate people and it is the platform upon which the parties are built that most correctly identifies the thought and the position and the values of that party and they are called planks in the platform individual items that they endorse or support and one that has been a real major major turn off in the democratic platform for a lot of

[55:23] Christians maybe even most Christians is abortion on demand that is just something that we simply cannot abide by because the thinking is guys if you won't support life human life what are you for what what what what else matters what are we all about other than life it you can't get more basic than that and as you go on and look at the other items of the platform that that have to do with same sex marriage and things like that and the truth of the matter is and I know I'm sounding political to say this but I'll tell you what I'm more I'm more I'm more intent on being accurate and being right than I am being political and I simply would say that the Democratic Party as it has been known by so many for so long has been commandeered by an element that the old

[56:29] Democrats would not even recognize and they are calling the shots and they are establishing that the planks in that platform and it is something that Christians have real difficulty in dealing with so and you know your platform is based on your worldview how do you view the world how do you view humanity and if you if you view the world from a position of atheism evolution no God no need for God then the value of human life goes right out the window and so does a whole lot of other things with it and your worldview really comes into play and that's the kind of thing that we are dealing with right now and have been dealing with for quite some time and I don't mean to paint the Republicans as a white listen there is there is the Republican party has heaps and state that actually calls the shots in

[57:37] Washington they have been there for years these are not elected people they are not elected people they are government employees they are bureaucrats they have been in position some of them for decades and they have developed an attitude of ownership of our government and that they run the government and you bumpkins out there in the hinterlands you don't know what you're voting for you didn't have any better sense than to vote for Trump that's how stupid you are that's the way many in the deep state regard you I don't know if you know that or not but it is and I'll tell you something they are made up of Democrats and Republicans the deep state isn't just one party it's both of them Don I understand everything you're saying but you well what do

[58:39] Christians tend to do if a homosexual stands up there and praises how homosexuality is great and all this we pull back into a corner we don't want to fight with him we don't argue with him we're like Christians are sort of like the Indian tribes if the tribes at all gathered together and attacked us as whites way back when it had been a long time before we ever took the United States we just pull back and the reason we don't is because we don't want to be called unloving we don't want to be called lacking compassion and why should you care who I love or who I sleep with and it's none of your business and they've got so much of the public sentiment on their mind and on their heart and the Christians are intimidated into silence and if you are a politician the very worst thing that you can be called worse than calling you a son of a bitch is to call you a racist oh that'll drive them for the tall grass

[59:49] I'll tell you and it and it does hey you can call somebody a racist and you know you know when you say it it doesn't have an item of truth in it and they don't have a racist bone in their body but they use the word anyway because they know the effect it'll have and that's pathetic you can't tell them that I love you but I detest your sin I love you and I love you so much I love all of you I love the sinner everybody but I detest your sin that's tough to do sure it is and the average Christian just dummies up and we just walk away shaking her head in unbelief and we just don't I'll tell you what what this country needs now come November is not just a pushback we need a smackdown a smackdown and it needs to be very decisive and I'm not talking Republican Democrat I'm talking about reality versus unreality

[60:52] David then we've got to quit okay I mentioned earlier I had a follow on after so sorry to get back to there my follow on actually goes back to a question that I asked online whenever that was when we were doing it online and that is can you fall from grace why how do all the preachers across the nation not get political I believe because they believe Christians believe you don't fall from grace so to be blunt about it I believe all the preachers you accepted I haven't found any other exceptions don't give a damn about the death and destruction that they themselves are causing because they refuse to inform

[62:05] God's people politically they refuse it and they say why should I care I don't fall from grace you know it's easy for God's people to say well you know I'm just going to go hide in the corner I won't fall from grace but a preacher has a much higher responsibility to God's people than I do I appreciate that I appreciate and I would say this there are a lot of preachers out there I don't consider myself an anomaly at all there are a lot of preachers out there that have our values but my problem is if I want to call it a problem my problem is I'm preaching to the choir you know I'm preaching to the choir and these are people who are already in my corner and the thing that I tried to make a distinction between and I know with some I have not succeeded but as far as I am concerned the issue is not

[63:07] Republican or Democrat the issue is morality or immorality the issue is right or wrong and what are you using to establish the baseline for us it's the scriptures it's the scriptures and we set that forth and I don't mean to say that all Republicans follow the scriptures because they don't there are plenty of Republicans out there that have no use for the Bible sad to say and there are plenty of Democrats the same way so for me guys it's not an issue of preaching politics and I know this is what I'm accused of and I suspect that there are some who may think that if they accuse me of being too political and preaching politics that I'll shut up that's a big mistake on their part because as far as I'm concerned the issues of morality immorality life death right or wrong transcend politics and what we are suggesting is well

[64:19] I think it was I think it was Vance Habner old preacher out of North Carolina years ago who put it this way and with this I'll close a cat doesn't like it when you rub its fur the wrong way and the solution is let the cat turn around that's what preaching is all about when it comes to right and wrong people don't like to hear you're lost you're a sinner you're alienated from God you're living a life of unright people don't want to hear that listen the Bible is filled with prophets who were killed for telling people the truth they didn't lie to them they told them the truth and the hostility that arose cost them their lives it's no different today it may be coming to that in this nation it hasn't quite gotten that bad but we can see the direction in which things are going and it's already being enacted in certain countries throughout the world where

[65:40]  Christians are really being put to the test and many have been put to death just because they are Christian snorke ha ha