(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen. All right. Well, we are in John chapter four, and I want to read verse 23. The Bible says, but the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the father in spirit and in truth, for the father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So we get this teaching from the Lord Jesus Christ that it's not just good enough to just say the truth and to say the right things. You actually have to believe it. You actually have to worship God from your spirit, and you have to worship God in truth. There's two aspects to this. Both are very important, and I want to preach this morning about a historical subject that's been very important to Baptists throughout history. It's something that Baptists and Americans have believed for hundreds and hundreds of years, and that is freedom of religion, and that is the title of my sermon this morning, Freedom of Religion. This is going to be a little bit more of a historically heavy sermon than we normally go through as a church. Usually it's just tons of Bible, and we'll still hit lots of Bible, but I also want to just provide a lot of history in the sermon because this is something that's definitely not being taught very well in public education, and even just I think you're going to learn a lot of things this morning that you may not have known from history, but I also want to explain like what I mean by freedom of religion and how there's certain people today that have abused this term and how today the idea of freedom of religion, separation of church and state, things like this. When people use these terms, it's not necessarily the way that our founders intended them to be used. So number one this morning, this is my first point, we don't want a state sanctioned church. This is an important belief. We don't want a government sanctioned church. What's an example of that? Like the Church of England, right? This is a bad institution. We don't want the government instituting an official church of a nation. There needs to be a separation between institutions of things like the family, the church, the government. These things need to be separated, and we do not want a state sanctioned church. We do not want the United States of America to pass a law saying we are starting the Baptist Church of the United States of America. That would not be a good idea. It would not end up being a good system. It would not be a good church, okay? Now there's a couple big problems with the idea of having a state sanctioned church. One of those being that you cannot force someone to be of a certain religion. You cannot truly force someone to believe something. Now you have religions like Islam that try to do this, but really they just threaten people with death. They threaten people with dismemberment, and pretty much you'll say or do anything at that threat, right? But does that mean that every single person that Islam converts actually believes in their religion? Not necessarily, okay? Look at this verse again in verse 23. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Worshiping God is not some sort of, you know, special formula, some sort of mathematical equation where you just say the right things, you have the right truths. You have to worship God in spirit and in truth. And if we just pass the law today saying, okay, everyone has to be Baptist, is that going to force anyone to actually believe in Jesus Christ? No, it's not. You're going to have a bunch of people maybe claiming that who don't actually believe it. That is not something that's possible. Go to Hebrews chapter number 11, Hebrews chapter number 11, and look at verse 6 when you get there, Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6. Notice what it says, Hebrews 11 verse 6, but without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. See, God is wanting to be found of people who seek Him. And of course, we should be people as soul winners that go to people who aren't necessarily seeking God and bring them the truth and hopefully their heart will be, you know, convinced by the Bible and will want to search for God and will want to call upon the name of the Lord. But I can't just say like, you shall be a Christian. I can't just pass a law saying like, you will believe in Jesus Christ because that's not how salvation works. You have to actually have faith in Jesus Christ. And the Bible says without that faith, it's impossible to please Him. So think about this, would God be pleased with a bunch of people walking around just saying that they're Christians, but they don't actually have faith in their heart? No, He would not. It's kind of like how we often ask people out soul winning, you know, hey, if I called upon the name of the Lord, but I didn't believe in Him, would He save me? The answer is no, right? Or hey, if I called upon the name of the Lord and I thought I had to do good works to get to heaven and that I could lose my salvation, would He save me? The answer is no. In order to please God, you have to have a real faith that comes from the heart and you cannot force someone to believe in Jesus Christ. That's why it's silly to have like a church of England, a church of the United States, because you're gonna have a bunch of people walking around. Oh yeah, you know, we're all Christians here. It's the Church of England, but that doesn't mean that you're saved. That doesn't mean that you're actually pleasing the Lord. Go to Romans chapter 14, Romans chapter 14. Romans 14 verse 11 says, for it is written, as I live, sayeth the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Notice that every single person has to give an account of themself. I am not responsible for what someone else believes. I am not responsible for you when you stand in front of God. I'm responsible for faithfully preaching the Bible. We're all responsible for faithfully going out soul winning and warning people and trying to get people saved. But at the end of the day, each individual is responsible for themselves in front of God. And so we can't just pass a law saying like, okay, we're gonna make sure, you know, all Americans are pleasing in the eyes of God. So we're gonna start the official church of the United States of America and that'll make everything better. Wrong. Every individual will have to present themselves before God. Look at verse number five of the same chapter. Notice how it says one man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord. And he that regardeth not the day to the Lord, he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks. And he that eateth not to the Lord, he eateth not and giveth God thanks. Notice also how God allows for freedom of conscience, freedom of conscience. Why? Because God wants us to believe things because we sincerely believe them. God wants us to be fully persuaded of our beliefs because we got it from the Bible, because we know it's a truth from God's word, not because the government tells us we have to believe something. No, he wants us to have that freedom of conscience. And that's a beautiful thing because it actually brings glory to God. When a person has complete freedom, complete freewill, both from God and from the government, and then people still choose to believe in Christ and still choose to follow the word of God, that is giving maximum glory to God. Go to Isaiah chapter 29, Isaiah chapter 29. We're just getting some foundational doctrine here. Isaiah chapter number 29, notice verse 13. This should sound familiar if you've read the New Testament a lot. Verse 13 says, wherefore the Lord said, for as much as this people draw near me with their mouth and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. Would God be pleased with a nation of people who give lip service to God? They just say they're Christian, but their hearts are far from God. And notice what it says here, that their fear of God is taught by the precept of men. That's not an effective way for people to fear God, is man just saying for you to do that. For government just making some edict saying, you're going to be a Christian, you're going to honor God. The real way that you honor God, again, is when it comes from the heart, is when you truly, as an individual, fear God. When you, as an individual, love God. Go to Matthew chapter 27, or Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7. Now, here's another problem with having a state-run church. It's this, that true Christians are always in the minority. True Christians are always the minority of people. If you had a state-run church, even if it was good at the beginning, it would quickly devolve into false doctrine, into bad teaching. I mean, you even look at the churches in the New Testament, just 70-something years after Christ, going into heresy, teaching false doctrine. You got the book of Galatians, where Paul's saying, I'm afraid of you guys. I don't even know if you guys are saved. And that was very shortly after Christ. If we just had some sort of government-run church, it would quickly devolve. Look at this principle, Matthew chapter 7, verse 13. It says, Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be, which go in thereat. Notice, the majority is wrong about religion. The majority of this world believes in a false religion, or a false gospel, and even the majority of self-proclaiming Christians are wrong on tons of doctrines. I mean, here we are in Matthew chapter 7, and one of the most famous verses in the whole Bible is verse 1, Judge not, that ye be not judged. I mean, if we just went with the majority interpretation of that verse, would we come to the right doctrine, or wrong doctrine? The wrong doctrine, 100%, right? So, we don't want just some government-sanctioned church. Why? Because it's the majority that goes into the wide gate. It's the majority that goes into destruction, and what ends up happening whenever you have a state-run religion is that true Christians end up getting persecuted. True Christians end up being hated. Hence, why the United States of America was even founded to begin with, because Christians were being persecuted by the Catholic Church in England, the Church of England, because remember, back in history, church and government were combined. You know, the Pope and the King were lockstep a lot of times in the decisions that they made, and so real Christians like William Tyndale, for example, were persecuted for simply translating the Bible into English, and eventually was burned alive at the stake. You know, that is always what happens when you have a state-run religion. It's kind of like for the same reason that we believe in the independent church model. We don't want to be a part of a denomination. Why? Because when you have a denomination, if the denomination is corrupt, all of its branches are corrupt as well. When you have a leader giving out orders, and if he's preaching false doctrine, if he's believing lies, and he's the one that sets the rules, well, now all of those branches also get corrupted. So we don't want to have some state-sanctioned religion, some state-sanctioned church, because that's very easy to corrupt, and it will be corrupted. It's always what happens. Rather, what we should believe in is a free market of ideas. Why? Because we believe the truth, and the truth is powerful. You know, I'm not afraid for the Bible and for our doctrine to stand up against any religion in this world because it's the truth. I'm not afraid of Islam. I'm not afraid of the Catholic Church. I mean, you really want to stack up the Bible, the King James Bible against the Quran. Really, it is a terrible, stupid book, and it's a book written by an illiterate pedophile, and people to this day who believe in Islam are stupid people because it's a stupid religion. We want to, you know, compare the King James Bible to Mormonism. You know, the Bible, it teaches that you shouldn't believe in another gospel. There's no other gospels coming, and if you hear another gospel, that person's supposed to be accursed in Galatians chapter 1, and here we have Mormonism coming where Joseph Smith said Jesus came to the United States of America and gave him another testament of Jesus Christ, and, you know, you've got to wear your magic underwear, and you've got to have your multiple wives in the planet Kolob someday, and you could become a god someday. You really think that I have any problem stacking up against that religion? No, because what we believe is the truth, and you want to know why soul winning works? Because we have the truth. I mean, you want to know why soul winning works? Someone literally believes a lie their whole life. They've been Catholic their whole life. These people are confused. Why? Because they're believing lies, and lies are confusing. We show up with the clear, crystal clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and we could change someone's religion in 15 minutes, and we do that every single day. I'm not afraid of having a free market of ideas. I don't think that we need to, you know, constrict everything so much to where only we can exist because, quite frankly, we could thrive just fine in a free market of ideas, and I don't want to just force people to come to anchor Baptist Church, and not like it here, and not believe the things that we believe. I want people to be here because they like being here, because they agree with the doctrine, and not that they have some jail time hanging over their head if they don't go to a certain church that the government prescribes them to go to. Now, the United States of America is a special nation in the sense that the United States has a strict ban on having a state sanctioned church, and having a state sanctioned religion, and, of course, this makes sense because the people who came here and founded this country were escaping places that had state sanctioned religion. So, I'm going to read to you—I wish I had a whiteboard. I don't have it. I want to read to you the First Amendment of the Constitution because there's a lot of confusion about what this amendment is teaching, and what the laws in our country is. A lot of people think this, oh, the First Amendment is what gives us our freedom of religion. Wrong. The First Amendment does not give any freedoms regarding religion. The First Amendment is a restrictive amendment, but specifically it's restricting one group of people—Congress. That is why the first word of the of the First Amendment is this—Congress. Okay, let me read it for you. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. This is what's known as the establishment clause, and it's saying the federal Congress is not allowed to make a law saying, all right, we are instituting the Church of the United States of America, or the First Baptist Church of the United States of America. That is prohibited in the First Amendment. Notice this did not say, you have the right to go to church. You have the right to worship God. We already have that right because our founders believed in something called natural rights or God-given rights, and I believe that is a biblical concept. Why? Because if God says, thou shalt not kill, that means I have a right to not be killed. Right? I mean, if God is saying, you don't have the right to do this, it means the other person has a right to not be killed. If he says, thou shalt not steal, I have a right to not be stolen from. So the idea of natural rights or God-given rights is a true concept, and if God tells us to worship him, if God expects us to love him and obey his commandments, then that is a right that we have from birth. That is not something that government grants us, and so our founders recognized, hey, we already have the right to worship God, so what we're going to do is we're going to constrict and restrict Congress's ability to manipulate anything in that area. So again, it says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Notice it's not saying you have the free exercise of religion. That was already known. That was already taken for granted. Yeah, of course people have the right to worship God freely, and so what we're going to do is we're going to restrict Congress's ability. So people all the time, you know, they say, oh yeah, the First Amendment gives us our rights. The First Amendment has nothing to do with you, and it has nothing to do with me. The First Amendment, at least the religious part of it, has to do with restricting Congress. Now, that is a very, very important point because here's the thing. Our country was founded with the idea of federalism. Now, federalism, it's kind of a deceitful name because it makes you think of the federal government, but federalism at the beginning was basically a separation between federal authority and state authority, and our government believed and wanted states to have a lot more authority than the federal government, and so the Constitution is purposely pretty general and pretty vague, and when it comes to the states, things got a lot more specific and had a lot more nuance in these state constitutions. Now, I'm going to read to you from a lot of excerpts from multiple state constitutions that were written around the time of the founding of our country, around the time of the ratification of the Constitution of the United States, and you know, Lord willing, we're going to be making a documentary soon about American history, so I'm not going to give too much away for our documentary, but I definitely want to get into some really important things here. So, this is the Massachusetts State Constitution, written in 1780, so around the time of the federal Constitution. So, keep this in mind before I read this. This is the narrative today. The narrative today is that our country was not founded as Christian. The narrative today is that the founding fathers gave us the First Amendment because they didn't want religion and government. They didn't want Christianity and government. I've heard this from college students at the University of Texas, that America was always a secular nation, and that the First Amendment was given to us to keep us a secular nation away from religion. Now, keep those claims in mind when I read this for you here. Massachusetts State Constitution, 1780, Chapter 6, Article 1. Any person chosen governor, lieutenant governor, counselor, senator, or representative, and accepting the trust, shall, before he proceed to execute the duties of his place or office, make and subscribe the following declaration. I, I'll just say my name, I, Dylan Oz, do declare that I believe the Christian religion and have a firm persuasion of its truth. Oh, America is never a Christian nation. You are ignorant. You are uneducated, my friend. The First Amendment was literally to restrict Congress from messing with the Christian religion. It was not to tell us, hey, we're going to be a mix of Hindu and Islam and atheist and Christian and all these different religions. No, we realized that we have the right to worship God. We were a Christian nation. We realized that government being a church is a bad idea. We want to separate these things, government and church. So we said, hey, Congress, you are not allowed to make any rules regarding religion, okay? But the states, what they did is they said, okay, we're not allowed to have a state-run religion. We're not going to have the Church of Massachusetts, the Church of Oklahoma, right? But here's what we do want. We do want Christians in authority. We do want Christians running the nation. We do want Christians having influence in our society. So what they said is, hey, yeah, we're not going to have a state-run church. We're not going to prohibit anyone's right to exercise their religion freely. But here's what we're going to do. If you're going to be a governor, a lieutenant governor, a senator, a representative, you better put your hand up and say that I believe in the Christian religion and that I am fully persuaded of its truth. That is a great thing. That is why America was so great. Where do you see anything like this in history in any other nation? You don't. Our country was great because we exalted Christianity. Now, look, we didn't restrict religion because it's just a bad idea to give government that power. When Jesus has that power, he'll do it right. I don't trust our governor to have anything to do with religion. I don't trust our president to have anything to do with religion, right? We want those things separate, but you better believe that we were a Christian nation in culture and that we exalted the Bible and that we wanted Christians in authority. Here's another one. The Delaware State Constitution, written in 1776. Article 22 says, every person who shall be chosen a member of either house or appointed to any office or place of trust before taking his seat or entering upon the execution of his office shall take the following oath or affirmation if conscientiously scrupulous of taking an oath to it. I, Dylan Oz, will bear true allegiance to the Delaware State, submit to its constitution and laws and do no act wittingly whereby the freedom thereof may be prejudiced and also make and subscribe the following declaration to it. I, Dylan Oz, do profess faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ his only Son and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed forevermore and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration. Oh, so secular. I mean, that's as secular as you get, right? What a joke. This is why you need to homeschool your children, by the way. This is why you actually need to learn and read stuff, by the way, because you're going to go to school and you're going to be taught that the first amendment is to restrict religion. The first amendment is to keep religion out of America. No idiot. It was to restrict Congress only. And meanwhile, in the States, they were saying, hey, we want a Christian government. Not in the sense of a Christian state sanctioned church. That's bad. But we do want Christians in authority. We do want Christians making decisions and influencing our nation. And isn't it funny throughout history, how we have such a long history in this country of Christians running the show. And isn't it funny how we just became the greatest and most prosperous nation that's ever existed under the face of the earth. That's not a coincidence. And now what do we see guys like Vivek Ramaswamy, some Hindu who was running for president that a bunch of Christians were getting all excited about a bunch of Republicans were getting all excited about, you know, our founding fathers would have been rolling over in their graves. These men that wrote this would have been rolling over in their graves of the conversation of even entertaining the thought of electing a Hindu to office. You couldn't have been an atheist and been in office at these times. You couldn't have been a Catholic. You couldn't have been a Muslim. Sure. Those people could live and exist and not be killed. That's different than getting them into office. That's different than exalting them in any position of leadership. Here's the Delaware constitution 1776 article 29. There shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this state in preference to another. So notice they said, look, we're going to have Christians in office, but we're not going to establish an official endorsement of any sect. And we don't want the government doing that, right? I want people to be persuaded of the truth of Baptists and our beliefs over Pentecostals, Methodists, Presbyterians, because it's from the Bible, right? We want people to have freedom of conscience. We want to preach the truth. And we want people to freely be like persuaded of that truth and choose to follow God. We don't want the state saying like, Hey, you have to be a Baptist. You have to be an independent fundamental Baptist. No, we want them to say like, Hey, we're not getting involved in that. We are going to be Christian. If you want to be in office, you at least better believe the Bible. You at least better be firmly persuaded of its truth, but we're not going to establish any specific sect of Christianity. Notice how it's a sect of Christianity though, because they wouldn't have even entertained the thought of other religions. I mean, that's unthinkable for them. They also said this and no clergyman or preacher of the gospel of any denomination shall be capable of holding any civil office of this state or of being a member of either of the branches of the legislature while they continue in the exercise of the pastoral function. Now, at first glance, you might be thinking, well, that kind of sounds anti-Christian. Why are they prohibiting pastors from being in office? Cause that's what this is saying. This is saying like, if you're a pastor, you're a clergyman, you're not allowed to serve in government. Why though? It's not because they didn't respect Christianity. It's that they respected Christianity so much that they viewed the office of a pastor as infinitely more important of a legislator, of a judge, of a governor, because they said, look, this is way too important. The work that you're doing is extremely essential for our society. Let's have other Christians be in office, right? I mean, the lowliest Christian in this church would be a great legislator compared to some unsafe person in the Oklahoma state representatives or some Catholic or some Jew or some Muslim. No, we want Christians and authority, but they said, Hey, what about pastors? No, they're not allowed because they're actually doing a very important work that they don't need to sacrifice just to run an earthly kingdom. They're taking care of the kingdom of God. The New York state constitution in 1777 says, and whereas the ministers of the gospel are by their profession dedicated to the service of God and the care of souls and ought not to be diverted from the great duties of their function. Therefore, no minister of the gospel or priest of any denomination whatsoever shall at any time hereafter under any pretense or description, whatever be eligible to or capable of holding any civil or military or place within this state. So New York, they spelled it out clearly. They not only said, Hey, pastors can't serve in this function. They told you why they're dedicated to the service of God. They're dedicated to taking care of souls. So these people are not going to be serving in the military. These people are not going to be serving in government because what they're doing is so important. That was New York state. I mean, today, New York is known as just being one of the most liberal hell holes in our country. One of the most godless places in our country, not at their founding. They weren't at their founding. They had such a high respect for a man of God that they said, you're not even allowed to serve in government because what you're doing is way more important than what we're doing in government. Praise God for that. The Pennsylvania state constitution 1776 section 10 says, and each member before he takes his seat shall make and subscribe the following declaration. I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the scriptures of the old and new Testament to be given by divine inspiration and no further or other religious tests shall ever hereafter be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this state. Notice they were specific about the God that you had to believe in. It's not just like, Oh, one nation under God, whoever that is. It's like, no, you have to say that the old and new Testaments are divinely inspired by God. Cause here's the thing, you know, you could look at the old Testament and Jews and Muslims could be like, yeah, you know, we believe part of that too. Our God's the same God as yours, even though that's a lie, that's what people teach today. But the legislature of Pennsylvania said, no, you have to believe in God, the creator of the universe, the rewarder of the good, the punisher of the wicked. And you have to believe that that God is the God of the old and new Testaments translation. That's Jesus Christ. You had to believe in Jesus Christ to serve in the legislature. Isn't that amazing? I just think that is so cool. And then it says, and no further or other religious tests shall ever hereafter be required. So notice they're not going to sit there and be like, all right, what's your pre-trip post-trip doctrine? Are you a Baptist? Are you in another denomination? They're not going to get into that because that's not the government's job, but they did want to make sure that Christians were in office. And I just find it so funny how these state constitutions they're written at the same time as the federal constitution within the space plus or minus of 20 years. And we want to be fed the lie today that our society was totally secular. The government was set up to be totally secular. The founding fathers wanted to restrict religion in government. Meanwhile, all the states are over here talking about Jesus Christ, the new Testament, the old Testament, the Trinity. Yeah, it's a lie friends. It's a lie. You've been fed a lie today that teaches that America was a secular nation. No, it was not. It was a nation that honored Jesus Christ. Here's the North Carolina constitution 1776 says that no person who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion or the divine authority, either of the old or new testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of this state shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this state. So North Carolina, if you are an atheist, you're not allowed. You're not allowed to be elected. Why? Because you can't deny the being of God. If you are a Catholic, you are not allowed. Why? Because it says you have to be persuaded of the truth of the Protestant religion, right? Also, you have to believe in the old and new testaments, Jews, they would lose their position here. They would be out. And it just says, if you hold any religious principle incompatible with the freedom and safety of this state, right? So they wouldn't be allowing cults either Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses, Seventh day Adventists, these Colts would not have been allowed to serve in the legislature. They would have to be under the big umbrella of Protestant, which a lot of people mean different things by Protestant. Some people, when they say the word Protestant, they just mean non-Catholic, right? So sometimes we want to squabble over those things and we can at times, it depends what someone means by that. There are Protestants that believe some weird false doctrines, but a lot of times when people just say Protestant, they just mean like non-Catholic Christians, real Christians. And so in order to be in the North Carolina legislature, you have to be a real Christian. You can't be a Catholic. So here's the principle. We don't want a state sanctioned church, but we do want Christians in authority, right? And sometimes we get this like black pill mentality that I hear that, you know, Christians should never participate in society whatsoever. We shouldn't have any Christian police officers. We shouldn't have any Christian judges. No Christian should ever run for office. No Christian should ever be in a profession, you know, where there are a bunch of Jews or something like that. It's like, look, we want Christian influence in America. I would like it if when I got pulled over, I was pulled over by a man that believed in Jesus Christ. You know what I mean? I would like it if I was standing before a judge that I was standing before a person that believed that this was the law that actually looked at this and said, this is what's right. This is how we're going to judge. I would like it if I'm sending a representative to the state Capitol to make laws that are going to affect my life, that are going to affect the punishment of sin, that he would actually believe what the Bible says. Because when that happened, you didn't have things like gay marriage being legalized in America because Christian said, what the hell are you talking about? They should be put to death. This is a crime against God. And now we live in a society that is just devolving into moral decay and wickedness and just the exaltation of the most disgusting things imaginable because Christians have moved out of that sphere. Christians have been pushed out of that sphere. And now it's a bunch of worldly, unsafe people, atheists, Jews, Catholics, right on the Supreme court bench. And you think they're judging righteously. No, they're not. And the reason our country was so great is because we actually had great people running things. We had great churches. We had great governments from people running things correctly. Go to, if you would Ephesians chapter number six, Ephesians chapter six. So I submit to you that freedom of religion is a good thing. It is a good thing. I know people have some different views on this and that's fine, but freedom of religion in the context that we're talking about today is a good thing that we should want. Look at Ephesians six verse 12 says, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. You know, in the new Testament, the battle is a spiritual one, right? And sometimes we read stories in the old Testament, great stories, stories I love of Kings going in and slaying the prophets of Baal and tearing down their houses and burning the idols and praise God for those things. I love those things, but I don't believe that God has called us to do that in the new Testament. I don't think that we should go today and go to the Catholic church and burn the thing to the ground. Please don't do that. You will be arrested for arson. Okay. Or attempted murder or something like that. That is not what God has called us to do today. God has called us to engage and fight in a spiritual battle. You better believe it's still a fight. It's still a battle, but we're not over here just killing the enemies of God. We're not over here killing people that don't believe in Jesus Christ. No, we exist in a society that has freedom and we win people over by convincing them of the truth. And yes, it is a fight. We're not going to sit here and exalt false religions. And that's not what America ever did. America never said, Hey, okay, we're not going to have government interfere with church. We're not going to have government establish a false religion. So that means that Islam is great. And Hinduism is great. And Judaism is great. Catholicism is great. No, they actually said, no, those people can't have any influence in government. They could survive. They could live. We're not going to kill them or persecute them, but you're dead sure that they're not going to be serving in government. So for us today, it's like, I don't think we should be going and fighting physically against Muslims and Catholics and Jews. But what we can do is stand up here and say that their false religion is taking people to hell. I can stand up here and say that if you're a Muslim, you're an idiot because you follow a pedophile and illiterate pedophile. Absolutely. And we're going to fight against Islam and we're not going to respect any false religion and no, we don't have any tolerance for false doctrine on, on things like salvation that will send people to hell. But that does not mean that we start going and fighting and killing people. Do you really think that we should have a system where the police are called and just rounding up people who have different doctrinal beliefs? How long would that go well for us? No, that would devolve into chaos pretty quickly. And pretty quickly real Christians would be the ones getting persecuted. That's not a good idea. And here's the thing, just because we have freedom of religion and we're not going to persecute people of different religions, physically speaking, right? That does not mean that we should invite them into our country. Here's the thing. The Bible talks about not oppressing the stranger. Praise the Lord. If someone's in our country, we should treat them good. We should preach them the gospel. We should love them. But why would we just willingly say like, oh, world of all your false religions, let's just bring in as many Muslims as we can into our country. Let's bring as many Catholics as we can into our country. You didn't get that from the Bible. That's a weird idea. Not oppressing the stranger is not the same thing as inviting all the strangers into your country. Look, if you're, if the strangers are there, treat them well, preach them the gospel. Don't persecute them. Don't hate them. Don't hate someone because they're of a different skin color. But you know what? Having a common culture is important. And this idea of multiculturalism, that what makes America great is because we're a melting pot. That's not what makes America great. What made America great is that regardless of your skin color and regardless of what nation you came from, we loved the Bible. We love Christianity. We exalted the Bible above any of our carnal differences. And here's the thing. You could have a nation full of black people, brown people, yellow, purple, pink people. And if they all love God, things are going to go great. You're going to have unity. But when you just import the third world that they're not Christians, they don't love God. They're not persuaded of the truth of being a Baptist or Protestant or anything like that. We're just piling hordes of Muslims, hordes of just Eastern pagan religions, hordes of Catholics. That's damaging to our country. That is damaging. We don't want this multicultural nation. No, a nation needs to have one language. It needs to have a group of people that believe the Bible that are unified around the constitution and striving for the good of the country. Not just importing a bunch of people that don't care about our country, that aren't making it better, that are making it worse by bringing in their false religion. That's not something that we should want. And we dead sure shouldn't be affording them special privileges too. Bringing them in, just giving them free money, giving them free places to stay, giving them free college. You know, that's not a good idea. Go to 1 Timothy chapter 1, 1 Timothy chapter 1. 1 Timothy 1 18 says, this charge I commit unto thee son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare. Yes, we're still in a fight in the New Testament. Yes, we're still fighting a war, but what is our weapon? It's the scriptures. It's the word of God. That's what we use to fight against the false religions and the false doctrine of this world. We're not here to go arrest people of a different faith. We're here to preach the gospel. We're here to persuade people and preach the truth. Go to John 18, John 18. So look, as it stands right now in 2025 in America, I don't think that the government should pass some explicit law saying, you know, banning certain types of religions or anything like that. I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think it's a good idea to establish a state sanctioned church. I do think it's a good idea to say that if you want to have influence in our country, you have to be a Christian, at least. That was a great idea. John 18, 36 says this, Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence. So notice what are we striving for in this battle, in this spiritual war that we're in, we're fighting and striving about the kingdom of God. And Jesus said, if we were striving and fighting over a physical nation, you know what we'd be doing? My servants would be fighting. My servants would be taken out of the sword and trying to kill these Jews and Romans that are trying to kill me right now. But guess what? That's not the fight. And so I don't think that we need to take out the sword physically or use the sword, you know, the power of our government to go and slay other religions or anything like that. Because at the end of the day, this kingdom is not our kingdom. This world is not our home. We're striving for the kingdom of God. Now, while we live in a country, we do want a government and we want that government to be Christian, but we don't want the government forcing, Hey, you gotta be a Baptist. You have to go to the first Baptist church of the United States of America. That is a bad idea. So number one, we don't want a state sanctioned church. Number two, we do want a separation between church and state. We do want a separation between church and state. Now, some of you are freaking out right now because you've lived your whole life only hearing liberals explain to you what this means because liberals and the leftists of our country have perverted this phrase into teaching that there can be no religion in government. There could be no Christian influence in government. You can't have the Bible in schools. You can't pray in schools. You can't put the 10 commandments, you know, in the, in the courthouse or anything like that because the separation of church and state, that is not what that phrase means. And it's dead sure not what it was intended to mean when it was used. Now here's where this phrase kind of comes from. At first, there's a man named Roger Williams who founded the first Baptist church ever in America. This was in 1638. So this is long before the establishment of our federal constitution and the United States of America. This is back when it was just British colonies, 1638. This is from Wikipedia. It says Roger Williams was a staunch advocate of the separation of church and state. He was convinced that civil government had no basis for meddling in matters of religious belief. He declared that the state should concern itself only with matters of civil order, not religious belief. And he rejected any attempt by civil authorities to enforce the first table of the 10 commandments, those commandments that deal with an individual's relationship with and belief in God. So he's saying like the government shouldn't be involved in defining for you what an idol is, defining for you what it means to take the Lord's name in vain. That's not the government's authority to do that. Williams believed that the state must confine itself to the commandments dealing with the relationships between people, murder, theft, adultery, lying, honoring your parents. He's saying these are actual criminal laws that the government should be enforcing civilly and criminally. But things that have to do with your relationship with God, that's not the government's role. He wrote of a hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world. Thomas Jefferson later used the metaphor in his 1801 letter to Danbury Baptists. So here's the funny thing. People say, oh, you know, separation of church and state, isn't that in the constitution and declaration? No, it's found nowhere in the declaration or in the constitution. The phrase separation of church and state exists in no legal document. It was used by this guy, Roger Williams, and Thomas Jefferson used it again in some of his private letters to the Danbury Baptists. This phrase is not in our government, folks, but everyone today has been taught this lie and they repeat the same thing. Separation of church and state, separation of church and state. Oh, you can't have any religion in government because we all know the separation of church and state, right? Yeah, except that it doesn't say that anywhere. It doesn't exist. You're making that up out of thin air. Here's what this is saying. What Roger Williams meant by it, what Thomas Jefferson meant by it, what our founders meant by this idea of separation in church and state is that we don't want the government interfering with having anything to do with or restricting the church. This was not saying that the church can't have influence on the government. We already saw the laws in the states and how they wanted Christians in government, right? What it was saying is that the government is not going to make a law saying, here's your rules for church discipline. Here's the doctrines that you have to preach. Here's what's legal and not legal for you to preach. The separation between church and state is that the state actually respected the institution of the church. Now, this exists a little bit still today because when our church or the church I was a member of previously, Steadfast Baptist Church, when we went through some lawsuits, I remember conversations between the attorney and the judge where the attorneys would give the judge some piece of information and I heard the judge say with my own ears, this is an ecclesiastical matter. This has nothing to do with us. They're saying like, this is a church authority issue. This is a church doctrine issue that the church needs to deal with. Why is the government even talking about this? Why is the government even getting involved in this? That's what he meant by, hey, that's an ecclesiastical matter. We have nothing to do with that. See, there's still people today that actually understand what this means. That guy was one of them, even though he didn't make the best rulings in other cases, but he at least understood that, okay? So when people say, oh, separation of church and state, that means we can't have religion and government, they're ignorant. They have no idea what they're talking about. That is not true. Let me show you some more proof for this. Massachusetts State Constitution 1780 says, provided notwithstanding that the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic or religious societies shall at all times have the exclusive right in electing their public teachers and of contracting with them for their support and maintenance. What is this saying? It's saying, look, us as the government, we are never going to appoint church officers to a church. We're never going to say like, this person's going to be your pastor. This person's going to be your deacon. We're not going to get involved with how you elect these people. We're not going to get involved in how you contract these people. And you're like, well, that's silly. Why do they have to say that? Because in England and in other places, that's how things worked. The government and the church were intertwined very closely. And being a religious figure also meant you were a government figure. But even in the Old Testament, you have a very clear distinction between the priests and the kings. And even King Saul, excuse me, even King Saul got in trouble when he was doing the sacrifices that the priest was supposed to do, right? Because he did not have that authority. He was the government head as the king. He was not the religious head. That was Samuel's position to do the sacrifice. So this is a biblical idea. New Hampshire 1783 says, provided notwithstanding that the several towns, parishes, bodies, corporate or religious societies shall at all times have the exclusive right of electing their own public teachers and of contracting with them for their support and maintenance. So this wasn't just one state. Multiple states sat down and said, hey, it's important for us to let the church institution know that we have no right to be interfering with this whatsoever. Okay. Go to Matthew chapter 22, Matthew chapter 22. And look, if you're not into history, it won't be as boring of an issue tonight. Okay. I like history and I think this is a very important concept that we've lost and it's caused a lot of issues in our country. Matthew chapter 22 verse 17 says, tell us therefore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or not? So, you know, the Jews, they wanted to tempt Jesus, catch him in his words. And they asked him this question, hey, Jesus, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness and said, why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar's. Then say at the end of them, render therefore unto Caesar, the things which are Caesar's and unto God, the things that are God. Notice Jesus recognized and endorsed the idea of a separation between the institution of the government and the institution of church. That's what the separation of church and state actually means. One institution is its own authority, its own power. And another institution is its own authority and its own power. And Jesus is saying, hey, look at the superscription. Look at the image. This belongs to Caesar. Render that thing unto Caesar. So it's not like Jesus doesn't want us to participate in civil life. It's not like he doesn't want us to pay taxes. He does. And we're supposed to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar. And on the other side, we're supposed to render to God the things that are God. Notice these are two separate entities. Now there's been some governments that have not had this same structure throughout history. One of them still stands to this day and that's Germany. And in Germany, in 1919, the nation of Germany instituted a church tax where if you work, if you make money, you have to pay a church tax. I want to say it's 9%. And here, oh, it's so wonderful. You get to choose. Does it go to the Catholic church? Does it go to the Jewish synagogue? Does it go to the Orthodox church or does it go to like the Protestant church of Germany or something like that? That's the religious freedom that they have in Germany. See, that's what happens when there's no separation of church and state. The church is going to, or the state's going to sit here and say, okay, you're going to have to pay a church tax and we're going to tell you where that money is going to go. We're just going to take it straight out of your wallet. You know, if we have that in America, something tells me Anchor Baptist Church would not make it on the list of churches that people can give to. I like that we have separation of church and state where we can come to church and we can attend whatever church we want. We could give our tithes to any church that we want and not have the government be like, all right, yours is going to Joel Osteen. Yours is going to Billy Graham's Ministries. All right, yours is going to the Catholic church. Oh, yours is going to the Mormons. Wouldn't you love if those were your options? Well, that's what would happen if there was actually no separation of church and state. So don't get afraid by how the leftists have corrupted this term. Separation of church and state is beautiful. We want that. That's kind of why America was founded, folks. But what they've done is they've corrupted it into saying no Christianity in government, no Christian laws. You can't make laws based off the Bible. You can't have the Bible in schools. You can't have the 10 commandments anywhere. No, that's not what was meaning by this phrase. Go to Romans chapter 13. Romans chapter 13. Now we want these to be separate because the church has a very specific role and function. What is that? It's the fulfillment of the great commission. It's the pillar and ground of the truth, right? This is an institution interested in getting people saved, getting people baptized, causing them to grow in the Lord, causing them to become soul winners themselves. Now that is not the role of the government, nor should it be. The government has a different role. Look at Romans 13. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. This is a foundational concept right here that when God creates authority, that God is the head of all authority. What do I mean by that? When God institutes the institution of the family, excuse me, who is the human authority in that relationship? The husband. But he still has to submit to the higher powers because there's no power but of God. If there's a legitimate power on this earth, it's because it was created by God. And as a husband, I have to submit to God. Now there's also another institution created called the local New Testament church. Who's the human authority in that? The pastor is. But the pastor has to submit himself to the higher powers because there's no power but of God. The pastor has to submit himself to the Word of God, to the words of Jesus Christ, and ultimately to Jesus Christ himself. Government. Government is an institution founded by God. Government's not a bad thing. We need government. We just need government fulfilling its proper role. And in that government, yes, it's a legitimate power. Yes, it has true, real power. But who instituted that power? God. And who does the government ultimately answer to? God. So you cannot separate. You could separate church and state, but you can't separate God and state. There's a difference between those two things. Institution of the church, institution of the government. Both, though, have God as its head. So you still want government on its own, but you still want it to be in obedience to God. Let's keep reading. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. So if you resist proper authority, if you resist authority instituted by God, who you're actually resisting is God himself. And when you do that, you're going to receive damnation. Not talking about going to hell, but just being condemned. You're wrong. You're in the wrong when you resist rightful authority. For rulers, why? Why is it wrong? Because for rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou not then be afraid of the power? Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same. Now, isn't that how our country was founded? Our country was founded to where the government was there to punish the wicked. To bring restitution and bring justice for wrongdoing. It was not there to persecute Christians. It was not there to persecute people doing right. It was actually supposed to be a terror to evil. Verse four. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid. For he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. See, when you have a righteous government following the things that God said, you would never have any reason to be afraid of the government. Because if you're doing that which is good, a righteous government is actually going to be praising that and rewarding that and lifting up people like that, rather than condemning that. The people who should be afraid of the government are those that do evil. Those that sin. What I've noticed in my life, you know, going to public school and all the idiots and trouble makers and criminals are the ones that are scared of cops and hate cops. Why? Because they're doing wrong and that's why. It's funny how I've just had scores and scores of interactions with police officers, probably hundreds, honestly. I've never been afraid one single time because I'm not doing anything wrong. Not to say that there can't be someone out there that persecutes you wrongly. Not to say that if our government gets super wicked that we could be doing what's right. The government comes after us, right? We've seen situations like that. In Germany, that's happening big time right now. But in general, when a government is obedient to God, under God's authority, you would never have anything to fear by being a righteous person. Now, of course, human beings are sinful and governments don't last like that for very long. Verse five, wherefore you must need to be subject not only for wrath but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay tribute also for they are God's ministers attending continually upon this very thing. So notice we want government to be attending continually upon their work. Just like how we want pastors, Lord willing, to be full-time paid. We want government to be fully given to their tasks. We want police officers. I've heard this idea that we shouldn't have cops. That's a bad idea. We want to have cops. We want to have law enforcement. We want them attending upon this continually. And it's kind of like a social contract that we have in life. Like, hey, I'm going to be working on IT stuff. You're going to be working on plumbing. You're going to be working on law. You're over here going to be a pastor. And you guys are going to be patrolling the streets and keeping crime at bay and punishing wicked doers. We kind of have that social contract in our society where we want them continually attending upon that while we do other things in society. That's a good idea. Now, so I've given you some Bible. Let's see if our nation viewed government in the same way that the Bible teaches government should be run. This is the Preamble to the United States Constitution. It says this, we, the people of the United States, in order to perform in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America. So in the Preamble, our founder said, here's what we're trying to do with government. Here's what we view the government's role as being. Notice number one, it says, establish justice. What is that? That's civil and criminal law. We need justice in society. We need a way where if someone has stolen your ass, that the judges can make you pay restitution and make things right, right? We need justice in society, establishing domestic tranquility. That also could be viewed under civil and criminal law, because if evildoers are never punished, you're going to live in a terrible society. You're going to live in a chaotic society. You want to establish justice and domestic tranquility. Notice it also says promote the general welfare, promote the general welfare. That kind of makes me think of Romans 13, how it says, do that which is good. And now shall have praise of the same promoting the general welfare. You know, the government should just be praising things that are good. The government should be endorsing things that are good and it should be promoting the general welfare. Things like water systems, highway systems. These are good things that the government takes care of that I believe is promoting the general welfare. Then it talks about securing the blessing of Liberty. Remember again, our founders believe in the idea of natural rights or rights given from God. Those are our liberties that God gave us. And they said, okay, the government's role is not to give you Liberty. It's not to tell you, you could worship God. You can carry a gun. You could be secure in your persons and effects. You could be secure from having troops quartered in your home. You have a right to a speedy trial. You know, you can't be, you know, incriminating against yourself. All these rights that we have, they're not granting you those rights. They're saying, look, you already have these things from God. Our job is to ensure that those liberties are secured to make sure that laws are applied equally amongst people. That's the role of government. That's a good thing. That is separation of church and state. That's a good thing. Folks. We want more of that. That's not a bad word or something like that. So number one, we don't want to state sanctioned church. Number two, we do want a separation of church and state. Number three, in the millennial reign, there will be a state sanctioned religion. Okay. Go to Isaiah chapter two. Now here's where things kind of change because I think the mistake people make is they'll read some Old Testament verses that seem like, well, this doesn't sound like religious Liberty to me, right? But here's the thing. It's different back when the battle was both spiritual and physical. Now we're in the New Testament where our battle is not physical. We fight a spiritual battle. The New Testament over and over brings up this idea of freedom of conscience, of God wanting us to choose to worship him, choose to love him. I don't think that we're going to be, you know, restricting other religions in the New Testament. I don't think that's a good idea, but where there is some truth to looking back at those Old Testament passages is that things are going to change in the millennial reign of Christ. Look at verse number two of Isaiah two and it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above all Hills and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the God, to the house of the God of Jacob. And he will teach us of his ways. We will walk in his paths for out of Zion shall go forth. Notice the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he that's Jesus shall judge among the nations. He's in charge of everything here from a carnal perspective and a spiritual perspective, human government and spiritual government. It says, and shall rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn anymore. You want to know why nation is not lifting up nation against other nations is because Jesus Christ destroyed everyone because Jesus Christ fought and destroyed everyone at the battle of Armageddon. And so now when he takes charge as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, what does that mean? It means he's the King of other human authorities. He's the Lord of other bosses. He is the supreme and final authority. So in, in the new Testament, as far as in the millennial reign of Christ, yeah, there's not going to be freedom of religion. Yeah. There's not going to be, Oh, it's totally fine. If you just have a mosque or it's totally fine. If you have like some sort of Hindu shrine, no, Jesus is going to be rebuking people. He's going to be destroying people. The law of God is going to come forth from his throne and yeah, things will be different then, but guess what? It'll be great and perfect because Jesus Christ is the one running things. Jesus Christ is going to judge righteously all the time. He's not going to make any mistakes. And so that's going to be the best leader ever to follow. And that's going to be the best government that's ever existed in the face of the planet. It'll make America look like a little pipsqueak because it's just going to be a wonderful, wonderful time. Go to Psalm chapter two, Psalm chapter two, chapter two, verse six. Yet if I set my King upon my Holy Hill of Zion, I will declare the decree. The Lord has said unto me, thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Sounds like that's a little more than a spiritual battle there. That sounds like Jesus Christ is coming to rule and reign physically with a rod of iron. He gets the heathen as his inheritance. He's ruling over them, all the world. He gets that as an inheritance. He's ruling over everything. And notice what's the result of that truth. Verse 10 says, be wise now therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the sun lest you be angry and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. You know, when you know that someday Jesus Christ is going to rule and reign on this earth physically, the right decision to make is, well, I might as well just serve him now then. You know, if you know that all the kings are someday going to have to submit to him, that he's going to be breaking people, the rod of iron, you better just fear him now. You better just bow the knee now because he's coming and he's going to rule over you, whether you like it or not. Whether nations want to acknowledge Christ or blaspheme his name, whether you got nations like Israel based on hatred of Jesus Christ, Muslims who put their stupid dome of the rock on Mount Moriah where Jesus was once tempted by the devil, where they have that stupid inscription saying, oh, speak only the truth of Jesus. It's not fitting for God to have a son. You know what? All those people are going to be bowing to Jesus Christ someday. Every Muslim, every Jew, every false Christian, everyone in the world will be under his authority someday. So you know what you better do? You better kiss the son now. You better fear him now. You better rejoice with trembling now because he's ruling over you, whether you like it or not. And you know what? I think that God is going to be more pleased with someone who right now, when we don't have to choose to serve God, choose to worship him, choose to love Jesus Christ in his words, rather than when fear and hell on earth is coming on this earth and people are like, okay, we'll bow the knee now. No, we need to do it right now. We need to serve him right now with all of our hearts. That's what gives him glory. We're going to go to two more places. Exodus 20, Matthew 13. Get your place in Exodus 20, Exodus 22, I'm sorry. And Matthew 13. Exodus 22, verse 20. Notice this verse, it says, he that sacrificeth unto any God, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed. Now, amen to this verse. I love this verse. This verse is true. It's a great verse. However, notice that now we're not in a physical battle. We're in the new Testament, but here's where the truth of this verse comes in. This was true for the Old Testament nation of Israel. And it will be true again when Jesus Christ is ruling and reigning. He's not going to allow false religion to thrive on this earth because guess what? The time for people to choose has already passed, right? This world has gone on in history for thousands of years. People have been preaching the gospel. The tribulation period had happened. God's wrath had happened. The battle of Armageddon had happened. Now, you know, he already came in meekness and peace and sweetness and light. Now he's coming to rule and reign. Now, if you decide to worship any false God, after you literally see Jesus Christ ruling, yeah, you're going to be destroyed. That's the case. That's a good law in the Old Testament. Now go to Matthew 13. We're going to read quite a bit of this chapter just because, you know, this isn't a topic that we talk about very much and that, you know, we're probably not going to come back to American history anytime soon. So I just want to get this philosophy into your head because I think some people have some different ideas on this. But read Matthew 13, verse 24 says this, another parable, put forth unto them saying, the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? From whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, an enemy hath done this. The servant said unto him, wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, nay, lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. And in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them. But gather the wheat into my barn. This is the parable known as the parable of the wheat and of the tares. And in this parable, you know, he goes out into the field and he sees that there's not just wheat in the field. There's also tares. He's saying, hey, an enemy's done this. And his servant says, okay, well, you know, logical conclusion, why don't I just go out into the field and just start taking out the tares? I mean, shouldn't we just have only wheat in our field, right? We want to get rid of these tares. He says, no, don't do that. Let it stay there because we don't want to rip up the wheat with the tares. Wait until the time of harvest. Now he goes on to describe what this parable means in verse 36. Let's keep reading. It says, then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And his disciples came unto him saying, declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. So now he's going to explain the parable. He answered and said unto them, he that soweth the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world. The good seed are the of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one. The enemy that sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world. And the reapers are the angels as therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire. So shall it be in the end of this world, the son of man shall send forth his angels and they shall gather out of his kingdom, all things that offend and then which do iniquity. And he shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the son in the kingdom of their father who had ears to hear, let him hear. The reason I bring up this parable is because I want you to now think about some of the questions that we've asked throughout the sermon. Should the government just start rounding up Muslims? Should the government just go out into the field of the world and should we just start rounding up Muslims and Mormons and Jews and Catholics and just start, punishing them, not allowing them to exist in society? I think that Jesus would say, let the tares grow with the wheat. And at the end of the world, Jesus is going to take those people and he's going to bind them in bundles to burn them. He's going to punish them with everlasting fire. It's not our job to start being the tare police. It's not our job to start being the tare gatherers and to burn the tares. That's God's job. What we want to do, we want to do the best that we can to be like David at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, where we go to the threshing floor. What happens at the threshing floor separates the wheat from the chaff, right? And what we want to do is we want to preach clear scripture, clear Bible, so that everyone can know, hey, there's a clear difference between real Christianity and Catholicism. Which one are you going to choose? Hey, there's a big difference between being a Baptist and being a Pentecostal. Big difference. Which one are you going to choose? The one that believes salvation's by faith alone, that you can't lose your salvation, or the ones that run around church barking like a dog, teaching you can lose your salvation if you don't repent of all your sins, right? There's a big difference between those things. But at the end of the day, we should not be like, hey, let's pass a law to ban Pentecostalism. No, let Jesus and his angels gather them up at the end and bind them in bundles to burn them. What our job is to do is to preach the truth. Our job is to make it clear whose side God is really on and what side the truth is and make that known to people and allow people to be persuaded. Last place we'll turn to is 2 Corinthians chapter 5, 2 Corinthians chapter number 5. We talked a lot about what the government should do, but what is it that we should do? What is it that we should walk away from this sermon doing? 2 Corinthians 5 verse number 11 says this, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, notice we persuade men, but we are made manifest unto God and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences. Our job is to persuade people of the truth. It's not to force them. It's not to make them convert at the end of a gun or at the end of a law. Our job is to persuade people of the truth and what we should do is use the fact that we have religious freedom in this country to its fullest possible extent in persuading people of that truth. We need to be thankful to God because here's the thing. We could sit here and point out all the terrible things about America and we do that and do we preach against the sins of our country? You better believe we do and is there a chance that if the end times happen soon that we're in times Babylon? You better believe that, but here's the truth. Here's just the objective fact of reality is that we are living in the best place on earth. We are living in the best country on earth. We are living under the best laws on earth at this time and instead of complaining about that and you know just talking about all the bad I'm just going to be thankful to God that I was born in the time I was born in and live in the place that I do because I do have freedom to preach the Bible. I have freedom to preach the whole council of God. We have freedom here to gather in a church unmolested. No laws telling us what we can and cannot preach. That is a special blessing that a lot of people in history did not have and we take it for granted. It's normal to us because we all grew up in it, but I'll tell you what it wasn't normal to the people who came across the ocean to found this country because it was the opposite. They were being persecuted. They were being burned alive. They were being arrested for doing things like reading the Bible to their children. I mean could you imagine living in a place where you could be arrested for reading the Bible to your children and how many of us don't even read the Bible at all? I hope it can't be said of people in this room that that's the case. I hope that you're teaching your kids the Bible. I hope that you're going to church and being thankful for the fact that you could gather together. I hope that you believe all the words of God and are not afraid to share it and are not afraid to preach it because not only is that our duty anyways but on top of that we also have the right to do that. I mean there's people in Germany who don't have the right to do that. They're doing it anyways and they're getting persecuted for it. Those guys are the real epic Christians. People in Canada. I know of people in Canada who have lost their children in custody battles because they go to a new IFB church and do you at least teach your children the Bible? Do you at least bring your kids to church? You know we ought not to take the things that we have for granted. You ought to actually get some smarts and learn some history and realize that our country was founded special because we believe the word of God. Because we exalted Christianity and it's not something about you know American exceptionalism in the sense that oh we're all white here we're all European here. That has nothing to do it do with it but you better believe America is objectively exceptional because of the Bible. Because of the word of God. Because of the founding of our country and when people say otherwise it's just because they're ignorant. Because they're like oh yeah the first amendment I mean that gets that gets Christianity out of out of government right? No it restricts congress. Oh I mean our country is separation of church and state so we we must not like Christianity in America right? No we actually respected Christianity so much realized they were two separate institutions. Well didn't America like ban pastors from being in government? Yeah because being a pastor is more important than being a governor and being a representative and being the president of the United States. You know let's be thankful for the things that we have. Let's be thankful for our liberty and let's actually use our liberty. Shame on pastors in America that have liberty to preach the whole council of God and are too scared to when it's free. When there's no persecution coming after them. When there's no one ready to arrest them for preaching against the sodomites or against the Jews or against the Catholics. No let's use our liberty for the glory of God now because guess what? Someday everyone's going to be bowing to Jesus Christ. I want to be the person that bowed to him way before I had to. I want to willingly bow to him now. I want to bow to him metaphorically by doing his will and by preaching the word of God. Let's pray. Lord thank you for this day. Thank you.