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

Alright, so the part of the chapter I want to focus in on there is verse 18 where it says, Discharge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare. Now this isn't part of the sermon, but just even having read this, something that just jumps out at me reading it is, he says, Discharge I commit, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare. This is just a great verse that shows us the importance of being in church, of being under sound biblical preaching and hearing the prophecies, because he says, How are you going to make your good warfare according to the prophecies which went before on thee? You see, it was the preaching of the word of God that Timothy was going to, that he had been under, that was going to enable him to go out and fight the good fight and to war a good warfare. But that's not the thrust of the message here. What I want to focus in on is that phrase there, Dennis, is that thou by them mightest war a good warfare. That's the title of the sermon this morning, A Good Warfare. See, we heard a lot about war these days, especially these events of this last week with the things that our own country is doing abroad with bombing Syria again. This has just become a pattern for our nation. Every so often we just go out and just bomb these countries and get ourselves involved in fights that we probably should have nothing to do with. And it just seems like that's the new pattern for our nation. We're no longer seeking, the president no longer has to get congressional approval to go out and just randomly bomb our neighbors and things like that. So we're hearing a lot about war this week. We're hearing a lot of people are starting to fret and be concerned about the fact that we might be getting involved in a much larger war, that things are going to escalate over there. And then we can find ourselves in the midst of a great war. But the fact is, there's been wars going on for a long time now. There's wars going on in this country and this world that we have no idea about, that we don't even realize are going on in these obscure countries. There's all kinds of fightings and things like that. But it says here that he wants them to war a good warfare. Of course, war is always bad. War is never a good thing. No one should ever look forward to war. But the thing is that there is warfare in this world. There is a war, there is a battle that has to take place. There is warfare that takes place. And Paul here is encouraging Timothy to war a good warfare. That's why I titled the message of good warfare. That's the kind of battle we should fight. We should be seeking to fight a good warfare. And we're going to talk a little bit about what that good warfare is and a little bit about what it isn't. You see, war is always bad, but it's not always evil. That's what I was trying to say earlier is that some wars, they're always bad, but some wars are necessary. Some wars need to be fought. And there is a good warfare, there is a fight that we need to be involved in. There is a warfare that we need to take part in. Now what makes one war evil, one war not evil, is the fact, is the motive behind it. Why are we going to war? If we think back in our history, there are certain wars that we could probably maybe say that were justified. There's some wars that we should have fought. I think of our own war for independence, when our forefathers fought to free themselves from Britain and the kings over there and from England. We fought that warfare to be free. Now that was, I don't know all the details of that, but you would have to say that probably was a good idea, that was probably a good warfare, that we fought that war. Now you think of a lot of modern wars that we've been involved in, most recently probably going over to Iraq and Afghanistan under the pretext of trying to out some evil dictator or trying to hunt down the people that were responsible for 9-11, of course none of those people were in Iraq, but apparently that's where we had to go to get them. So were those wars justified? What was the motive behind that? What was the motive? And I'll kind of leave it up to the listener to decide, I don't want to get all political this morning, but I for one really don't think that was a justifiable war, that you could say what we did there was justified. So you have to examine the motive of a person, of why a country is going to war, why an individual is going to war, to determine whether or not that war is good or bad, whether it's evil or sinful or whether it's something that's justified and something that should take place. Now let me just come out and say it, when I'm saying that we should have a good warfare, I'm not advocating that we should take up physical arms, that we should all go out and buy rifles and hand grenades and body armor and start fighting some kind of a fight, because our warfare is spiritual, if you turn over to 2 Corinthians 10 we'll see that. Our warfare is spiritual, we are still waiting, it's spiritual but it's spiritual for now. There is going to be a time when we will fight physically on this earth, well there will be a physical battle on this earth, and I'll say this, I don't think it's going to be much of one, in fact even in that battle that we're involved in, we probably won't have to do much at all, the Lord's probably going to take care of all of it. Because we're still waiting for our general, we're still waiting for our captain to appear and lead that charge. But in the meantime, the fight that we're supposed to fight here is a spiritual battle. We're supposed to fight against the powers and the principalities in high places, that's the fight that we're supposed to fight, the spiritual fight. Here in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, look at verse 3 where it says, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. So you're saying we do not war after the flesh, that's not the fight that we fight, that is not our warfare. Our good warfare is not a fight that's fought physically. Verse 4, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations in every high thing that exulteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringeth into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, and having a readiness to a revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. So we see that our fight is not one that's after the flesh, it's not carnal, it's mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. It's a spiritual battle that we fight, it's a spiritual fight that we're involved in. So for the Christian, I believe we should try to avoid being in physical conflict, we should try to avoid being enlisted, I believe, in armies and military service that would cause us to go fight wars that are unjust. I don't believe that we should be involved in that kind of a thing. Our country has come to the point now, even to where you can't even openly be much of a Christian in the armed forces. You can't preach the Bible or go around proselytizing, you can still have your services and things like that, but you have to be very tolerant, you have to be able to... I remember when I first got saved years ago, I was kind of toying with the idea of going into the reserves, and I kind of was talking to the recruiter, and he was trying to, he kind of found a little about me, and he suggested that maybe I become the military chaplain. So I thought, well maybe that'd be a good idea. So I went and I got on the internet, and I looked up what a military chaplain would be involved in. And as a military chaplain, even though you might be a Christian, you have to be able to minister to all faiths. So I thought to myself, well that's not going to work, I can't be a Christian and go be a military chaplain, I can't... Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, the life, no man shall come to the Father but by me. So there's only one way to heaven. So how can I be a military chaplain and go and try to minister to some Buddhist and tell him all about his Buddhist faith, or go to military, you know, especially now with the Muslims and things like that, and go and tell them, you know, how Allah is great and that's fine what they believe. I couldn't go out and tell them, hey you're wrong, you believe wrong, you're going to hell. Because, and the thing is, our fight is not a physical fight, that's not the battle I should be trying to fight. The battle we're supposed to be trying to fight is a spiritual one, we should be fighting a spiritual battle, not be getting involved in the wars of this world. Go ahead and turn over to 2 Timothy chapter 2, we shouldn't be involved in the wars of this world, we should try to avoid that. I mean obviously if it comes down to the place where we're going to be fighting for our family, you know, if the Syrians were over here, you know, bombing us and fighting us here, if we had a foreign enemy on our shores, if someone was in my neighborhood, you know, if there was some foreign invader trying to take over my neighborhood and affect my family, then I would say, you know, we probably should stand up for ourselves and not get trampled. You know, but that hasn't happened, you know, in all the wars that we've been involved in. You know, I can't think of one Syrian today who's ever done me wrong. I can't think of one person over there in the Middle East who's ever done anything to affect me, ever. So I don't understand why we should be getting involved in these wars, you know, it doesn't affect us. The Bible says in Romans chapter 12, you're in 2 Timothy, but I'll read from Romans 12, it says, if it be possible as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. As Christians, we should endeavor to live at peace. We should endeavor to be at peace with all men. So if we're going to be, you know, and joining up with a group of people in the United States military whose express purpose is to go into a foreign land and start to fight other people, that's not living peaceably with all men. We have to understand that our warfare, a good warfare, is a warfare that's fought spiritually, it's not one that's fought physically. There in 2 Timothy chapter 2, look at verse 1, thou therefore my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that wore it entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, but he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. You know, we shouldn't be entangling ourselves with the physical battles of this world so that we can please him who hath chosen us to be a good soldier for him. That we could be a good soldier for Jesus Christ, that we could war a good warfare, that we could fight a good fight. We should avoid being entangled in the affairs of this life, and that would include being involved in these military conflicts throughout the world. You see, the wars that the world fights are most often evil by nature. I mean, the intent, the motives that are behind most of the wars that are taking place, you name any modern war, it's evil by nature. It's usually one political ideology against another. It's not for people trying to deliver themselves from oppression, or people trying to free themselves from the bonds of some evil, wicked dictator. It's them usually interjecting themselves into situations that they don't belong in, at least from our perspective, from the American side. We have to ask ourselves, why is that? Why does that always take place? Well, James 4, the Bible says this, From whence come wars? Whence come wars? Why is it that we see so much warfare in the world? Whence come wars and fightings among you? Come thine out hence, even of your lusts that warn your members. Ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain. Ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. He's saying the wars that come out, they come from within us, they come from the things that we lust and desire. And it's just on a grander scale when you see one nation taking over another. When you see a nation like ours that's basically an empire that no other nation could even become close to standing against, could just go out into all these different countries and basically just take over. They could build down, they could take a nation down and build it back up again on the other side of the world. Well, why is that? Because they desire to have, there's so many, the resources over there, the corporations that want to move in and take over the natural resources, not to mention all the money that's made in the defense industry, and from the war industry, from producing all the arms, the bullets, the armor, the machines, all these machines of warfare, there's a lot of money to be made there. I remember before we moved out here I had a job at a place that we made industrial lathe chucks. So what that means is we made the chucks that actually go in CNC lathe machines. I don't want to get too involved in it, but basically we made the parts that help people make parts. And people would get real excited, I had managers who would say, boy, they would get excited when the president started talking about, when he started saber rattling, when he started talking about going to war, when he started talking about increasing military spending, because that has a trickle down effect. When the government starts to spend trillions of dollars in the military, a lot of private corporations make a lot of money. A lot of money goes into the people who help make the parts to go to war. There's a lot of money to be made from war, and it's the old trick in the book, turning lead into gold. Well, how do you do that? You do it through war. You take the lead bullets and they turn it into gold for you, because you make a lot of money from war. Because that's where most wars come from, that's why most wars are evil by nature. It's the motive behind them. And America feels like they have to police the world. It's this policy where we have to go out and correct everybody. But the Bible says, he that passeth by and meddleth with strife, belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears. That's the American foreign policy in a nutshell. Going out and meddling with strife, belonging not with us. And people want to say, you know, well, you've got your head in the sand, that's not right, that's the wrong attitude to have, it's our duty to go out there and to involve ourselves in these foreign affairs. And people think that we're actually trying to do something noble over there. It's hard to cut through everything and figure out what's true and what isn't anymore. But the popular narrative that's being pushed on mainstream media, 99% you're not getting the entire truth, if you're getting truth at all. You're getting the story, you're getting what they want you to believe is true. And people will say, well, you know, it's a good thing, that's a good warfare, we should be going into these foreign countries. And they would say, they would criticize somebody who might hold more of what would be called a non-interventionist viewpoint. But you know, there's a lot of famous people, a lot of powerful people, presidents, and our own presidents, and many other politicians throughout history that have been non-interventionists. That has been their policy. They have said, you know, we should not be entangling ourselves in foreign alliances outside of trade and commerce. That it should not be the United States' duty to go out and involve ourselves in wars that involve foreign countries. That we should stick to our own soil, that we should protect our own homeland, and let the world sort out their own problems. And that's not an unpopular, that's not a new ideology, that's not a new policy, that's something that we've had going all the way back to Washington. Washington said some things that would speak to that, where he said, you know, we shouldn't be involved in these foreign wars. But we've seen so much of it today, we've seen so much war, even in these last 20 years. I mean, I remember in elementary school was the first time we went into Iraq, Desert Storm. And that was like the first time we went. And that's after the Korean War, that's after the Vietnam War, that's after the cold war. I mean, our nation is just, since its inception, has just been one long war, when you think about it. And I think it's important to hear a sermon like this, because people today in America, we've grown numb to war. We've grown numb to it. It's just a part of life. Who are we fighting today? It's like the next football game. Who's on the roster? Who's up next? What's the season laid out like? Are we going to make it to the playoffs? Who are we fighting next? That seems to be what most Americans, they just have this numb, callous idea to what's going on. Because the thing is, most Americans don't have to go fight that war. We just pay for it. You know, we get taxed, we just help fund it. And as long as we don't criticize or anything like that, we're not bothered by it. But we can grow numb to it, and we don't see the tragedies that's taking place over there. The people, the women and children that are being killed and harmed over there, innocent people that are being destroyed, and we've become numb to that war. We've left off the good war, and we find ourselves just bloodied with guilt. And the good fight has got a lot of blood on its hands. I mean, not to speak all the things that we're doing within our own borders, all the wickedness that's taking place in our own country. Now that we've gone so far even to go out and shed innocent blood in other countries by means of warfare. And we've left off the good war. That's why we're involved in these wars that would not be considered a good warfare. That's why we're not fighting the good fight, because we've left off and we're involving ourselves in these evil wars, and we've grown numb to it. Now that's, again, I don't want to give people the idea that we're supposed to be pacifists, or that we're supposed to never be at war, that we're never supposed to have any kind of warfare take place. And if you would, go ahead and turn over to Numbers. We can see, we can look back in the Old Testament, and we can see that God does ordain warfare. That He does tell His people to go to war. You know, Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, is charging Timothy to go to war. He's saying, go fight a good fight, and he's saying, fight a good warfare. War a good warfare, fight the good fight. So God does ordain war. Spiritually in the New Testament today, our warfare, the fight that we fight is a spiritual fight. We fight against the evil that we see in our own land, we preach against it, we go out, we win souls, that's the fight that we fight now. But God in the past, if you look in the Old Testament, has ordained warfare in the past. You know, and God, even David and others, I'm going to read some verses, it'll show you that war is not necessarily always to be something to look down upon. It's something to avoid, it's not something we should enjoy, but it's something that God has ordained. You're turning over to Numbers, I'll read you from Psalms 18, where it says, As for God, His way is perfect, the word of the Lord is tried, He is a buckler to all those that trust in Him. For who is God, save the Lord, who is a rock, save our God? It is God that guideeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect, He maketh my feet like hinds feet, and seteth me upon high places. He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bowl of steel is broken by my arms. David's saying, look, it's God who taught me to go fight, it's God who sent me out to go fight these wars, He is the one that teacheth my hands to war. God does ordain war in certain instances, He does ordain that His people go and take up physical arms. Again, in Psalms, the Bible says, Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. My goodness and my fortress, my high tower, my deliverer and my shield, and He in whom I trust, who subdueth my people under me. So we see that God is, in some instances, for war. That He does tell people to go to fight. Proverbs chapter 20, the Bible says, Every purpose established by counsel, and with good advice make war. He's saying, you're going to go to war? Get good advice. Get some counsel. Sit down and talk to people. You know, that would be a good one for Trump. If he likes all the Bible verses, maybe he should, if every Bible verse or every book in the Bible is his favorite apparently, I wonder if he's ever taken time to read that one. Maybe he should have sat down and had a counsel with Congress before he just went out and decided to start bombing people. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes that there is a time to love, a time to hate, a time of war, and a time of peace. The Bible is very clear that there is a time to go to war, and there is a time to go to peace. It's the motive that's behind it. It's the reason why you're going to war that matters. Exodus chapter 15, the Bible says, The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation. Of course, this is Moses, you know, the song of Moses after God had delivered them out of Egypt and consumed Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea, and he says, He is my God and I will prepare Him an adaptation. My Father is God and I will exalt Him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is His name. The Bible says here that Moses said that the Lord is a man of war. God is one who goes to war. God is one who will fight a physical battle, but it's the motive that's behind it. It's the reason why. You think of the example of God ordaining people to go to war, of fighting a good warfare. Look at there in Numbers chapter 33 where we'll see the children of Israel taking a promised land. That's probably, there's many many battles that take place right there. Numbers chapter 33, beginning in verse 50, the Bible says, The Lord spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan, then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places. And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein, for I have given you the land to possess it. So here's God telling them to go into a foreign land, to go into another country and drive out the inhabitants, to completely take over the land, to just wipe them out, to take them out. And you say, well wow, that sounds, I mean you could say that's genocide, and that's one nationality, one group of people going in and just wiping out another one, and just saying, you're done here. And you say, well man, that sounds brutal. How can God ordain such a thing? How can we stand up and criticize some of the things our own nation has done, when it looks like God, at first blush, if you were just to read that, is doing kind of the same thing? But God, you have to understand something, that it's the motive behind it, the type of people that you're fighting. See God deems some nations worthy of destruction. There are certain nations that God says, you know what, they deserve to be destroyed, this nation needs to be wiped out. Here we turn over to Genesis chapter 15, and we'll look at what kind of a nation deserves to be wiped out. Why is it that God would tell His own people to go and just wipe out entire groups of people, entire nations, entire peoples, just off the face of the earth, just to get rid of them. Genesis chapter 15 verse 1, the Bible says, After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. Jump down to verse 12. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and lo and horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abraham, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger, and land is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, and thou shalt be buried in an old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. So the Amorites, that's the group of people that God is foretelling Abram here of when the children of Israel will come out of Israel and go and take back the Promised Land, the land that He's promising him that His seed would inherit. And He's saying here that they shall come hither again, and He says, Why? The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. The iniquity is not yet full. When is the nation to be wiped out? When does God see that it fit to destroy a group of people when the iniquity is full? When they have done so much evil, when they have done so much wickedness, when there's just so much sinfulness, and when they've just hated God and refused and rejected God and hardened their hearts and stiffened their necks, God finally gets to the point where He just destroys them. And when they harden their neck, God just decides, you know, you're going to be destroyed without remedy, as the scripture says, that they're going to be wiped out. And we have to understand that the nations that were in the land of Canaan when Israel went in there, they were very wicked people. I mean, they were doing horrible things. So we see here that a nation can become so full of iniquity that God destroys it. How? Through warfare. So God will use warfare, God will be a man of war when a nation becomes so bad that He decides to destroy it. And of course, it's a very specific group of people, and the Bible even tells us of the things, if you would turn over to Leviticus chapter 18, it describes the type of nation that should be destroyed. It tells us what these people were like. We begin to get a picture of these people and see what kind of things they were involved in that drove God to the point of destroying them, of wiping them off the face of the earth, of telling His people to go in and destroy them. What kind of a nation is that? Well, that nation is described in Leviticus chapter 18, look at verse 14. These are God laying down the law, this is Him giving the commandments, saying, look, these are the things you will do, these are the things you won't do. It's a pretty intense list. He says here in verse 14, He says, Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's brother, thou shalt not approach to his wife, she is thine aunt. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter-in-law, she is thy son's wife. Thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. Verse 16, Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife, it is thy brother's nakedness. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter to uncover her nakedness, for they are her near kinswoman, it is wickedness. Neither shalt thou take her sister to vex her to uncover her nakedness beside the other in her lifetime. Also, thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for uncleanness. More of thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbor's wife, to defile thyself with her. Thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, that's an important verse. Thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech. What are they doing? They were sacrificing their own children. They had the false god Molech that these people were sacrificing their own children to. I mean, how wicked do you have to be? I mean, we see parents today that are very bad parents. They don't care much for their children, they don't treat them well, they don't bring them upright, they do bad things, but have they gotten to the point where they're sacrificing them to Molech? How bad does it have to get? Anyway, going on there, it says, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy god, I am the Lord. Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind, it is abomination. He's saying no homos. He's saying, you know, these sodomites aren't allowed. They're going to be destroyed. Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind, it is abomination. Thou shalt lie with any beast to defy all thyself where they're with. He's saying no bestiality. So far we've got no incest, no adultery, no homosexuality, no sacrificing your children, no bestiality, oh god, he's no fun. That's the knock on god. He's got all these rules. Yeah, they're pretty important rules, don't you think? I mean, is that kind of thing we want going on in our country? Is that the kind of thing? These are the kind of things that these people were involved with, we'll see that here. Verse 24, Defile not yourselves in any of these things, for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you. He's saying all these nations that I'm casting out before you, he said, all these nations are defiled which I cast out before you. They've done all these things. These were the things that they were guilty of. They were guilty of the incest. They were guilty of child sacrifice. They were guilty of homosexuality. They were guilty of bestiality. They were guilty of all these terrible, horrible, wicked abominations. And they were not going to repent. There was no saving them. There was no turning them back. And god knew that they would only affect his people for the worse. He says in verse 25, The land is defiled, therefore do I visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations, neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sworgeth among you. And what happened, of course, in the history of Israel? They started committing these same abominations, didn't they? They started to go out with false gods, and what did god do? He had another country come in and wipe them out and take them away captive. God deems people worthy to be destroyed. He will wipe out nations. He will fight a good warfare when that nation has been proven to be wicked in his sight. Verse 27, For all these abominations have the men of the land done which were before you, and the land is defiled. The land spewed out you out also when you defiled it, as it spewed out the nations which were before you. Now we see the type of nation that god will destroy. We'll see, he gives a description, these are the type of sins a nation would be involved with that god would destroy. And my question this morning is, which nation more closely resembles this passage? United States or Syria? United States or Iraq? United States or Afghanistan? I don't know a lot about Syria. I think, I'm probably one of the majority of Americans that probably really couldn't tell you the countries around it. Most Americans don't even know where Syria was until they started bombing it. That's the American mindset today. And I don't know a lot about Iraq as far as their moral laws. I can't tell you a lot about what the culture is like over there. But I can tell you one thing, this passage here sure does sound a lot like United States. The United States today seems to resemble the people that god destroyed in the Old Testament. I mean, do we not have people committing these wicked, evil sins? Do we not have people doing some of these vile, grotesque things? Do we not have child sacrifice in our own country today? Do we not have people sacrificing their own children on the altar of selflessness before they're even born through abortion? Are we not seeing children destroyed before they're even born in our own country? Being promoted, funded, legalized. There's places where you can go there in secrecy, in confidentiality, walk in and walk out and destroy your own child before it's even born. Do we not see that taking place in our own country? Who resembles the nation that deserves to be destroyed more this morning? United States or Syria? Do we not see some of these other things? Do we not just this last two weekends ago have a gay pride parade right down here in downtown Phoenix? Do we not have the pride march in Phoenix here where all the homos, all the freaks, all the sodomites in the faggots decided to get together and go display their sin to the whole world? Does it not take place in every major city in America today where you have these homos going out and parading their filth up and down our streets and just displaying their wickedness and making them open before god and everybody? Which nation more closely is described here? United States or Syria? Which one deserves to be bombed this morning? Is it the one that's parading their filth? Is it the one that's committing all these wicked, wicked sins? I would say yes. I'd say it's the United States here that sounds a little bit more like this passage than Syria. As far as I know, maybe Syria is just as wicked, maybe they both deserve it. I don't know. But I know one thing, I live in this country and I can look around and I can see what's taking place and I can say to myself, that sounds like the United States. That sounds like we're a nation that deserves to be destroyed, that God might very well deem fit to just say, wipe them out. And I don't care how strong our military is, I don't care how many great soldiers, how many generals, how well seasoned our troops are, when God decides to wipe out a nation, it's done. You know, when you read the stories of when they went in and they wiped out these kings, the children of Israel were very small people. I mean, they were slaves in Egypt, just 40 years earlier before wiping those people out. It wasn't through their own mighty hand, it wasn't through their own power. They were just a small group of people that went out and wiped out entire nations' kings because God was on their side. That's why they were able to do it. These gods caused the sun to stand still to give people long enough to fight the battle. God was the one who rained down, you know, hailstones from heaven. God was the one that brought down the walls of Jericho and allowed those people to be destroyed. They were going to cause the Red Sea to fall on Pharaoh's army, that great and mighty army that were going to overtake his people. God fought for them. And that's why that small nation, those weak people, those feeble, God said that they were the least among the earth, were able to go in and destroy them. When a nation, when God deems a people worthy to be destroyed, it doesn't matter how strong they are. They will be wiped out. And what gets you to that point when you commit these kind of abominations, when your iniquity is full? The question is, the United States, is our iniquity full yet? And I'd have to say we're probably approaching that pretty quick. I mean, that cup's filling up fast. We see the wars that our nation is instigating as ungodly and most likely leads up to a judgment. I mean, these things are bound to happen. We know the passage, Matthew 24, where Jesus said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, until ye see many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that ye be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. So we know that there are going to be wars. As we approach the time of Christ's second coming, when Jesus returns, we know that we're going to see more and more wars. And I think God's people really need to let this sink in on them. Because it seems like every time something like this thing that happened with Syria happens, when we see, you know, our nation start to bomb and people start, you know, throwing out World War III and start thinking things are escalating. This isn't the first time we've bombed Syria in the last year. I mean, we did it earlier. We dropped the mother of all bombs over in, where was it? I can't even remember. I don't think it was in Syria, but I know Trump already, his presidency, has dropped the most powerful bomb you can drop without going nuclear. I can't remember who it was that he dropped it on, because there's just been so many bombings. It's hard to keep track of them all, so forgive me. But we need to understand, we shouldn't let ourselves be troubled. These kind of things have been going on, and they're going to happen, and Christians need to let this sink in. There are going to be wars. There's not going to just be rumors of wars, there will be wars and rumors of wars. But there are going to be wars, they're going to happen. And we have to understand something, that we need to be involved in the spiritual battle. We need to war of good warfare. We should not be involved in fighting, you know, these physical battles. Because these battles really, I think, are just going to be a lead up to the judgment of this country. That's where it's all going to take place. If there is a great war that breaks out, World War III, the United States is going to probably fall at some point. We need to be involved in the spiritual battle. This requires us to focus. We need to not fret. If we're not going to be troubled, if we're not going to, you know, every time something like this breaks out, go on Facebook and just let everyone know how worried we are about it and how we need to start, you know, run for the hills and get our rations together and, you know, beans, bullets, and batteries, and bunkers, and hunker down, you know, it's going to happen. And if it's our place to be destroyed, if we're taken out in it, you know, so be it. If we perish, we perish. But in the meantime, let's fight the good warfare. Let's fight a fight, I mean, if we're living in a country that's, you know, so pro-war and just wants to go to war, why don't we go fight a good fight? Why don't we get involved in a good warfare? And maybe we can start to turn the tide a little bit. Maybe we can, you know, start bailing out some of that iniquity out of the boat that's going to be, you know, sinking us soon. It's just that boat that's being filled, every wave of wickedness that's just washing over the bow and filling up this boat, the United States, and it's going down. Maybe, maybe some people, God's people are going to fire and start bailing it out a little bit, trying to keep the thing afloat a little longer so we can see some more souls saved, so we can raise our own families, you know, and peaceably and quiet, and in quietness. The Bible says in Psalm 37, Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like grass, and wither as the green herb. I love that passage where he says that, they shall be cut down like grass. They shall wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fit. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart. Commit thy ways unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass, and he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the new day. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not thyself because of him who prospered in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. We should just rest in the Lord. We should just rest in doing God's work. We should rest in doing the will of God, and fighting a good fight, and warring a good warfare, and not worry, and not get all worried and start to fret and be troubled by the things that we see going on around us. I mean, of course it's troubling. Of course it vexes us. Of course it's hard to sit there and watch the footage of these children in foreign countries who are just bombed, because that's the very nature of modern warfare. Collateral damage is just part of the game now, where it's not, we're not trying to go in there. You know, it's not like we're sending troops on the ground to go in there and fight house to house, you know, until after we've bombed them from afar. I mean, that's the nation, that's how we fight wars now. Like a bunch of cowards, we just throw lob missiles at them. And when they're just wiped out, then we'll send in our troops to kind of clean things up a little bit. And in the meantime, children are dying. Of course, that's hard to watch, of course that kind of thing is hard to see. But we shouldn't be troubled by the fact that wars are starting to bubble up, that things are going to get intense. And there's a time coming, if we live long enough, we will be living through a time of tribulation such as it was not on the face of the earth, nor every shall be. That's what Jesus told us. There's coming a time of war and chaos and fighting like the world has never seen. And we might be alive when it happens. We cannot fret, we cannot let those things trouble us. That's easy to say. And a lot of people will say, yeah, you know, they feel at peace because it hasn't happened yet. But the first time something happens, the first time, you know, Trump goes out and bombs Syria, oh, it's World War III, Russia's going to bomb us. You know, and it's just a bunch of saber rattling. Who knows what's going on? Who knows what the truth behind it all is? They're all in on it. To try and get this war, this new world order brought into play. But we need to focus, we need to keep the end in sight and let God wage His war one day. Because one day God is going to wage a war. Gordon, turn over Revelation 19 and we'll wrap it up here. Make no mistake about it, God is a man of war. God ordains people worthy to be destroyed. And it's wicked people that deserve it. And I don't know that it's the people over in the countries that we've been fighting. I do not believe the United States is going out and working God's will by destroying these other countries. And we've got a lot of just, you know, Republican Party Baptists, a lot of people who just want to repeat everything they hear on Fox News and think that we're just out there waging righteousness through these wars and I just don't understand it. You know, when our own nation is so wicked, when our own nation is so full of innocent blood, how can we think that we're doing God's will and fighting these wars? We're not. But make no mistake, God is going to wage His war one day. Revelation 19, verse 11, And I saw heaven open, and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. See, that's the difference. When God judges, when God makes war, it's done in righteousness. It's done for righteousness' sake. It's because He's judging the wicked. It's because He's executing His wrath and vengeance upon people that hate Him and hate His commandments. It's not because He wants their oil. He wants their precious metals to help make cell phones and computers. He wants their opium fields, and that's not it. He wants to put up a centralized bank and get them involved in the world economy. That's not why God's word. When He judges, it's because it's for righteousness' sake. That's why He judges and makes war. For His own righteousness' sake, that He could be exalted. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns, and He had a name written that no man knew but He Himself. And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and His name is called the Word of God. What a frightful sight. That's God. God is one who will judge and make war. He has a vesture dipped in blood. That's the God that we serve. And there is no fighting this God. That is a battle that you cannot win. When God is fighting against you, when God Himself is coming down from heaven with eyes aflame of fire, and out of His mouth goes a sharp two-edged sword, and He just speaks the Word and devours His enemies, when the hills melt like wax at His coming, there is no fighting Him. You can run to the hills, you can run to the ocean, you can run and hide, but God, when He comes, victory is sure. He'll find you out, and the wicked will be destroyed. God is a man of war, and there is a war coming, and God's going to fight it. Let's let Him fight it. Let's let God fight that fight for us. Let's war a good warfare. Let's get in the fight that He wants us involved in now, which is the spiritual one. The physical fight will come later. The enemies will be physically destroyed by God Himself when at His second coming. We'll leave that to Him, because that victory is sure. In the meantime, we need to fight the good fight. We need to be in a good warfare. Jesus will fight the physical battle for us. We must fight the spiritual one until He comes. Jesus answered in John 18 and said, 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 come from hence? Not from hence. So He's saying, this kingdom, these earthly thrones that we see today, the United States, whatever nation, these nations that God says are less than nothing, that God is not impressed with any of these nations, that there is no nation better than another than God's sight. His kingdom is not of this world. He's not of these nations. Jesus Christ is going to come here and sit down with the United Nations. He's not going to be on the Security Council meeting. When He comes, it's all His. He takes over completely. The Bible says there is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord. They could get the rulers of the heat that can rage and the people can imagine evading things. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointing, but God's going to destroy them. But God's going to win in the end. He's going to win when it comes out victorious. His kingdom is not of this world. When He comes, His kingdom comes with Him, and He fights that fight. But in the meantime, we have to fight a good warfare. We need to go out and we need to win souls. The Detroit Soul-winding Conference is coming up this week, and I liken that into our own spiritual UN meeting. That's how I'm looking at it. We're going to the Eternal Security Council, we're going to go out there, we're going to get some delegates from the different parts of our land, and we're going to discuss and we're going to train our troops and we're going to go out and we're going to fight a good fight. We're going to go out and wage a good warfare, because that's the fight we need to be involved in. Soul-winding. Living for God. Raising our families to understand and know the Bible and who God is. And let God fight the physical fight. Because the physical fights that we see take place today, they're not good. They're evil. Their motives are wrong. It's not for righteousness sake. When God comes, He'll fight that fight right. In the meantime, let's war good warfare and win some souls. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, again, thank you for the Bible. And Lord, thank you that you are a God who judges. Thank you that a God who understands and knows truth and can execute righteousness on this earth. And Father, help us to trust in you and to wait for you, and Lord, to understand that though we see all these things taking place, Lord, that as you told us, that we would not be offended, that these things are going to happen, that there are going to be wars, that there's going to be tribulation, Lord, help us not to fret but to trust in you and to know that in the end, Lord, victory is already ours, that you have already won that battle, that you are going to come soon and subdue the earth, Lord, under your reign. Help us to wait for that, Lord, in the meantime, to endeavor to do the work that you've given us to do, to go into all the earth and teach all nations the things that you've commanded us, Lord. Help us to win souls, give us a good week, in your name we pray, amen.