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Man, the title of the sermon tonight is the de-Christianization of our nation, the de-Christianization of our nation. Look down at your Bible there in Psalm 33, verse 10. The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to naught. He maketh the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. It is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. Our nation is becoming increasingly heathen and less and less Christian. It's being de-Christianized. I'm going to read for you some statistics that have been released recently. This is an article from the Guardian where they're citing some Pew Research Center data. Americans becoming less Christian as over a quarter follow no religion. This is from October of this year. The United States is becoming a less Christian country and the decline in religious affiliation is particularly rapid among younger Americans, new figures show. The proportion of US adults who describe themselves as Christian has fallen to two-thirds, a drop of 12 percentage points over the past decade. Just from 2009 to 2019, just in those 10 years, 12 percentage point drop in people who are identifying as Christian. That's a steep decrease. Over the same period, the proportion of those describing themselves as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular has risen by 17 percentage points to more than a quarter of the adult population. Although churches and faith movements continue to exert strong political influence on the Trump administration and at the state level, the proportion of American adults attending religious services has declined. The number going to church at least once or twice a month has fallen by seven percentage points over the past decade. This is just in the last 10 years. More Americans now say they attend religious services a few times a year or less than say that they attend at least monthly. So 54 percent say they only go a couple times a year or less than that. And 45 percent say they attend at least monthly. Fewer than half of millennials describe themselves as Christians. So it's 75 percent or a little less than 75 percent of our nation that would describe itself as Christian whether they go to church or not. But with millennials, which is my generation of people younger than me, which is the largest demographic group in our country at this time, by the way, less than half of them describe themselves as Christians. So that shows you what the future is. The younger generation, my crowd and younger, are even less Christian. Four in 10 say they have no religion. So it's 40 percent no religion. And nine percent identify with non-Christian faiths, so the Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, whatever. As many millennials say that they never attend any religious services, that's 22 percent that never attend church, as those who go at least once a week, also about 22 percent. Pew's report released on Thursday says the decline of Christian communities is continuing at a rapid pace. Religious nuns, people who have no religion, have grown across multiple demographic groups, white people, black people, Hispanics, men, women, all regions of the country, among college graduates and those with lower levels of educational attainment. Religious nuns are growing faster among Democrats than Republicans, though their ranks are swelling in both partisan coalitions. And although the religiously affiliated are on the rise among younger people and most groups of older adults, their growth is most pronounced among young adults. The share of U.S. adults who identify with non-Christian faiths has increased from five percent in 2009 to seven percent in 2019. Two percent are Jewish, one percent Muslim, one percent Buddhist, one percent Hindu, three percent who identify with other faiths, including people who say they abide by their own personal religious beliefs. Furthermore, the data shows a wide gap between older Americans, baby boomers and members of the silent generation, and millennials in their levels of religious affiliation and attendance. More than eight in ten members of the generation born between 1928 and 1945 described themselves as Christians, that's 84 percent. So 84 percent of people born between 1922 or 1928 and 1945 described themselves as Christian. Then when you get to the baby boomers, it goes down to 76 percent. And then when you get down to the millennials, it goes down to 49 percent. So you can see the trend, 84 percent, 76 percent, 49 percent. What's the next generation going to be? There's a Gallup poll, U.S. church membership down sharply in the past two decades. As Christians prepare to celebrate Easter, Gallup finds the percentage of Americans who report belonging to a church at an all-time low, averaging 50 percent in 2018. U.S. church membership was 70 percent or higher from 1937 to 1976, and in the 70s, 80s, 90s, it dropped down from 70 to 68 percent. But in the past 20 years, there's been a 20 percentage point decline. So instead of just going down a couple percent over a few decades, now it just dropped 20 percent in 20 years. It's just in free fall. At the turn of the century, 73 percent of U.S. adults with a religious preference belong to a church, compared with 64 percent today. Go to Matthew Chapter 5. Why is this happening? What's going on? Why is it that more and more people are saying, I'm not a Christian, I have no religion? And then, even amongst the religious, even amongst people who are saying, I am a Christian, far fewer are attending church, or they're attending church less often, or they're not a member of a church like they used to be, where they have a church where they say, this is my church that I go to. So what is causing this? I will tell you exactly why this is happening. The answer is, in Matthew Chapter 5, Verse 13, it says, Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden underfoot of men. The answer is that the salt has lost his savor. I'll tell you why people aren't going to church today. I'll tell you why churches are getting smaller, and denominations are getting smaller, and Christianity in America is getting smaller, is because it has become indistinguishable from the world. It's lost its savor. It's lost its flavor. And so, when church becomes just like the world, pretty soon people are just going to say, why bother? What's the point? I don't need this. There's no difference. Now, how's our church doing? Our church is growing. Our church isn't on the decline. Our church is growing. Our friends' churches are growing. Churches like ours are thriving and growing and getting larger. I'll tell you something. If you want to make a difference in this world, if you want to have an impact on our culture, you have to be different than the world. And this experiment of be like the world, to win the world, seeker-sensitive, liberal churches that have watered down the message to give people what they want, isn't it interesting how it's been a complete failure? It has failed. I don't understand how people can't see this. It's a failure. You know what's funny is that some people will comment on my YouTube videos and say, people like you are the reason why less people are going to church. Well, isn't that interesting because how many people like me are there? I mean, we're in a country with 340 million people. How many of them are like me? You know, you could probably point to like 20 or 30 pastors in this nation that you'd say, hey, they're pretty much like Steven Anderson in this sermon that's getting the comment saying this is why. Really? So 30 people have turned everyone away? No, wrong, friend. I'll tell you why people aren't going to church. It's cornerstone down in Chandler with their perverted billboards where they're talking about the bedroom and giving you advice in bed, and that's their new sermon series with all the perverted junk. It's the rock and roll church down the street. That's why people aren't going to church because there are thousands and thousands and thousands of those kind of churches. They're the ones that are turning people away because, folks, if you raise up a generation where church is a party and a rock concert and a nightclub, you know what that generation is going to do? They're going to grow up, and they're going to go to a party. They're going to go to a rock concert, and they're going to go to a nightclub. Because you've taught them that from the time they were one year old, three years old, five years old. You have made this party church, and so now you have a bunch of party people instead of Christians. That's what's going on, friend. Folks, people are looking for this kind of preaching. The reason why churches are failing, the reason why people are turning away from Christ is they're being raised in churches that aren't even like a church. What does the Bible say? The Bible says that we're the salt of the earth. We're the light of the world. We're the city that's set on a hill, the light of the world that can't be hid. We're to let our light so shine. Folks, if the salt loses its savor, or you could say if the church loses its flavor, it's good for nothing. A church that tastes like the world is good for nothing. A church that's worldly and carnal and doesn't offend anyone, it's because they're not saying anything. I remember when we were first married, my wife said to me one time, she said, I'd like to visit some of these liberal churches just to kind of scoff at them and see what they're like. So I said, it'd be so boring. I said, you wouldn't even find anything to scoff at because I said 99% of what they say is true. I said 99% of what they say is right, but they're not saying anything. It's not what they say that's the problem. It's typically what they don't say that's the problem. You know, it's just boring and there's nothing there, and then you wonder why people stay home. Because it's boring. People are staying home because there's no point. By the way, not only is it that the church has become so worldly and totally lost its savor to where you can't distinguish it from the nightclub, the rock concert, or the party, so then people just go straight to the real thing. Not only that, but when you have churches that have this attitude of just everything's okay and we're not going to judge you and nobody's going to judge anything, pretty soon you know what people are going to think, oh well then I can not go to church and there's no judgment. I mean if everything's okay, well then guess what's okay? Staying home from church because we dastard judge someone for staying home from church or going to the lake. I mean they can get just as close to God out there on the lake where two or three are gathered together and sometimes they even count the fish. We can just go out and just be in nature and commune with the almighty. Folks, when you teach people that there's no such thing as a commandment or right and wrong, everything's relative, all of this greasy, gray, sloppy, agape kind of preaching, guess what? Pretty soon they're going to realize, what do I need you for? What do I need church for? Everything's fine. I can just stay home and do whatever I want and there's no consequence. Go if you would over to Luke. He said, if the salt is lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? I mean wherewith is Phoenix, Arizona going to be salted if the salt has lost its savor? I mean if the Christians of Arizona, if the churches of Arizona are no longer distinct from the world, it's not going to be salted and if it's not salted, it's not going to be preserved because salt is a preservative. We need to be distinct. That's why the Bible says, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord. God wants us to be his peculiar people and so we are not to be conformed to this world, we're to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. If we are exactly like the world around us, then what's the point? And then we raise up a generation of young people that don't even go to church. I mean who are these 49 percent that are, I'm sorry, 51 percent of millennials that are not religious? I guarantee you a ton of them are the children of Christian parents. So why are the Christian parents raising a non-Christian child? Because they're taking them to a church where they're not being taught the word of God, where they're not understanding what it is distinctively to be a Christian. So they grow up and they're just kind of like, meh. What religion are you, none, I don't know, 40 percent of people are just meh. I'm agnostic. You know what agnostic means? You don't know. I don't know, meh. Why? Because their church is meh Baptist. If you go to meh Baptist church, everything's just meh, meh, meh. You say why do you make that meh sound? Because look, I'm speaking indistinctly. This is how their sermons are meh. It's like the people talking on Charlie Brown, like wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Folks, when you go to church, that's what it's like at these churches. Nothing's being said. The trumpet is not giving a certain sound of, ta-da, you know, where, hey, look, and you can say whatever you want about faithful word Baptist church, but you know what? Everybody knows what I believe. Everybody knows what our church stands for. Everybody knows where we stand on things. Everybody has to wonder and clarify and keep asking questions to figure it out. Folks, people know who we are. You know what? We know what Bible we preach. We know what our doctrine is. We know who we are. And you know what? I know who I am. You know who you are. These other churches, they don't even know who they are. They have no flavor. They have no savor. You taste them and you're just like, what is this? I don't know what this is. They taste like a raw potato with your nose plugged, right? You know, those who had that school experiment. So in the book of Luke, did I have you turn to chapter 14? Go to Luke chapter 14 and we'll find the parallel passage, but this manity is what basically raises up a bunch of agnostics and religion nun type people who don't care. And you know what? I'll go and speak several times a semester at the community college here in the religion and philosophy classes. And let's face it, folks, these are people that are taking a religion class. These are people that are taking a philosophy class. So you'd assume these people might be a little more interested in religion and philosophy than the rest of the student body. I mean, wouldn't that stand to reason? And you know, the thing that comes across loud and clear is that they don't care. They don't know what they believe. The teacher tries to pin them down and try to just, he's not even trying to impose a certain belief on them. He's not a preacher. He's not trying to get them converted over. He's just trying to get them to believe something or to figure out what they believe. He's just trying to get them to learn how to think and how to make decisions about their beliefs. And it's like pulling teeth to even get them to even figure out what they even believe about things. And you can talk to them for 30 seconds and just get them to change their beliefs. They don't know what they believe, but frankly, they don't even care. They have no interest. Why? Why is that? Because the salt has lost his savor. That's why. You know, when the salt has a distinct flavor, you know what? There are people maybe who don't like a lot of salt. Who doesn't really like a lot of salt on your food? You're not real big on a lot of salt on your food. Who loves a lot of salt on your food? Because we're in Arizona. In Arizona, you love salt. Before I moved here, I wasn't really a big salt guy, but you should see the amounts of salt that we use in our house. I don't know if the American Heart Association would approve or whatever. We do a lot of salt in our house. It's because we've lived here, you sweat a lot, and you need to replace those electrolytes. The longer you live here, the more you love salt. But there are people that said, hey, I don't really like salt. Everybody has an opinion about salt because everybody knows what it tastes like. It has a distinct flavor. You either want it or you don't want it. You want more, you want less, but at least everybody knows what it tastes like. It's not just this null value in your food, like prickly pear cactus. Who's ever eaten prickly pear cactus? You know what it tastes like? Nothing. It tastes like absolutely nothing. It doesn't taste like anything. You like it? I don't know. I don't know. I ate it. I ate it and I don't know if I liked it or not because I don't remember what it tasted like because I remember it tasting like nothing. It was like a bell pepper texture with no flavor. That's what a lot of these shirts are, prickly pear cactus, except all the spines have been removed. All the needles have been removed. There's no fruit. It's just a paddle. It's gotten black grill lines across it and it tastes precisely like nothing. Look at Luke chapter 14, verse 34. Salt is good. See, this is why it goes so freely in our house. But if the salt had lost his savor, and I love the way this is phrased in Luke. It's a little different in Luke. If the salt had lost its flavor, savor, sorry, wherewith shall it be seasoned? This is the part I like. It's neither fit for the land nor yet for the dung hill. Man cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Here in Luke, I like how he says it's not good to be used in the land, but it's also not even good for the dung hill. Something's pretty useless when it's not even good for the dung hill. I don't think the dung hill has real high standards for what's useful there. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't put that in the dung hill. You're going to mess up my dung hill by putting that there. He's saying if the salt loses its savor, and look, what's the salt? We're the salt. What did Jesus say? You are the salt of the earth. Is that what he said? You're the salt of the earth. So who is not even good enough for the dung hill? You if you lose your savor. Am I right? I mean, that's what he said. You're the salt of the earth. You are worthless if you have lost your savor. The churches in America today, they're less than worthless because they're not even good for the dung hill. They're not even good manure. They're not even good fertilizer. And I think what he's getting at here is that when you try to mix the world and Christianity and have this savorless hybrid of this seeker-sensitive liberal church that just has all the opinions that the world has and looks and smells and tastes like the world, it's not good for the dung hill. Now, one way you could look at that is the worldly sinful people, they don't want it. Stop and think about this. Somebody who's a dung type person, a super wicked person, a sodomite, they don't want any church. Does everybody understand? The dung hill is not looking for any kind of salt. Flavorful or not flavorful, they're not interested. They hate God. They hate the Lord. They don't even want to retain them in their knowledge. So it's not good for them and it's not good for real Christians because it's not edifying them. It's not building them up. In fact, it's stunting their spiritual growth. It's actually slowing them down. And so these churches have become completely ineffective, worthless, they've lost their saver, they're not fit for the land, they're not fit for the dung hill, they just need to be thrown out. They just need to be discarded. I mean, that's what the Bible says. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Go to Psalm 106. Psalm 106. And look folks, I want people when they come to our church, I want them to feel like they're at church. Not to feel like they're at a party or a rock concert or a nightclub or in a bar or at an athletic event or something like that. And people think, oh, but if we can make it more fun, more people will come. That isn't true because churches have been making it more fun for the last 20, 30, 40 years. Did it make more people go to church? I mean, what do the statistics say? No, the more fun they make it, the less people come. You say, oh, it doesn't make any sense. It actually makes perfect sense. Because you know what you're teaching people is it's all about you having fun. It's about you having fun. And you know what people are going to figure out? I can have more fun somewhere else. If the goal is just to have fun, this is not the funnest thing going on right now. I mean, I hate to break it to you. Kids, you are not at the funnest possible place right now. What am I doing here? But if you think that, you're an idiot because only an idiot thinks that life is meant for just having fun. You should have grown out of that somewhere between being a toddler and being 10 or 11 years old or something where you start figuring out, hey, my life is more than just going from one ice cream cone to the next and the next fun thing. Isn't life more than just having fun? Of course. We're not here to have fun tonight. I'm glad that you enjoy preaching and that you listen to it for fun and that you enjoy coming to church. And I know I enjoy coming to church. And I do have fun at preaching events, conferences. I have fun out soul winning. I have fun reading my Bible. But you know what? If you're doing it for the fun of it, who are you kidding? If you're just doing it for fun, you're going to find other fun stuff to do. If that's what it's about for you. The reason why we go to church is because we're coming here to actually learn something about the Bible. We're coming to actually get motivated, to get fired up, to get spiritually fed. We walk away from the sermon having learned something or making some kind of a decision about how we're going to live our lives or what we want to do differently or maybe we meditate on the things of God. We come here and sing praises to God because we know it's pleasing to God. Because God commands us to praise the Lord and lift up our voices and so we know, hey, this pleases God. When I come to church and I lift up my voice and sing, He likes that. If I read my Bible, He likes that. If I go to church, I'm going to learn something. My kids are going to learn something. My teenagers are going to learn something. And it's going to keep us from going down a dark path in our lives. We're going to live in a way that pleases the Lord. We're going to get people saved. Why do we go soul winning? To get somebody saved. If it was just about the fun, we'd find another way to have fun. The reason we go soul winning is to get people saved. They say, saved from what? Hey, we've got to pull them out of the fire. That's why we're out soul winning. Do we have fun out soul winning? Sure. Do we have fun going down to Mexico? Yeah. It's fun. But you know what? It's not about the fun. But what happens with these liberal churches is they've gotten to where it's all about the fun and the salt has totally lost its savor. And then you wonder why no one's coming anymore. Look what the Bible says in Psalm 106 verse 35. But they were mingled among the heathen and learned their works. Psalm 106 verse 35. Verse 36, they served their idols which were a snare unto them. We don't want to get mingled amongst the heathen to where we learn their works and serve their idols and worship the things that they worship and think the way they think and care about the things that they care about. We need to be different. We need to be separate. We need to have our own way of thinking that comes from the Bible. And if you go to church and you hear the same thing at church that you're hearing on talk radio, you come to church and you hear the same thing you're hearing on MSNBC, you come to church and you hear the same thing that you're hearing at the water cooler from the heathens at your job and the same thing that Hollywood's putting out, then folks, what's the point? The salt has lost its savor. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils. And you know what? That is the result. You mingle with the heathen. You learn their works. You serve their idols. You start patterning the church service. You want the music to be like their music. You want the sermon to be like their speakers at some TED talk somewhere. And a lot of churches now are just like a TED talk or something. What happens when you serve their idols? What happens when you live and think and act the way they do? Eventually, you sacrifice your sons and daughters to devils. Your kids become religion, none, atheist, agnostic, whatever. And not only do they sacrifice their sons and their daughters figuratively in the sense of, you know, okay, devil, here you go, here's my kids. Look, why do you think I have 11 kids? Do you think that I have 11 kids just for my health? Or do you think I have 11 kids because I want 11 servants of God to grow up out of my house and serve God? Do you think I'm just raising kids because I just really want to have a really big family gathering somewhere down the road where like 100 people show up that are all my descendants? I mean, is that my goal? Folks, you know what I pray for my children? This is what I pray for my children. I pray for my children and I say, God, all I care about is I want them to grow up and love you and serve you. I pray and I say, I don't think this is probably the same way that my wife would pray about them because we're different people, but you know what? She prays for them probably more than I do, but when I pray for them, here's what I say. When I pray for them, I pray and I say, God, I don't care if they live in Arizona or if they live on the other side of the world. God, I don't care. She doesn't pray that. I pray, you know what, God? I don't care if they are rich or if they're poor. I don't care if they're smart and intelligent and make all kinds of money or if they just do a simple job. Lord, I don't even care if they grow up and don't like me and don't want to be around me. I only care that they love you and if they have to love only me or you, I want them to love you. That's what I pray for my children because I want my children to grow up and love the Lord because you know what? If my children love the Lord, then there's no greater joy that I can have than to see that my children walk in truth. Even if they're not hanging around with me, even if they're not even spending time with me, even if they're somewhere far away or even if maybe they don't particularly like me. You know what? I don't even care because it would just be so great to see my children grow up and serve God and love God. That's the most important thing to me. The worst thing would be that I raise 11 kids and they just grow up and they just go out and just live a nothing life and just their religion is none, agnostic, or that they're a saved Christian who just does nothing for God and they're just a complete nothing. Folks, what a waste of my time even producing and raising these children if they're not going to grow up and love the Lord. Of course I want my children to be happy and prosperous and to be near me and to spend time with me, but you know what? The Lord is number one, period. That's what matters. If my kids want to go be a missionary somewhere, I don't care what they want to do as long as they love the Lord. Look, I'm not demanding that my kids go to the ministry. I don't even care if they go into the ministry because you know what? You can be a great servant of God without being in the ministry, quote, unquote. I'll be just as happy as a clam if none of my sons are pastors and if none of my daughters are married to pastors, I'll be as happy as a clam, but you know what? I just want them all to be a soul winner. That's it. I want them to grow up and love the lost and love the Lord and go soul winning and just go to church and be godly Christians. You know what? I'm sure that's what you want for your kids too. You want your kids to grow up and be in church and to love the Lord. You want your kids to marry someone who loves the Lord, don't you? Then we could have a new generation rise up that could do great things for God. That's what we want to see in our lifetime. That's what matters to us. We don't want to sacrifice our sons and our daughters to devils. We want them to be dedicated unto the Lord. We are willing to give them to the Lord for His will, what His plans are for their lives. Not only did they figuratively sacrifice their sons and daughters by doing this in the sense that their children would go after the devil, but also they literally sacrificed their sons and their daughters by actually murdering them. It says right here, they shed innocent blood, verse 38, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan and the land was polluted with blood. You say, who would do such a thing? I don't know, 3,000 Americans a day do such a thing. It's called abortion. In these biblical times, human sacrifice was done with a newborn baby to false gods and that's the same thing that's going on today with Planned Parenthood where people are murdering their offspring. There's nothing new under the sun that's been going on since time immemorial. They were defiled with their own works, verse 39, and went to whoring with their own inventions. Therefore, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against His people in so much that He abhorred His own inheritance and He gave them into the hand of the heathen and they that hated them ruled over them. Now, folks, this is where we're headed in America, if we're not careful here, because as we get de-Christianized and we mingle among the heathen and learn their works and our kids go to the devil, that's what we're seeing in the statistics, that's what they say, then eventually what's going to happen is those that hate us will rule over us. Now let me ask you something. Is there a group in this country politically that hates us as Christians? I mean are there politicians out there that you would consider anti-Christian or that in their heart hate God's people? How would you like them to rule over you? How would you like them to be in charge? Now look, today I think too many Christians get too fired up about politics and look, the reason I say that, and a lot of people get mad at me because I don't sound the drum of their particular political agenda or their talk radio or whatever that they want me to just be like, but you know what, I don't care about politics and here's why. Because God's people, and I'm not just talking about those that are saved, but I'm talking about people that are dedicated, serious Christians who know the Bible, I mean they're reading the Bible cover to cover and they effectively know how to win someone to Christ and they go out and win people to Christ. I mean we have a lot of people like that here, amen. Okay but here's the thing, if we go down to the ballot box, we're pretty much just swallowed up by a bazillion other people that are voting for idiots. So you know, if you take the 200 and some people that are in this room right now down to the ballot box, it's like a drop of water on a hot stove, but you turn loose the 200 and some people that are in this auditorium right now on the streets of Phoenix, Arizona with the Bible in their hand and the Holy Ghost in their bosom out soul winning, you're going to turn this place upside down. You understand what I'm saying? Two hundred of us can shake this city spiritually. Two hundred of us at their ballot box and their rigged game is a joke. It's meaningless. So why, I'm not going to spend my time playing some game back and forth between the republicrats and the demikins, you know, trying to get this guy in office and he's going to solve our problem. Let me tell you something. We are doing something that other people can't do. Can an unsaved person go campaign for so and so the candidate? Sure. Can an unsaved person donate money to that and do that political campaigning? Yeah. But can an unsaved person go out soul winning? You know, we're like, we're basically like elite troops in the Lord's army. If we're people who are reading the Bible cover to cover, we're out soul winning. You know what I mean? Why would we, if we're like the tip of the spear of the Lord's army, and I'm not saying that to be boastful because look, it could be anybody. It could be somebody who's mentally disabled. It could be a five year old or a 95 year old. I'm talking about people who actually are a soul winner. It could be anybody, right? Hey, you know what? If we are doing something that almost no one else is doing or is effective at doing or can do, why would we leave that task and go do some mundane task that anybody else can do? It's a waste of our ability is what it is. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So why would I focus on politics when the spiritual battle is 100 times more? I'm more and more, the older I get, the more I'm convinced that politics is just one of the things that the devil wants to use to distract people like us from what's really important, which is that which is spiritual. The spiritual battle is everything because I firmly believe, we've got an election coming up, right? And you hear about it all the time, the 2020 election and is Trump going to get reelected? What's the house going to do? What's the Senate going to do? Folks, I believe this from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet that the outcome of that election is going to be more determined by what God's people do spiritually than anything politically. What do I mean by that? I'm saying that I believe that if we and other people like us, other churches like us across America, if we go out and win a bunch of people to Christ, and not just soul winning, but if we get up and thunder and preach hard and turn people to righteousness and get God's people back to actually following God's commandments and living for God, I guarantee you if we do that, the blessing of God will come on the station and he will not cause people who hate us to rule over us. Whereas if we slack at soul winning, if we slack in our Christian life, if we slack in our Bible reading, if we slack the preaching, if we preach soft and lose our savor, you know what's going to happen? Those that hate us will rule over us. Folks, do you realize that God can just snap his fingers and Trump gets re-elected or he can snap his fingers and we have booty judge faggot in office? Do you realize that? God has that power. We could get Pocahontas, we could get creepy Uncle Joe Biden, we could get the Marxist-Leninist, we could get any of them. Folks, God will bless if we do right spiritually. You're doing a hundred times more by fighting the spiritual battle than trying to fight the political battle. You're doing a hundred times more. I strongly believe that. I don't even vote. I'm not going to vote in this election. I haven't voted in like, I don't know, a decade or something almost. I'm not going to. Folks, I'm doing more and you're doing more just by going out soul winning. And guess what? If you can win somebody to Christ, you know, they're not going to be supporting all this weird junk. If they're saved, I mean, once they get saved, their mentality is going to change. I mean, look, when I met my wife, she was a left wing liberal. That's how she was brought up. She didn't know any better. But guess what? When she got saved, her whole point of view changed. And guess what? That happens all the time when people get saved. I could point to a bunch of other people I know personally that I knew them before they got saved. They're super liberal, super commie, and then they got saved and it's like, boom, now they get it. Now, I'm not saying their politics are perfect. I'm not saying my politics are perfect because frankly, I don't really have any anymore because I don't even care. But the point is, they're certainly not going to support this godless, pro-abortion, pro-sodomite filth party or, you know, or any of these other politicians that are just demonic is the only way to describe it, okay? But even that aside, forget that. How about the fact that God can just cause it to rain or be sunny? And that's going to determine how many people go vote or something, you know what I mean? Some people are so capricious, they don't really care. It's like, well, do I feel like voting? God, you know, don't you think God could just put an obstacle to a bunch of people voting that he doesn't want to vote? He could just cause them all to get a flat tire or just be busy or just get bad news that day. And then all the people who weren't going to vote, he could get them all out to vote. Folks, it's all just, there's all this fate at work. There's all this chance at work, right? But who's the one who can intercede and change all that? God. God. God can lift up one, he can bring down another. So folks, don't worry about the election in November. Worry about the election of getting people saved so that they can be the elect, right? The election of grace is what matters, not the election of the presidential race. It's the election of grace that we should worry about, getting people saved. So when we, as Christians, lose our savior, we are ruled over by them that hate us. That's the judgment of God. If we end up having a government that hates us and persecutes us, it will be the punishment from God. That's what it is. It's the judgment of God. Because as a whole, as Christians, we're letting God down. That's the punishment. And you know what? Why does God give us freedom in the first place? So we can use it to do things to further the kingdom of God. Why do we have freedom if we're not going to use ... I mean, what's the good of freedom of speech if we're not going to use it to preach the word of God? We can just express unpopular opinions, oh great. Sign me up to just spout off unpopular opinions all day. It's all vain unless I'm spouting the word of God, unless I'm spouting the truth. You know, God gives us freedom so we can use it for his glory. If we're not going to use it for his glory, guess what, he might take it away from us. We don't want God's wrath to be kindled against his people and so much that he abhors his own inheritance, verse 41, gives them into the hand of the heathen and they that hate them rule over them. That's not what we want. We want to live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. How do we accomplish that? By making God happy. By working hard to further the kingdom of God. And you know what? I believe that God has blessed us in this country because we have been serving God. And look, let's face it, the economy is doing great right now. We have total freedom to preach and say whatever we want. We prove that every week. Us and our friends, we get up and say all kinds of radical things and nobody bats an eye because it's totally legal. Meanwhile, over in Sweden or Denmark or Germany, we'd be thrown in prison or something for the stuff that we preach. But you know what? I've been in Arizona now for 14 years and the laws have gotten better since I've been here. This state has gotten better, if that were possible. This state has gotten better. The laws have gotten better. Everything's going great. But you know what? If we want to continue to have peace and prosperity and safety and be able to just do great works for God, we've got to do great works for God. Otherwise he's going to get mad and pull the plug. Now I want to end on kind of a positive note here about all this because there's a lot of negative things here as far as the de-Christianization of our country. What's the bad guy here? What's the culprit? Who do we blame? That was kind of the first part of the sermon. I think it's just super obvious where to put the blame. I put the blame not on the sodomites. They were always of the devil. Not on the atheists and agnostics, folks, they're a non-entity in this equation. The blame is put on Christians and churches who've lost their savor, where they've become indistinguishable from the world around them. The salt is lost as savor, therefore the nation is no longer being salted. We've become mingled among the heathen and then we learn their ways, we serve their gods, and the next thing you know we sacrifice our sons and daughters and you have a generation that rises up that knows not the Lord. That's what's happening. So the first part of the sermon is the blame, placing the blame. I think it should be obvious to anyone the blame is on liberal, fun center, party, rock and roll churches who don't taste like church. That Cornerstone Church down in Chandler, they literally have a sign that says church for people who don't like church. I'm thinking to myself, if you don't like church, you're wicked. So it's a church for wicked people, it's a church for godless people, it's a church for heathens. Because you know what, the people of God love church. And we don't love it because of the music rocking us out and we don't go there because it's the funnest thing going on. You know what, we love it because we love the Lord, because we love the word of God, because we love the truth, that's why we love it. But now I want to switch over to the positive side of the sermon. What can we take away from this as the solution? Because we understand the problem, we understand who's to blame. And obviously you can just flip that over and get a solution of hey, we need to stay salty, stay distinct, be different from the world. When people walk in here, they should be a little shocked by it. If people are, oh yeah, I think people are going to find your sermons a little shocking, good. Because you know what, they need to be shocked to wake them up because this world's getting so weird out there. Yeah, of course the truth's going to be, I'm pretty shocked by what's going on out there. So if I'm shocked by what's going on out there, why should it surprise me if someone walks in and they're a little shocked? How many people when you first started hearing the preaching of our church found it a little shocking? You know, what? That's too many hands. You know what? But you know what, you needed that shock. And then you start listening to it and then you start checking it in the Bible and saying hey, this is the truth. I was wrong. I've been brainwashed. The world's out to lunch here. Okay. But here's how I see this in a positive light and where I see the opportunity. If less people are going to church, stop and think about this. If less people are going to church and if you have 40% of people just saying I have no religion, you know what that tells me? That's a lot of people that are not being taught false doctrine. Think about it. Sure, they're getting indoctrinated in all the worldliness and the sin and the fornication and the adultery. You know, they're being taught all that stuff, but they're not being taught false doctrine because they're not being taught the Bible because they're not going to church. Not only that, they're not just like married to a certain religion like I was born Catholic and I'm going to die Catholic. There are less Catholics now. There are less people who are just married to being the Presbyterian, Methodist, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, you know. If there are less people just married to a false religion and less people going to church and being taught false doctrine, to me, that's just a whole bunch of people who are ready to be taught the truth. And it's a lot easier to cut through all the world's junk, all the sinful junk that the world teaches, than the false Christianity and false doctrine. That's a lot harder to unravel that, isn't it? Because it's just like they're just in darkness and they just shine the light of the gospel and it's like boom, whoa, and then it's just, you know, it's a revelation to them. But when somebody's all indoctrinated, they're like inoculated or vaccinated against Christianity by receiving this corrupt strain of it, then when you talk to them about Jesus and God, it's just all kind of like, and they've been taught everything the wrong way. So you see how this could actually mean that we're right on the verge of the greatest opportunity for soul winning in the history of our country because you have just all these young millennials growing up, because it's the young people we're talking about, right? You got literally 50% of millennials coming up. They don't know what to believe. They don't know what's going on. You know what? Those are the people who are going to knock their door. We're going to give them the gospel and you know what? They're going to get saved. Many of them are going to get saved and you say, yeah, but people are getting so wicked. Well, you know what? The publicans and the harlots were the first people to get saved when Jesus came on the scene. So if we have a, you say it's a generation of whores, great, let's win them to Christ. They're going to love the gospel. No problem getting them to realize they're a sinner. No problem getting them to realize, oh, it's a generation of just wicked people and just, oh, they're whoremongers, they're drunks, great. You know what? Because then the gospel is going to shine that much brighter. And so I'm not up here talking about the de-Christianization of our nation to be a doom and gloom guy like, oh, it's going to be hard folks, brace yourselves. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is we need to understand that the time for being distinct is now. And that watering down our church is not the answer. You know, if Pastor Harrison would just back off just a little bit, then our church could really grow. Folks, it's already growing. We don't need to back off. Even if that would work, we still wouldn't do it because it's not right. Doing what's right is what matters more than anything. The ends doesn't justify the means. But isn't it amazing how all the churches who said, oh, all that matters is reaching people, let's just reach people, are reaching less people? You reach more people by obeying the Bible and being distinct and being different. So what we need to do is realize, hey, we're not going to change, we're not going to water things down, we're going to stay distinct, the salt's going to stay savored. Also we need to go out there and get all these people are just a bunch of blank pieces of paper. They're blank. I mean, look, when I go down to the community college, it's a blank piece of paper. They have no beliefs. Well, you know what, I'd rather knock on the door of someone with absolutely no beliefs than to knock on the door of somebody who's a died in the wall Catholic, who's just going to take that to the grave and they start quoting Thomas Aquinas to me and stuff. It's just like, I'm going to be like, all right, see you later next door. You know, it's rare that you run into them that are that into it. Most Catholics are pretty much a blank piece of paper, but when you run into those hardcore Catholics, it's, that's a rough door. Folks, the fields are white unto harvest. There are all these people out there. They don't know what to believe. They've barely even been to church. They don't know who Abraham is. They don't know who Noah is. They barely know who Adam and Eve are. They've never heard the story of David and Goliath. Folks go out and ask, hey, you know about David and Goliath? No. Hey, who here knows who Jonah is? Remember Jonah was swallowed by a whale? I go to the community college, no hands go up. No one. No one's even heard of that. Jonah. You know who Moses is? Yeah. Can you tell me anything about Moses? No. I mean, I know he's a Bible guy. They know nothing. Well, you know what? At least that way, we can teach them right from the beginning, from the ground up, and you know what? There's a whole generation of young people, and God has called us for such a time as this. God has us here, and other generations have done the same thing. It's like a new generation rises up, and you know what's going to be the preaching that they hear? Okay. You say, oh, man, but there's just tens of thousands of these liberal churches. How can we compete with that when you have 10,000 fund centers, and you know, you just have a handful of ... Because you know why? Because the truth is a thousand times more powerful than what these liberal churches are selling. The truth is so concentrated. You know, oh, we're just swimming in a sea of liberalism, but you know what? Just one drop of the real unadulterated truth of the Gospel, hard preaching. One clear, one 10-minute clear presentation of the Gospel is more powerful than 100 hours of nothingness in their church, or school, or TV, or whatever. The truth's powerful. Truth can cut through all that like a knife, like a two-edged sword, and so we need to just stay the course, be different, and you know what? If people are like, oh, man, faithful word, oh, hey, you know what? Amen. Amen. If they feel that way. I don't want to blend in. Salt doesn't blend in. Salt stands out. Salt is different. Salt is distinct. And you know what? I hope this year that we have a few more explosions this year across America with us and our friends preaching and raising hell across this country. Amen. Amen. Okay? And you know, in my book, you know what the person of the year is? It's not that little sniveling Swedish brat. Oh, how dare you talk about her that way? She's a child. She's a brat. And you know what? What is this, like some child human shield soldier or something? Like basically, they just put out this child to spew all their junk, and then they, oh, you can't say, you wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you? You wouldn't criticize this retarded-looking 16-year-old, would you? Yeah, I sure would, you little devil. You're going to split hell wide open. Greta turn burn, Greta is burned in hell. You know what? She's demonic. Yeah. Preach it. I agree. Somebody said, oh, Trump tweeted about her and got in trouble. Well, hey, is this going to get me in trouble? Greta's demon-possessed. Preach it. Yeah. Greta's going to split hell wide open. Amen. Greta's a tool of the antichrist. Amen. Amen. Okay? And you know what? If she doesn't want to be called those kind of names, then why doesn't she go shut up and go be a kid and go sit in her little $100,000 Swedish chair and go on her million-dollar yacht or whatever? And you know what? She's a rotten, wicked person. Yeah. Amen. I don't care what people think. Oh, she's just a little nice little girl. She's a little spoiled punk brat. Yeah. Preach it. And you know what? Unless she repents of this filth that she's teaching, this garbage that she believes in, this demonic stuff, then you know what? She is going to roast in hell for all eternity. Right. Right. Okay? That's what's going to happen. Person of the year, huh? Yeah. You know who the person of the year is? It's Pastor Grayson Fritz. That's right. That's right. That's the person of the year. You know who the person of the year is? It's Patrick Boyle. That's the person of the year. I mean, look, folks, it's not some little punk kid with a silver spoon in her mouth going around lecturing and preaching to everybody, her damnable, God-hating worship of Mother Earth, her atheistic garbage, hey, the Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and she has no right to say that garbage. That's right. Preach it. She's wickedness, and you know why she's being promoted by the Jew-controlled media? It's because she's of the devil. That's why. That's right. Now, how do you like that? Good. Is that clear enough for you? It's exalt some little spoiled, God-hating punk, okay, who's against the patriarchy. That's because Daddy didn't give you a spanking. That's why you're such a little snot. The patriarchy. Yeah, you better know it's a patriarchy. God the Father is the one who created this universe. God the potter, patriarch. Yeah, you better know in my house, Dad's in charge, and in the families in this church, Dad's in charge, you little snot, and you know what, Dad should have given you a spanking and took away your million-dollar toys. But this is the kind of junk that's lifted up today by this world, and you know what, we as Christians, we shouldn't go along with this garbage, this climate agenda. Hey, you know what? We need to stand up for the things of God, the Spirit, and do what's right, and you know what? We ought to be lifting up a person of the year, a man of God who stood against the wicked like Pastor Grayson Fritz or Pastor Patrick Boyle. These guys who got fired from their jobs for standing up and preaching the Word of God, and then they kept preaching, and kept preaching, and kept on standing. Person of the year. Folks, we are at a major crossroads in this country. One generation is passing off the scene, the baby boomer generation. Good riddance with that generation, with their bunch of pot-smoking, hippy, 1960s, hate-Ashbury garbage. And you know what? There's a new generation coming on the scene, and you know what? Which way is that generation going to go? I firmly believe that if we preach hard on sin, if we rebuke the media and rebuke their garbage and preach the Word of God, then you know what I think is going to happen? I think we're going to get a whole bunch of people saved. We're going to win a whole bunch of people to Christ. We're not going to take back this nation, but we're going to take back the churches and have independent, fundamental Baptist churches in every city in America that are preaching hard, leather-long, knocking doors, winning souls to Christ, and I believe the result is going to be a lengthening of our tranquility. I think the result is going to be that we won't get these worst, you know, booty judge type candidates. You know what I mean? We're not going to have just people that absolutely hate us ruling over us. That's what I believe, and that I think God will allow us to continue to have the freedom to go soul-winning as long as we keep going soul-winning, and we're going to have the freedom to preach hard on sin as long as we keep preaching hard on sin. So there's hope, and I think that it looks good for us, but we need to understand what we're up against, and we need to understand what the way forward is. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this day that you've given us, and Lord, we thank you so much for Christians who love your word and are serious about fighting your battles, Lord. And Lord, the world puts out their little icon, their little child soldier, their little human shield so that no one can criticize them. But Lord, we know that behind that little snot-nosed punk is the devil, and we know that the rulers of the darkness of this world and all of the reprobates and Christ-hating individuals that are actually behind that little snot-nosed face, Lord. And we just pray, Lord, that you would raise up a generation of Christians that would rebuke that nonsense and that would go out by the droves, knocking doors, winning souls to Christ, standing up for what's right, reading our Bibles, being different, being Christian, being distinct, Lord, so that we could actually make a difference in this nation, and we could actually prevent that agenda that she and her ilk represent from turning our country into a communist hell, Lord. We could actually push that back so that we could actually have a country for our children to grow up in that's as free as the one we live in right now. And we can still have the freedom and the prosperity for our children that we have right now, Lord. Please just help us to be salt and light in this world so that the next generation can actually inherit better churches than what we inherited and inherit a better situation than what we inherited so that we could see our grandchildren and even under the fourth generation possibly and serve you and do great things for you in these last days. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.