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Thank you very much. Turn your Bibles to 2 Chronicles chapter 7 to get started this evening. So it's been a great day at the park and we're going to finish our thoughts on the country, on the nation this evening. So we talked about, you know, we know the problem from this morning. We know the problem with our country this morning. Now what is the solution? So we're going to talk about solutions this evening. Look down at 2 Chronicles chapter 7 in verse number 14. The Bible, you know, tells us, you know, what the problem and what the solution is. But let's go ahead and look at it from the Bible this evening. Look at 2 Chronicles chapter 7 in verse number 14. The Bible reads, If my people, now this is talking about the nation of Israel here, but, you know, we can apply it to, you know, God's people in general. The Bible says, If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will hear their land. So here God is talking to his nation and he's saying, Look, if you turn back to me, you know, I will heal your land. So that's, you know, that's really the solution for us today is, you know, for our nation to turn back to God. Since that's the problem, you know, we need our nation to turn back to the Lord. You say, well, that's pretty obvious since we know what the problem is. That's pretty obvious solution. The question for us becomes this. The question for us is how do we do that? You know, how do we be part of that? How do we at least be a force in that direction? OK, you know, in a nation like we talked about this morning in a nation that says divided is our nation is today. How could we possibly be a force in the direction of turning the nation towards back towards the Lord? It seems insurmountable. You know, when you look at things today, I mean, I think that the nation today is as divided as it's ever been in the history of our country. There's never been a time. There's all kinds of, you know, all time lows right now in the United States. There's never been a time in United States history where less people know more, where more people know less about the Bible. You know, we see that personally, but that polls actually show that there's never been a time in the history of the country where less people actually believe in, you know, or more people, I'm sorry, actually believe in God or don't believe in God at all. You know, that's an all time high. The people that just say, I don't believe in God, that there's never been a time where there's more people that would say that than right now in our country. I'd say we're more divided now than we were even in the time of the Civil War. That's a pretty amazing statement to say that. But that's where we are today when you look at these two these two sides. So the problem is not a foreign enemy right now. The problem is not a foreign enemy. The problem is, you know, the people of this nation itself, the problem isn't some guy in Iraq or some guy in Afghanistan. The problem is the people here with our country that have turned away from God. So if you love your country, you know, don't go out and join the Marines. That's not what your country needs right now. OK, that's not what your country needs right now. That's not where you as a Bible believing Christian are needed. You say, what do we need to do? We talked about virtue this morning. Let me read, reread a quote that I quoted this morning where John Adams stated, he said, Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private virtue and public virtue is the foundation of republics. So we looked at what that virtue means, that that virtue that they were talking about is the morals of the Bible. Virtue, the word virtue means high moral standards. That's what the word itself means. The basis, the benchmark for those moral standards has always been the Bible. Now, that's the problem today. The problem today is that morals are changing in this country. The morals are changing. The definitions of words, the definitions of words like love I showed you from Second Corinthians, First Corinthians, Chapter 13. The definition of words like hate. These these words are being changed. These words are being changed. This is morality changing, folks, in our country. This is the change of the meaning of virtue is what we're seeing in our country. Turn to first or turn to John 14 six. Most of you probably have it memory memorized. But the point is, is that truth, that word is changing today. Truth is changing today in this country. And this is the root of the problem. John 14 six. You say, what is the connection? Here's the connection. There can be no truth without the gospel. I'm going to prove that to you from the Bible this evening. There could be no truth without the gospel. There could be no unchanging truth without the gospel. John 14 six. Jesus says, Jesus sayeth unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life. And no man cometh unto the father, but by me. Jesus here says that one of the definitions of himself is the truth. You could call Jesus the truth. He literally is the truth. John 32 says, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. That's what Jesus said. He's speaking about himself. When Jesus said those words and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. He's talking about himself being the truth and himself through his death, burial and resurrection, making men free. That's what he's talking about. Turn to John 17. John 17. So we see the importance of the gospel and this idea of truth remaining the same. John 17. Look at verse 17. John 17. Look at verse number 17. The Bible says, sanctify them through thy truth. But then look at the next few words. Thy word is truth. The Bible here is saying that God's word is truth. So we see that Jesus is truth. Now turn to John 1. We see that Jesus is truth. We see that God's word is truth. We see that that truth will make us free. What will make us enslaved, by the way? What will make us enslaved? We saw from this morning, turning away from the truth, turning away from that word, that will enslave us in this country. But the truth will what? It will make us free. It will make us free. And John 1, 1 now makes perfect sense. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. Verse 14. And the word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld his glory, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace, and, here it is again, truth. So the Bible is saying that Jesus is truth, God's word is truth, and Jesus is the word. It's like A equals B, B equals C, A equals C, is what we're seeing from the Bible here. So the point is that truth is Jesus. Truth is the gospel. Jesus is truth. Jesus is the word. The word is truth. So look, if somebody trusts on Jesus, they will believe the word of God. We're out here soul winning in the park today, and I think we had seven salvations today. A small group of people had seven salvations. Seven people in this park today trusted on the word of God. They heard the word of God. They heard the word of truth, and they trusted on Jesus. They believed on Jesus. But here's the thing. The reason that you know that somebody that trusts on Jesus will believe the word of God is because those things are one and the same. The truth, the word of God, and Jesus are all the same thing. Look, this doesn't mean that somebody gets saved, they immediately know the whole Bible. That's not what this is saying. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is somebody that is truly trusted on Jesus will hear the Bible read to them, preach to them, and they will believe it. I mean, how many times have you been out soul winning and you know that this is true from your own experience? Because it is impossible for somebody who just doesn't believe that the Bible is the word of God, it is impossible for that person to get saved. Even somebody, I've even had this happen where somebody tells me at the beginning, I believe the Bible was written by man. And then you preach the gospel to them, they're not going to get saved. Until they change their mind about what the Bible is, that the Bible is the perfect, preserved word of God, it's not possible for them to be saved. Because Jesus is the word. And you're preaching them the truth, which is coming from the word of God, which is Jesus. It's all the same thing. So you know that somebody, now look, you see somebody that gets saved, and then they start hearing the Bible and they just don't believe it? Well, I mean, you know, that person, I mean, I don't believe that that person ever got saved. If they just hear the Bible, they're like, ah, I don't want that part. I don't want that part. I don't want that part. Well, look, you're not, you've never trusted on Jesus then. Because Jesus is the word. I mean, you see this out soul winning all the time. And look, why would you say, why would you preach the gospel to somebody that doesn't believe the Bible? Maybe if somebody wants to listen, I'll plant seeds all day long. I'll give somebody the truth to chew on in their life, so if maybe their heart turns one day and they want to know the truth, they'll at least have those ideas and those thoughts, okay? But look, Jesus, God, is the truth, it is the truth, and it is the definition of virtue, bringing it back to, you know, the sermon this morning. The point is this, truth must have Jesus behind it. The truth, the truth that you believe must have the authority of Jesus. Whatever the virtue is that you believe, it must have the authority of the word of God. Otherwise, it's just somebody's opinion. It's just somebody's, it's just somebody's, it's just another idea. And maybe it's a good idea, maybe it's a bad idea, but it must have the authority of Jesus behind it. That is why, because look, opinions change. Man's opinion change, people change. What are you seeing around you? I am literally watching people change from year to year, but God doesn't change. That's why our virtue must come from the Bible. The Bible says, for I am the Lord, I change not, the Bible says. Look, this is rooted, we were just talking about this in church the other day. This idea, this idea, this is rooted in evolutionary philosophy, by the way, that we must change, that we must change. This idea, look, it's all rooted in this idea that we're getting better. This idea that we're going to change morals and change the truth, it's all pushed from this evolutionary idea that we're getting better and smarter and more enlightened as a people. That the Bible is just old ideas. The same thing they'll put on the Constitution. The Constitution, that's outdated. That's outdated. Now that we know what we know today, we can say that all these wicked abominations are, you know, they're great. Because it's this evolutionary idea, it all goes back to, we used to be a bunch of Neanderthal cavemen, and now we're just this super refined civilization. Look, that's not true. Folks, go read, we're talking about Independence Day today, go read the writings of John Jay and Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Go read the writings of these men. These men were brilliant. You say what you want about them on their philosophy or their theology, but they were brilliant people. And I would bet today that the average teenager today couldn't comprehend those writings on a 50% comprehension scale. Look, folks, we're getting dumber. I'm here to tell you today we're getting stupider. I mean, I'm sorry that's what the Bible tells you is going to happen. We're going to lose you. Look, the Bible tells you when you turn from God, you're going to lose your wisdom, you're going to lose your knowledge, you're going to lose everything. You're going to lose your freedom and you're going to get dumb too. And that's what's happening. I mean, that's why you're looking around. That's why Christians look around today and they say, what in the world? How can this possibly be happening? Because people have turned from the truth and there's no rails anymore. That's what's happening. We're not getting smarter, more enlightened, and more brilliant as we turn away from the Bible. We're getting stupider. We're getting dumber and we're getting wickeder. And we're going to get less free. Turn to Mark chapter 16. Turn to Mark chapter 16. So we can see where change and where progress is getting us today. We can literally see that almost on a week-to-week basis today. So to answer John Adams, this is where he says that public virtue starts with private virtue. To answer John Adams, look at Mark 16-15, the Great Commission. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. So here's your patriot solution right here, is that we must start with the gospel. We must start with the gospel on the individual level. Because look, the gospel and getting saved is an individual belief. It's an individual thing. It's not a collective belief. Look, we preach the gospel. There are some people that preach the gospel to some groups of people today. But it's still, even if you're preaching the gospel to two people, to four people, to six people, whatever it is, it is still the individual choice of each of those people and what they believe. So we have to start with the gospel. So look, if you can say that we have to start with the gospel to be patriots today and the truth of God's word, then guess what? That's where the problem started too. Turn to Galatians chapter 1. You look around today and you say it's these people that want to murder babies. It's the Sodomites. It's all these agendas being pushed today, these wicked things. But look, that's not where the evil started. The evil started with the basic truth of God's word being attacked. Look at Galatians chapter 1. Look at verse number 8. Paul warned about this. He said in Galatians 1-8, he said, But though we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so I say now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than ye have received, let him be accursed. One of the first stages. Turn to Romans chapter 1 in verse number 25. It all started in this country with changing the gospel. It all started in this country with a false prophet changing God's word. Even with the worst reprobate in Romans chapter 1, somebody that God literally rejected and gave over to a reprobate mind, one of the first things that happened with that person. Look at verse 25. Who changed the truth of God into a lie. What's the first thing? One of the first things that they did. They changed God's truth. They changed the word of God. This is what happened today. Look, the false prophet today, the false prophet in this country, he's the beginning of the problem. Somebody that changed the truth of God. Somebody that twisted God's word. Because once you have God's word, you have that virtue, you're not going to go down all these other roads. You're not going to go into all these other things. It's people that changed God's word. So look, false religion today is a huge problem. False Christians today are a huge problem. These false Christian churches. I mean, we complain all the time, like, why aren't these Christian churches and Christian pastors, and I'm one of the biggest ones that is yelling about this, is like, why are they not saying anything about the wickedness that's going on in this country? But really, their first problem was they changed the truth of God. Look, what did they do? They added works to salvation. They added, you know, they just twisted it. They didn't change it into total, they just added it right in there. What did they do? They added the means of grace. What did they do? They added the sacraments. What did they do? They added all these little subtle things to make it so people didn't get saved. And if you don't get saved, what are you not going to do? You're not going to believe the Bible. That's the problem. That's the root of the problem. So the first thing that we have to do is we have to get out there, we have to get people saved, just like we're doing. Just like we're doing. What's the second thing that we need to do? Go to Matthew chapter 5. Go to Matthew chapter 5. I'm going to preach on the cookies that we had today. Go to Matthew chapter 5. So we're going to go out there like we are doing. I mean, what a great day. We come out here and we go out in the park and it's like, these are nice, normal people out here. 99% of these people are nice, normal people. They just don't know what the truth is. And you know, we go down and we sit with these people and they just listen. And they accept God's truth. I mean, what a beautiful way to spend a day in California like we did today. Look at Matthew chapter 5. What's the next thing that we should do? The next thing that we should do is this. The Bible says, Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light shine so before men, that they may see what? That they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Look, the Bible here is saying, look, we're doing this already by preaching the gospel, by going out and being soul winners. But the Bible here is saying that people should see. They should see and taste. They should see. They should see you and they should see that something's different about that. They should taste that salt on that cookie and be like, that's a really unique thing. I've never seen somebody put salt on a chocolate chip cookie before and it's really unique and it was good. But you knew it was there, did you not? Did you not know that the salt was there? You know, it was, we must be, look, we must live differently. We must live differently. This is why we're a separated King James only church. We're separated, we're living differently. We must, look, Colossians 4, 6 says, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer every man. You know what? We should speak differently. We should speak differently. We should, people by the way that we talk should know that there's something different about us. And I've said this once, I'll say it again, the way that you talk is one of the quickest ways people can see that you're different. So we need to be, I mean, look, this is, I'm talking about the testimony of your life right now. Yes, you should be out there preaching the gospel, but I've had a lot of opportunities in my life since I got saved to preach the gospel to people that were close to me, whether I worked with them or they were related to me or whatever, just because of the testimony of my life, because of the salt and light that they saw there. And you know what? Sometimes that takes years. Sometimes that takes somebody seeing the way that you're salty and the way that you have a light for years before they come up to you and just like Colossians 4, 6 says, and they ask you and then you can answer every man. So look, we need to be the salt and the light of this world. And we need to not back away one inch from the word of God. When it talks about having an answer, look, when people do come to you and want to know the answer, we need to tell them the truth on everything. We need to not sugarcoat anything. We need to stay salty, like the Bible says. Like this is where these pastors, you go up and you talk to these people that go to these churches and look, this church might even have the right gospel. They still don't know how to get to heaven. They don't know how to get to heaven. They're literally going to a church and their pastor is teaching them nothing. And you're like, what is going on today? Look, they just lost their salt and they have no light if they're not a false prophet. It's bad. It's bad. So look, this is what we need to do, what we're still doing. And look, this is how important our job as Christians is in this country. Like this is the patriot that's needed today. This is the patriot that's needed today. You say, and somebody even asked me this today when we were barbecuing, what if it keeps getting worse? Look, I mean, it's probably going to get worse. You know, it's probably going to get worse. You say, what about, you know, even if the U.S. is part of the end times, if the U.S. is Babylon, or you know what, if it just keeps getting worse and we just go away and we're just not even a part of the end times because we weren't that significant? That's possible too, but the point is this, either way, even if we have a Josiah moment in this country, you know, which maybe that's possible too. You see some of the things happening politically. Maybe we could swing the other way for a few years. But I mean, eventually we will pay even if we get right tomorrow. So you say, you know, what's it going to be like in 20 years, you know, for our kids? I mean, what's that going to be like? Here's the thing. At least we will be able to say that we weren't silent. There will never be a way to take back whether we get 20, 40 years down the road and this country is gone or we're in a Josiah moment, a revival of some kind, there will never be a way to take back the silence that people had today. And you know what? And you know what? That won't be us. And our kids are seeing that today. The Bible says, I believe it's in Proverbs chapter 20, I just preached on this, but the Bible says, a just man walketh in his integrity and his children are blessed after him. You know what? That works even in 20 years when it's worse. That works even in 40 years when it works. When it's in the Bible, it's a promise and we can take it no matter how bad the world around us is. As we're the remnant and the world's going insane around us, no matter what, a just man, a saved man that's doing what he's supposed to do and carrying the word of God forth, no matter how wicked it is out there, our children will be blessed after us. That's a promise from God right there. And look, guess what? You can even see how that's going to work too because what do people not appreciate? They don't appreciate things that they didn't fight for and they didn't work for. And guess what? In 20 years, if it's worse, it's going to be a bigger fight and our kids will see us fighting and then they will fight and then their kids will fight. That's how our children will be blessed after us. As long as we stay in the fight and we keep doing what we're supposed to do. We weren't silent. Americans today, they're sitting around and they're watching TV and they're complaining about politics. That's what they're doing. We can say that we were in the fight. We were doing the work. On Friday, Garrett and I were driving around getting some materials for the church project and we must have had to go to like three or four different places. Normally, that would have been very frustrating for me. We just, I mean, they didn't have it here. We had to drive all the way across town and they didn't have a hitch. We had to get the right hitch. We had to go back and forth and back and forth. But you know what? I said, hey, you know what I'm doing right now? I'm spending time with my son in the work of the ministry. And I'm thinking, what are other people doing? Spending time, what are other people doing with their kids? Watching movies? What are other people doing with their kids? Sitting around, just wasting time? It's like I'm sitting here and I'm spending time with my kids in the work of the ministry. When you go out sowing and your kids are with you, you're spending time with them doing the work of the ministry. That's what we're doing in these times. And people that weren't doing that and wasted all that time, they can't take that back. People that didn't spend their life in a worthy cause. People who raised their kids and their kids saw them waste that time not in a worthy cause, they can't take that back. One of the biggest death bed, one of the biggest death bed regrets is people that feel like they wasted their life. Do you know that? They feel like they didn't spend their life in the right way. We don't have that problem. No matter how bad things get, no matter if people come persecute us, people come and say a bunch of lies about us. It's like whatever, we skip away rejoicing. Because at least we know that we will reach the end of our lives and we know that we did everything that we could. Look, I love this country. I want to do everything that I can to try to stop this destruction that I know is coming. That's the patriot. That's the patriot that this country needs. That's the patriot that this country needs. We will know, look, we will know that we are not the prodigal son. We will know that we didn't, we took this great blessing and we didn't squander it. And guess what? Turn your Bibles, turn your Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 22 and we'll end here. Guess what? Here's another thing. Maybe another generation or two, you know what the opposite of squandering and inheritance is? Is adding to the inheritance. Maybe, maybe just maybe we could take what we were given and we could add to the inheritance that our kids get. You ever think about that? We should strive to do that. It's possible, it's possible that maybe there will be another generation or two that God allows to continue because of what we do now. Look at Ezekiel chapter 22 and look at verse 30. The Bible even says this. The Bible says, and I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it, but I found none. You know what God is saying here? He's like, I'm looking for just one man. I'm looking for just one man who will stand up for me. He's like, where is that man? He's like, where's that man? He's like, if there was just one, you know in Genesis chapter 18? In Genesis chapter 18, Abraham goes, he's begging God to not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham starts out, how does he start out? He says, God, if there's, because he knows a lot there and he starts out and he says, God, if there's just 50, will you not destroy it? And then God says, if there's 50, I won't destroy it. Abraham's like, oh man, there's probably not 50. It's pretty bad. Then he goes, what if there's 40? I think maybe he goes 45 and then 40, but then he goes, what if there's 30? What if there's 20? And God's like, I won't destroy it for 30. I won't destroy it for 20. He's just trying to like advocate and advocate and advocate and he says, what about for 10? He says, what about if there's 10? God says, I won't destroy it for 10. Here God is saying, I'm looking for one. I'm looking for one man who will advocate for my word. He's like, and I found none. And they're done. So look at all of us. Look, this is more than one man. This is the difference that we can make in this country. God, when God says, when God says, you know what, I won't destroy the land if there's just 10, if there's just one to stand in the gap. Look, we are literally saving this country as we walk around parks, walk around neighborhoods, and just present people with the word of God. So you know what? So that virtue won't change with them. Their morals won't change. We get them saved. We get them learning the Bible and they'll embrace the truth and the truth won't change. So that's a beautiful thing. Look, that is the patriot that this country needs today. We got our heroes all mixed up today as well. It's the fire-breathing pastor that stands up and gets persecuted and all that. That man is the hero today. You know, it is the soul winner that goes out there. I mean, you know that, you know, you all don't think this because you do this all the time, but you know most people are terrified with the idea of walking around in public with a Bible in their hand. And you know, you even feel that out here today. You go and you walk up to a group of people. You know, it takes some boldness to walk up to people with a Bible. And you even kind of feel that shift from walking up and knocking on a door to walking up to 15 people at a picnic table. That takes boldness. But that's what we need to do and that is, that's the patriot right there. That's the hero today. What are heroes? They sacrifice for other people. They go out and they do things for other people. We're doing this for ourselves. Yeah, there's gonna be rewards. I get that. But we're doing this because we love and care about other people. That's what this country needs. That's what this country needs. We are so important because we recognize the problem and because we recognize the problem, we know exactly what the solution is. So let's just keep doing what we're supposed to be doing. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you.