(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) Thanks for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Song number 116, He Leadeth Me. Oh, I'm sorry. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. My apologies. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. Song number 105, All That Thrills My Soul. Sing it out together on it first. Song number 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My 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105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All 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105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 105, All That Thrills My Soul. 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The Bible reads, that were ordained of the apostles and elders, which were at Jerusalem. And so were the churches established in the faith, and increased in number daily. Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the regions of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia, but the spirit suffered them not. And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul in the night. There stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him, saying, come over into Macedonia and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. Therefore, loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to Neapolis. And from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony. And we were in that city abiding certain days. And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a riverside, where prayer was wont to be made. And we sat down and spake unto the women which resorted thither. And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, which worshiped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized in her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she constrained us. And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel, possessed with the spirit of divination, met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains were gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers, and brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans. And the multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely, who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loosed. And the keepers of the prison, awakening out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house. And when it was day, the magistrates sent the sergeant, saying, Let these men go. And the keeper of the prison told this, saying to Paul, The magistrates have sent to let you go, now therefore depart and go in peace. But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison, and now do they thrust us out privily, nay, verily, but let them come themselves and fetch us out. And the sergeants told these words unto the magistrates, and they feared when they heard that they were Romans. And they came and besought them, and brought them out, and desired them to depart out of the city. And they went out of the prison, and entered into the house of Lydia. And when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them and departed. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. I thank you for the word of God. I thank you for Acts chapter 16. Please help Pastor Shelley as he preaches it. And please help us to grow and to be better Christians. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. I want to go back to verse 19, kind of here in the middle of chapter 16. The Bible says, And when our masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them in the marketplace unto the rulers, and brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe being Romans. And the multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely. Now, we see in this passage, the Apostle Paul and his partner Silas here are thrown into prison, and really you have to ask this question, what were they thrown into prison for? Well, notice what they specifically say in verse number 21, and teach customs. So what was it? What was the problem? And what was the issue? What did they even bring up? What was their accusation? It was what they said. And the reality is, when you read the Bible, virtually every time we see people imprisoned, godly people, they're imprisoned for what they preach. They're jailed for preaching. And that's the title of my sermon this evening, is jailed for preaching. Now, this is a very important principle, though, because of the fact that while the Apostle Paul and Silas are thrown into prison for preaching this stuff and teaching this stuff, you know, modern day Turkey, where basically we know as Asia Minor or this particular part of the world, often referred to as Asia in the Bible, you are no longer going to be jailed, you know, necessarily for preaching the Bible, or especially for a long period of time after this, they were not jailed for preaching the Bible. They had liberty, they had freedom, they had a lot of churches, they were growing, they were thriving, and Christianity was allowed to go free in the future. But the reason why it was allowed to go free in the future is because of brave men like Paul and Silas going against the culture and preaching what needs to be preached and being willing to go to jail even for preaching. And the reality is we live in a world where we are fighting a constant speech war, a constant war on what we are allowed to say and what we're not allowed to say, and in order to have freedom in a country, you must be able to say what is true. You must be able to say what is true. And you can really test a country, the freedom that a country has, based on its speech laws specifically. What you're allowed to say and what you're not allowed to say will often dictate all the other freedoms associated with a particular country, with a Pacific nation, with a specific area, and really being able to speak the truth is always so important. It's a very important principle. And for God's people, we should be willing, we should be challenged to preach the truth no matter what may be thrown at us, even if prison is thrown at us. Go to Matthew chapter number 14, go to Matthew chapter 14. I want to show you a lot of examples of this before I kind of get into what I want to say, but I think it's important that we get this principle. Now, you know, God willing, I would never have to go to jail for anything that I've preached. I wouldn't have to be in prison for what I say. But really, the essence of the sermon is, I hope, though, that if I was ever threatened with prison and it was saying, you can't preach that in the Bible or you're going to go to prison, then I would still preach that. Now, again, you know, I haven't been under that kind of pressure before, so I can't just say like, oh, I know for sure I would. You know, I sure hope I would. I believe that I would. I want to in my spirit. But you know what? Sometimes we need to make sure that we're praying for boldness and that we consider that this is easy to say when you're not being threatened and it's actually much more difficult when you're really being threatened. And what makes the men of God so brave and so bold and so really outstanding is the fact that when pressured, they were still willing to preach the Bible. They still preached what needed to be preached and they were willing to go to prison and in some cases death for preaching the truth. And I'm telling you, you know, our country, while it has had a lot of freedom in the past, it's trying to change. And the only way to keep it from changing is for people to be willing to be jailed for preaching. Now, look what it says in Matthew chapter 14 in verse number 1. This is about John the Baptist. Someone said, well, Baptist isn't in the Bible and I said John the Baptist. He's like, well, the denomination Baptist isn't in the Bible. I said it's John the Baptist. What do you mean? That's the only denomination in the Bible. All right? I don't see Methodists. I don't see Catholic. I don't see all your stupid denominations. Mormon's not in the Bible for sure, okay? No Pentecostals, okay? But there is a John the Baptist, all right? And according to the Bible, he was the greatest man born among women, so why wouldn't you want to be like him? All right? I'm Jonathan and Baptist and I like all of it, all right? Here you go. Matthew 14, look at verse 1. At that time, Herod the teatronic heard of the fame of Jesus and said unto his servants, this is John the Baptist. He has risen from the dead and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him. For Herod had laid hold on John and bound him and put him in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife. So notice John was put in prison. Why? Verse 4, for John said. Why is John put in prison? For John said, now notice these really important words also after this, unto him. Did you notice that? I think this was interesting. John the Baptist did not go to prison for just preaching out in the wilderness. No, he said to Herod. John the Baptist said unto him, said unto him what? It is not lawful for thee to have her. Notice, oh, well, you know, why are you preaching things that are not the gospel? Well, are you going to accuse John the Baptist of that too now? Are you going to get mad at John the Baptist? Like, John, why didn't you just give him the gospel? Why did you have to tell him that that was wrong? Why did you have to preach him the law? You know, don't you know that's for the Jews and Herod's not a Jew? Well, you know what? The law of God is for every person. Okay? And you know what? The Bible doesn't say, only preach the nice parts. Only preach the gospel. It says to preach the word is actually what the Bible often says. Now, of course, included in that is the gospel, and of course, the gospel is arguably the most important thing that we should preach, but we should preach the whole counsel of God, and even when confronted by a ruler, by confronted by a king, John the Baptist said, hey, it's not lawful for thee to have her. And he rebuked him, and he called him out, and that's why he was put in prison. Go to Daniel, chapter number 6. Really, when you kind of study the Bible, it kind of changes your mind on prison a little bit because all the cool people go to prison, okay? Again, I never want to go. I never need to. I have no desire. I think we should never do anything to try to go to prison. I'm not looking for a way to get in there, but I will say this. We need to be willing to preach whatever needs to be preached and face whatever consequences we have to face. That is what the Bible encourages us to do consistently and through the example of many great men. Daniel, also a very special person in the Bible, considered one of the most righteous people in the Bible. Daniel, chapter 6, verse 10 says this. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house, and his windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime. Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God. Then they came near and spake before the king concerning the king's decree. Hast thou not signed a decree that every man that shall ask a petition of any god or man within 30 days, save of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said, The thing is true. According to the laws of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. And then answered they, and said before the king, That Daniel, which is the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day. Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him, and he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver him. But he is not able to. Daniel is thrown into the lions den. Why was Daniel put in jail? For what he prayed, for what he said. Notice again, it's every time what they say. Oh, this guy was praying to God and asking God for supplication. Supplication is just asking the Lord for something. You just, any kind of prayer request. You know, just us having our prayer request where we literally say in our bulletin, Hey, you know, we're praying for these people. You know, recently, and I don't know exactly all the places. I've seen lots of different areas. I know in some places in Europe specifically, I think even other parts of the country, there are people that have been jailed recently for praying openly near an abortion clinic. Like, there are people that are just going near abortion clinics, and they're praying, and what they're praying often is what they'll at least say what they're praying for is they're just praying that people that are showing up will change their mind and decide not to go through with the idea of killing their child. That's what they're praying. They're praying that God would change the hearts and minds of people and that somehow these people would not make the decision because what some people don't understand is a lot of people show up and do change their mind. It's a very heart-wrenching evil that's there, and a lot of people are very squeamish. They're very nervous. They know that it's wrong, and they don't want to do it, and they feel cornered or trapped, and so by Christians being there and praying or interceding or trying to encourage people, some people encourage them with love and compassion. Some people encourage them with fear, just saying, like, don't be a murderer, and you're wicked, and don't act like this, and don't sacrifice your child to Satan. And you know what? I don't care what approach you have. Others say with fear, pulling them out of the fire. You know, I don't really care if people go and scare people out of murdering their child, okay? That doesn't offend me. That doesn't cause me any grievance. But you know, people in this world are literally being jailed and arrested for praying. That is happening in the world that we have today. And you know what? We need Christians to get bold again and to start praying, because here's the thing. They'll jail one person. They'll jail a handful of people, but if there's hundreds or thousands of people out there praying, they're not going to be able to jail them. They're not going to be able to do that. And then you're basically calling their bluff. And this is the reality that governments can only manage a small number of resistance, a small number of resistance. And what they can't handle is the general populace saying, no, we're going to do whatever we want. That is the big threat to them. And you know what? I'm not for violence. I'm not for going against the government. But we ought to obey God rather than men. And if someone says you're not allowed to pray to God for 30 days, you better pray to God. And what I like about Daniel is he said, hey, I'm going to keep my windows open, too, about it. Daniel was not saying, well, okay, I know that I'm not supposed to pray right now and I know I can get in trouble for it, so I'll go and hide and pray. And think about it. Even Jesus literally says that when we pray, we're supposed to do it in our prayer closet. Like, we're supposed to do it where we're not supposed to be seen of men. But here's the reality. Daniel wasn't necessarily trying to be seen of men, but what he wasn't going to do is he wasn't going to hide and cower and change his behavior based on the laws and based on what was said. Because notice again in verse number 10, now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house. Hey, hey, I already know. And it's not like he changed his pattern because look what it says at the end of verse 10. As he did aforetime. Daniel did not change his behavior whatsoever. He said, hey, I prayed yesterday. I'm going to pray today and I'm going to pray tomorrow. And I'm just going to do what the Lord would have me do. That is right. And if I'm jailed for preaching, if I'm jailed for praying, if I'm jailed for saying anything, then so be it. But I am not going to shut my mouth. And let me explain something. The devil wants you to shut your mouth today. Go to Jeremiah chapter 32. The devil wants you to shut your mouth. And Christians need to open their mouth. The reason why our country is so destitute of righteousness and godliness is because righteous people have stopped talking. Righteous people have stopped preaching and righteous people have stopped praying. And we need people that are willing to be jailed for preaching. People today, they won't say anything just because they don't want to make their mom or dad upset. They don't want to make their family upset with them. People won't say anything today because they don't want to lose friends. People won't say anything today because they don't want to lose their job. People don't want to say anything today because they're afraid of losing money. These people are willing to say something if they're going to be put in jail. That's the kind of willingness to preach the truth that we need Christians to get to. And look, I'm all for using discretion. Jesus and the apostles and all these men of God, they use discretion for when they preach. It's not like I'm going to get a bullhorn and walk around my office while on the job and screaming everybody about everything in the Bible. That's not what I'm talking about. What I am saying is that we should be willing to say the truth and when called upon, when someone asks you what you believe, you should tell them what the Bible says. And you know what, we should let this world know what we say. And you know, we're not having a private church service today. Now again, we have had a few times where we had private church services, not because we wanted to be private whatsoever, but it's because we wanted to have a church service. And we knew if we were really public about it, it might get shut down and cause a problem. As soon as we were like, hey, we're good again, we're going to be able to have a church service, no interruptions, we're here, here's our website, here's our flyer, show up, we got the message, here's the DVD. We're not afraid of letting you know what we believe. We're not hiding our sermons. In fact, we have the opposite problem. We want everybody to know. We want to buy the billboard and they won't let us. We want to put it online and they won't let us. We want to buy the advertisement and they won't let us. I mean, we're not trying to hide what we believe here, and I don't want to ever get to the point where we're unwilling to say what the Bible says. We should be having a heart and a mindset of saying, hey, I'm willing to go to jail for what I believe. I'm willing to go to jail to be able to preach what the Bible says. And you say, which part, John? No, no, no. Leviticus 2. No, Romans, chapter number 1, 2. No, no, Revelation, chapters 2 and 3, when it talks about the synagogue of Satan. Yeah, I'm going to say that, too. Some guy I was out soul winning and talking to this afternoon, he's like, so what do you think about Jews? Do you think there's any Jews today? And I was like, no. I said, there's, you know, he's like, oh, really? What about, you know, the people today? And I said, oh, they're just the synagogue of Satan. And he was like, well, that's what I'm talking about. I'm like, well, that's what I believe. I was afraid I wanted to hear you say it first. I was like, that's what the Bible says, buddy. He was surprised that I was willing to say that out loud. He didn't think Christians will say that kind of stuff. And I'm just like, look, I don't believe in this. We've been mixed so much. There's no such thing as an ethnic Jew. There's just the synagogue of Satan and everybody else, okay? I'm not afraid to say what the Bible says. Now, look at Jeremiah 32. Look what it says in verse one. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. For then the king of Babylon's army besieged Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison, which was in the king of Judah's house. For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, wherefore dost thou prophesy? Why is it that Jeremiah is found in prison? Because he was preaching. Now, what was he preaching? Well, if we keep reading, Wherefore dost thou prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it. And Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes shall behold his eyes. And he shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and there shall he be until I visit him. Sayeth the Lord, Though ye fight with the Chaldeans, ye shall not prosper. You know, he's being put in prison for preaching against his own country. It'd be like if he got up and said, Hey, I think that America's Babylon and you're doomed. But you know what? If that's what the Bible says, then you should preach the truth. Jeremiah, notice how it was sandwiched, what he said. Thus saith the Lord. And then it's like, Thus saith the Lord. It's, you know what? Hey, whatever the Lord said, we should preach. And if America's Babylon, you're Babylon. You're doomed. You're going to be destroyed. You're wicked. And here's the thing. Even if America isn't Babylon, it sure is trying to be like Babylon, and it's sure going to get a similar punishment anyways because of how wicked and evil it is. It's not like, it's not like you can hold on to it anyways. There's so much evil. There's so much wickedness in this nation. It has to be punished. God will for sure punish it. There's never been a nation that is as wicked as we are that just got away with it scot-free. They were all massacred and destroyed and wiped out and desecrated. I mean, just look at the Aztecs and the Mayans. Look at Pompeii. Look at the Romans. Look at the Grecians. I mean, all of them just wiped out, destroyed. God will bring destruction. It's not a question of will he, it's just when. It's just when is he going to bring that specific destruction. And we need to be willing to preach what the Bible says. And also letting people know, hey, sometimes there's some people that are just doomed. He didn't even have a good message for Zedekiah. Hey, Zedekiah, it's going to go out pretty good for you. It's like, you're doomed. Well, what if you fight? Doomed. Doomed. Now, earlier in this book, I'll admit that Jeremiah did say, hey, if you just surrender, then you'll be okay. They'll take you over there and you won't have to suffer as much punishment. You have to basically surrender. And Zedekiah was afraid of the women making fun of him for surrendering, so he just like refuses to do so. But after just being stubborn and hard-hearted, it just gets to the point where he's just like, you're doomed. There's no rescuing you. You're just damned for being so wicked and so evil. Go to Matthew chapter 26. Go to Matthew 26. Why do I show you that particular reference? Well, here's the thing. This is what I constantly hear from people, and this is what you'll hear from a lot of people is, well, I'm all for preaching controversial things as long as it's about the gospel. But I don't want to, you know, why do we have to bring up the Old Testament? Or why do we have to bring up these other passages? But notice these men of God are not only getting jailed for preaching the gospel. The Apostle Paul was jailed for teaching customs. Did you notice that one? John the Baptist was jailed for what? For preaching the law to Herod. Daniel was jailed for praying. We see that Jeremiah is jailed for what? Jeremiah is jailed for basically just preaching a doom and gloom message about his nation. None of these guys are even being put in jail specifically for just about a redemption through Christ. They're being jailed for other things. I'll make mention of why that's important here in a minute, but obviously the reason why they're being jailed is because of the gospel. But the devil doesn't always want to confront that head on and just reveal his plan. So he allows these minions to get upset about other things and use that as a pretext to shut you down. But it is about the gospel. What is the heart of the issue? The heart is the gospel. Don't hear me wrong. And that's what they really gnash their teeth on and that's what they get really, really mad about. And that's why they wanted to shut up Jesus. But the men of God were jailed and imprisoned for what they preached. Look at Matthew chapter 26, look at verse 59. Now the chief priests and elders and all the council sought false witness against Jesus to put him to death, but found none. Yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses and said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days. And the high priest rose and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? What is it which these witness against thee? But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said. Nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then answered the high priest, Rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy. What further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death. What is it that they used to jail and crucify the Lord Jesus Christ? His speech, what he said. They tried to find false witnesses and they could find no one to falsely accuse him. Now it's not that they couldn't find someone to falsely accuse him, it's that their witnesses didn't agree. In order to put someone to death you had to have two or three witnesses that were going to establish the matter. That's why it was so important when they killed Naboth that they had to have two sons of Belial to have the same story about Naboth cursing God and the king. And Naboth is then put to death so that he can steal his vineyard and he's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. When it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ they couldn't even get two guys to make up a lie about Jesus and that's why he was put to death. They couldn't find anything and then they just asked him, like, Art thou the Christ? Now in Matthew it doesn't have every word that was spoken. Go to Mark for a second, go to Mark chapter, I believe it's 14, I think it's like verse 60 if I remember off the top of my head. We'll go look at this verse. In Mark, Jesus didn't even necessarily give just a vague answer. I'm sorry, verse 62. In some of these passages it's just kind of vague, he's like, well you're saying it. Okay, but Christ gives a very clear answer. In Mark chapter number 14, this will destroy all of your Muslims who say that, when did Jesus ever say that he was the son of God? Right here, look at verse 60. And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus saying, What is it which these witness against thee? But he held his peace and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I AM! Words that should just ring out through all of eternity, the I AM. The great I AM. Hey, Jesus Christ is the son of the blessed. Jesus, he denied that he was the son of God. No, no, no, he said that he was the son of God. Even to the Pharisees, right to their face. And he knew by saying those words they were going to kill him. He knew, if I say I AM, they will kill me. You know what Jesus said? I AM. And he didn't say I'm the law of Moses, you stupid Mormons, okay. He said, I AM. And you shall see the son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. So not only is he saying that, he's saying I'm going to be glorified and you're going to see me later in the resurrection. Which is another diss to these people because these people are Sadducees and they don't even believe in the resurrection. And he's just like super hardcore dissing them right to their face. And that's why they wanted to kill him. That's what they killed him. Obviously, they want to kill him for envy's sake. But this is why he was in prison. You want to go to Acts, chapter number 4? Go to Acts, chapter number 4. It is about the Gospel. Don't hear me wrong. That's the real reason and the motivation to shut them up. But they use other things as pretext to get the Gospel to shut down. They want people to not get saved so they're going to jail you for preaching anything. The Gospel is the end goal. But they have to start somewhere. And in Acts, chapter 4, we see a big fight over this as well. Look at verse 13. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled. And they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it. But when they had commanded them to go aside out of their counsel, they conferred among themselves, saying, What shall we do to these men? For that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But that it spread no further among the people, Let us straightly threaten them that they speak henceforth to no man in this name. And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you, more than unto God judge ye, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. Do you know what they say? Hey, whether you think it's right or wrong for us to obey you, you can figure that out on your own. But no matter what, we're going to still say it. And notice it's not, they didn't say, you can no longer preach the gospel. Notice what they said specifically about this. They're not allowed to speak or teach in the name of Jesus, in the authority of Jesus. Anything having to do with Jesus. That's the whole Bible, folks. They're not saying like, hey, you can preach whatever you want. Just this one thing, though, is off limits. No more preaching about Jesus at all or teaching about Jesus. We're going to have to throw out the whole Bible because it's all about Him. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. That's Jesus, folks. Everything's about Jesus. When Jesus went on the walk to Emmaus, He was showing those two men all the prophecies in the Old Testament about Himself. Most of the New Testament, well, let's just be honest, all of the New Testament didn't exist yet. Did you realize that? In this book, in Acts chapter number four, no New Testament epistles have been written down yet. They're only using the Old Testament. And you realize they're getting people saved all the time from the scripture. You know what that tells you? A lot of the Old Testament is about Jesus. You know what percentage? A hundred percent. That's what percentage. If it's not about Jesus, then it's an apocryphal book. It's trash. Throw it in the garbage, okay? Because everything in the Bible is about the Lord Jesus Christ. And they're saying, you're not allowed to preach that. And you know what they did? They preached it anyways. Not only did they preach it anyways, they told them to their face, hey, we're still going to do it. They weren't like, all right, no, no, we won't do it, and then later we'll do it. They said, hey, you figure out whether this is right or wrong, but we're going to do it anyways. That's what they said. And that's what they did, folks. Look what it is in verse number 24. Now, I'm just skipping ahead a little of the story. And when they had heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God, which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all of them this, who by the mouth thy servant David hath said, Why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ, for of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together for to do what's over thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word. What is it that they want? Of all the things they could possibly desire of God, what is it that they want? We just want the boldness to just preach the Bible. Please help us to preach the Bible. Notice that they're threatening us and telling us not to preach the Bible, but we know that you wanted it to happen this way, so we're asking you to give us boldness to preach it anyways. Notice they didn't say, Hey, God, make it free. Give us liberty. Give us a 401k. Give us more prosperity in the country. Give us, no, what did they ask for? Hey, help us to just preach what needs to be preached no matter what. That's what they were asking for. That's what they wanted from God, is they wanted boldness in their hearts and in their minds to preach the Word of God and to speak the truth and say nuts to this world, nuts to this life. I don't care if I have to lose it all. I mean, the Apostle Paul said he counted all but done that he may win Christ, because we need to have the boldness to preach the Bible. What are we doing on this earth as servants of God and servants of the Lord Jesus Christ if we're not going to preach it? The whole goal of having the Bible is for us to preach the Bible and to preach the Word of God. There's no sense in having Christianity without being able to preach the Bible. And we have so many churches today that are cowards and afraid to preach the Bible today, and you know what? That's not going to change America. The only thing that's going to change America is the preaching of God's Word. We need more churches and more men of God that are going to preach the Bible and preach the Word of God, not these lame churches that'll never say anything. If you're a pastor and you'll never get banned from YouTube, sit down and shut up and let somebody else preach. If you can't get banned on YouTube, what are you preaching? You know, YouTube would change if literally every Christian got up and preached what needs to be preached because they would lose so many people from their platform. They can't ban everybody. But you know what? We need people that are willing to preach what the Bible says, because if we don't, we'll lose that freedom. We'll lose that freedom. Now, I'll be honest. There's always going to be a few martyrs along the way. Look at chapter 5, verse 18. "...and laid their hands on the apostles and put them in the calm prison." They said, hey, we're going to preach it, and they were like, well, okay, we're going to put you in prison. And they did. You know, it sounds cool, what I'm saying, until the cops literally show up and put handcuffs on you and drag you off to prison. And it's like, what am I going to say to my boss? What about my family? I mean, everybody's going to say, I've got practical responsibilities, Pastor Shelley. You don't think these guys did? Hey, you know what? The Bible's really clear that Peter had a wife and children. Peter is thrown into prison for preaching the Bible, full well having a wife and children. You know, I like to think of Paul. I mean, you see, Paul doesn't necessarily have those kind of responsibilities. I'll be honest with you, it's much harder for Peter to be thrown in prison than Paul. But you know who's the first example in the Bible? Peter. Peter is one of the first people thrown in prison as an apostle, you know, post-Christ resurrection. We obviously have men in the Bible, you know, obviously Joseph and Daniel and Jeremiah, but I'm just saying, of the apostles, of the disciples, of the early Christians, Peter and John are the first thrown into prison for preaching the Bible. But you know what? The angel lets them out. Now, here's the thing. If God came down from heaven and said, all right, you're going to preach the Bible, and then the Cedar Hill police are going to come, they're going to put you in jail for one night, and then the angel's going to let you out, you'd be like, let's do it. But when you don't know that that's going to be the future, you could cower out, couldn't you? You could be afraid, you could decide not to do it, thinking like, well, I don't know if I should preach that or I should do that. You know, it's always easy to do things from hindsight's perspective, but the men of the Bible, they didn't have that. They didn't always know that. And in fact, in some cases, Jesus will even flat out told them, like, be thou faithful unto death. But I'll give thee a crown of life. You know, hey, you know, it's not just all doom and gloom. So think about it this way. You're either going to go to prison and die a martyr and you're going to get an amazing reward in heaven for all of eternity, or he'll probably just release you soon and then it'll just be like a nothing burger. But there's no reason from a Christian perspective to not be willing to go to prison for what the Bible says. Now, obviously, when you read the book of Acts, you read a lot of the passages and epistles, you know, the Christians were sometimes evading arrest or evading persecution so they could fight to live another day. And there is a time and a place for that as well, right? We don't necessarily have to try to find the place where they're for sure going to arrest us and go there and then try to get arrested. Obviously, we should try to go to the places that are free. You know, we, for the most part, have covered the earth with the gospel in a lot of ways, and we have a few places in this world where it's still kind of free to preach the Bible, and if we lose those, there will be nowhere to run anyways. So you might as well dig in on the few places that are still free and say, I'm willing to go to jail because without that, we'll end up having nowhere to go, nowhere to preach, nothing to say. Look at verse 27. So they get out, and then they bring them back, and they're like, how did these guys get out? Verse 27, they had brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest asked them, saying, Did not we straightly command you that you should not teach in this name? And behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. Notice why they're so upset about the preaching. Notice where the vitriol is coming, specifically in verse 28, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. You know who intended that? It was you Jews when you said, His blood be on us and on our children. Why? Because the Jews killed Jesus. And you know what? They're so nervous about the world figuring that out because right now, a bunch of Christians are trying to help them build a third Antichrist temple and a bunch of Zionist fools instead of realizing, hey, these people are the type of people, they're the spiritual grandchildren of those who said, Let his blood be on us and on our children. Those type of people. And you know what? Christians for a long time realized, hey, these God-hating Jews are not people to bless. In fact, virtually always the opposite. When a nation would kick out Jews, which has happened in over a hundred countries throughout history, that nation would usually have economic prosperity like crazy afterwards. Like as soon as the Jews were expelled or they didn't like Jews, all of a sudden it was just national prosperity like you've never seen before, including Germany. And people don't like that because Hitler was the worst person to ever walk the planet, right? But it's interesting how as soon as the Jews were fleeing Germany by en masse, going to Poland and other places, all of a sudden Germany's now just having economic prosperity like you've never seen before. And you know they don't have the same usury and interest practices that are going on during that period of time either. It's interesting how the Spanish, whenever they kick them out in like the late 1400s, as soon as they kick out all the Jews and made it illegal to be a Jew, then all of a sudden they have economic prosperity like you've never seen before. And I wonder what would happen to America if you literally kicked out the Jews in America. I mean, what would we do without all the pornography and the interest and all the smut and all the censorship and virtually our entire presidential cabinet. Oh man, what would we do with all of those wonderful people? What would we do without Hollywood? What would we do without all of the rap music industry? I mean, man, our country would just be in shambles without such wonderful contributions to society. But you know what? You know why they're so mad at what I say? Is they say, hey, you're trying to bring this man's blood upon us. No, no, you already did that. I'm just trying to tell everybody the truth about you. And they say, oh, it's antisemitism. You know what? I don't hate anybody that's ethnically Jew. I hate the people that are religiously Jew that hate Christ. And you know what? The first amendment of our country is the number one amendment. Did you know that? You know when they say first? It's because it's the first one. And you know why you'd put something as the first? Because it's the most important. I mean, think about a doctrinal statement. What is like the number one thing usually on a doctrinal statement? Almost every single doctrinal statement, their first thing is how the Bible is the Word of God. And isn't that the most important thing? Because if this isn't the Word of God, if this isn't the Bible, then we can't learn anything. We can't know anything. I believe it's William Tyndale said that he couldn't teach the lay people anything until they had a Bible in their tongue. And you know what? You can't know anything if we didn't have the Bible if this isn't the Word of God. And here's the reality. You can't know any truth if you can't even have it with the first amendment. Now the first amendment, just for those that maybe have forgotten what it says, this is what it says in our country. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. So it's saying we should be able to criticize the government, tell them where they've overstepped, we should be able to say anything that we want and they can never make any laws about religion or our free exercise of religion. But let me tell you something. That specific constitutional amendment is under attack today. Our church is at the forefront of this when we were evicted for what I preached. Now here's the thing. Even if you don't like what I preached, it was still first amendment. I can still say it. You say, oh, you shouldn't be happy when fags run over other fags. Well, I still am. Like what sane, straight man would sit there and disagree with that? And that's the problem with our country is that straight men today won't even just say how they feel about faggots. They have to constantly just keep their mouth shut and pretend like, oh, they're normal, they're fine, it's not a big deal, instead of saying you disgusting faggot. Because I guarantee if every single man would just say that, our country would be different. They'd have to ban everybody on YouTube if everybody said what they really think, how they really feel. We have a bunch of people who have been neutered and hamstrung and they're cowardly and they're not willing to preach what the Bible says, they're not willing to say what the Bible says, I mean, the Bible says that they're abominable and vile and brute beasts and disgusting and reprobate and people won't even say half of those words. They won't even bring up any of it. They say it's my cousin, my nephew, my uncle, my friend, my whatever. My boss. Well, get a different boss. You know what? Our country is not going to be fixed by people shutting their mouth. And specifically, we have multiple states that are passing anti-Semitism laws in America today. Florida, South Dakota, and Georgia have already done so. I believe Virginia recently passed another legislation about more hate crime related to anti-Semitism. Other states are trying to bring these laws on the books. And of course, people will say, okay, we'll just stop talking about the Jews and just start talking about the Gospel, Pastor Shelley. That's what some people's opinion would be. Some people say like, well, I know that you're right on the sodomite issue, but do you really have to say it? Do you really have to preach it? Do you really have to get mad about it? Yes, I do. Yes, I am. Well, you might go to jail. You might get protested. You might get evicted. You might have to go through lawsuits. Well, you know what? I haven't even been threatened with jail yet. I haven't been threatened to go to prison for what I've preached yet. How could I be unwilling to go through that when I'm not even having on the table prison? When the men of God are literally being put to death and being put in prison for what they preach. We should be willing to be jailed for preaching. Jailed for preaching. You say, hey, when are you going to not say that? Whenever you're dead and you can't hear me anymore. That's the only time you're not going to hear me say it. You better put a bullet in my head if you want me to stop preaching the Bible. If you want me to stop preaching the Word of God. Because I have one job as a preacher. It is to preach the Word. And I'm supposed to do that until I die. And you know what? Every born-again child of God should be willing to preach the Bible till death. And then after death, I'm still going to be preaching it. I'm still going to be preaching the everlasting Gospel. Hey, I hope in the millennial reign I get to preach it. And I'll still be preaching Leviticus and the millennial reign. I'm still going to be preaching the timeless truths of the Bible. And you know what? Nuts to this world because those people are ashamed of Christ for Him and His words. You know what? Christ is going to be ashamed of them when He returns. Christ is not going to be ashamed of me for preaching the Bible. He could be ashamed for me from other issues but not for preaching the Bible. No one's perfect. We all have issue. But you know what? I don't want God to be mad at me for being a coward. You know, the Bible says where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. The only reason our country has had liberty in the past and up to this future is because the Spirit of the Lord is there. And what the Spirit of the Lord is, is true. Go if you went to John chapter 8, go to John chapter number 8. You want to test the country and see how great it is? Well, let's just see how its speech laws are. What is the worst country to live in the world? North Korea. Let's test its speech laws for a second. What do you think about its speech laws? They won't let you say anything. You basically just have to praise Kim Jong-un or whoever it is. Whatever fake god their government is, you just have to say, what's another country that's bad? China. Russia. Soviet Russia. Not necessarily current Russia but Soviet Russia. You couldn't say anything. This is anti-Russian propaganda or this is anti-communist work that you're doing here. Anything that was against them, it was just like, hey, this is anti the government. They don't have to say anything else. This is anti the government. Hey, what you're doing is just wrong. We're just going to put you in jail for 10 years. Pretty much over in Russia, during their dark time period, if you went to jail, it was just 10 years. Everybody just got 10 years for anything and everything. Why? Because people stopped preaching. Because when you stop preaching, then you allow for really horrible legislation to come in. If you say, hey, if they pass these stupid anti-Semitism laws and then they start trying to actually throw people in jail, what they're trying to do is they're trying to have a chilling effect. They're trying to get everybody to shut up. They're trying to get everybody to stop talking. And they can handle a small group. Dozens or hundreds of people, they can go to jail. And here's the thing. If the rest of the populace allows them to curb them from speaking and saying something, it will work. But what we need is when people actually go to jail, it's for everybody to say it. You can't just have one person being willing to say it. You have to have hundreds. Hey, Jeremiah went to prison and his whole country was doomed. Do you know why? He was the only person that went to prison. You need more people than one to change the nation and to change the course of action. You need to encourage other people to really preach the Bible and preach the Word of God. And John chapter number 8, look at verse 32. The Bible says this. And you should know the truth and the truth shall make you free. You know what makes a nation free? Truth. What you don't understand about North Korea and China and Russia is you can't say things that are true. Let me explain something about anti-Semitism. They're not saying you can't lie. They're saying you can't be anti-Semitic. And here's the problem. The truth is anti-Semitic. Okay? The truth is anti-Semitic to these people. Why? Because they say here's the definition of anti-Semitic. The Jews killed Jesus. Well, that's true. And what happens is they start limiting the truths that you can say. We need to make sure that we're always for truth. We should always say the truth. We should be willing to preach the truth. And you know what? When we know the truth, it can make you free. If we as a nation fall and say we don't care what the truth is anymore, well, then we're just doomed as a people. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth. The truth. How could we as the institution of truth stop preaching the truth? How can we let someone tell us you're not allowed to preach something that's true? We should be able to always preach that which is true. Well, just focus on the gospel. Hey, I am focused on the gospel. Did you look at our bulletin? I mean, did you open it up? Did you notice that it's got soul-winning times virtually every day of the week? Hey, I'm all for preaching the gospel here. But you know what? That is not the only thing we have here. And if we say we're going to limit ourselves to the gospel and we won't preach anti-Semitism, well, then next it'll be like you can't preach anything against fags you've been put in prison. And they'll be like, well, just stop preaching on the fags. And then they'll say, well, you just can't preach anything that's like about the law. Like, you know, criminals and stuff. Because they were just, you don't understand, Pastor Shelley. People were taken away from their homes, they were put in slavery, and they just were mistreated for hundreds and hundreds of years and they don't have any possessions. And really, you kind of stole them. So if they go and break into your house and steal all of your goods, that's not theft and robbery and they're not a bad person. They're just redistributing wealth, okay? It's reparations. And we don't want you to be able to speak negatively about them. So you're not allowed to call these people, you know, thieves or something, you know, some kind of mean harsh word. Like a thief. Or a robber. You know, those are bad words. So if you say those, then we'll also put you in prison. Okay, just keep focusing on the gospel then. You know, I can't say thief. I can't say fag, okay? I can't say Jew. What else can I not say? What else can I not say? And then eventually it'll just be like, oh yeah, and also you can't tell people that they're going to go to hell. For any reason. So then all of a sudden it's just universalism and it's like, well, if you don't believe in Jesus, you'll be separated from God. Where? Sheol. It's Sheol. What is Sheol? I don't know. Do you know? And then they're like, you can't even say Sheol anymore. It's anti-Semitic. You're trying, you're culture appropriation, you're taking our Hebrew words. Okay? And then you'll say the name of Jesus and say, some people get triggered by that word. So now you can't say that. Look, where is the end, folks? The end is, you can't preach the gospel. That's why I say fag. That's why I say the Jews killed Jesus. Because I'm not going to allow them to stop me from saying anything. Because I know where that train heads. That train heads to the gulag and that gulag heads to death. So I'm not going to just sit here and peaceably say, what else can I say, government? Please tell me what I'm allowed to preach today. No, no, no. I'm going to preach whatever the Bible says. Because the devil will use these tactics, but when it's fully installed, then it's North Korea. Then it's China, then it's Soviet Russia. It doesn't start as North Korea. It starts with, hey, you can't say that about Jews. Hey, you can't say that about people that are literally the most disgusting child predators on the planet. If I can't say anything negative about them, I'm like, what? It's so funny that they have to pass legislation for you to not hate people. You know why? It's because it's so easy to hate them. It's like, why is it so easy to hate these people? Oh, because of propaganda and stuff. No, no, no. Because of the truth. The truth. The truth is the problem that they don't want you to bring up. And they often call people anti-Semitic, but they don't call them liars. You're so anti-Semitic, but am I a liar? Well, you just hate fags so much. You're so homophobic. But did I say something that's not true? And I don't seem that scared of them. I mean, I don't know what you're afraid of. You're the one that seems to be a homophobe. You know what the problem is? They're country homophobes. Our country has a homophobia problem today. I wish we could get rid of all the homophobes and they would just wear a sodomite deception t-shirt out and proud. We need Christians to come out of the closet again. Come out to your parents. Come out to your nephews. Come out to your employers and say, hey, I believe the Bible. That's what Larry, you know, Faggotstein said, or whatever was his name. Harvey Milk, sorry. Harvey Milk, the disgusting faggot, got up and was preaching in public, saying, hey, all you fags, we need to come out of the closet and people will empathize with us. You know what? We need fundamental Baptists to come out of the closet and say, hey, these people are disgusting and filthy and gross. And they're being shoved down our throat by the synagogue of Satan, a bunch of anti-Christ, God-hating Jews who kill Jesus, metaphorically, through their grandparents. Oh, you can't say that in South Dakota. Well, good thing I'm in Texas, all right? But let me explain something. If Greg Abbott goes back over to Israel and worships the wall again and gets handed down some paper that he's supposed to bring over here and sign and signs it and says, hey, you can't be anti-Semitic in Texas. I'm gonna preach what this book says. And you know what? It wouldn't even surprise me if that happens and then we lose people in our church. But you know what? I'm still gonna preach it. It wouldn't surprise me if people quit and give up when actual, real persecution comes. But you know what? I still want to be standing here preaching the Word of God and saying whatever I need to say. You know, they can't get me off of Rumble right now, but maybe they'll just pass legislation or something so they can get us off of it. But you can't get me off God resource. And you know what? Even if the whole internet's down, I can still preach to you. You know, they didn't have the internet in Acts chapter 4. And they still went to prison for what they said. Did you know that? You know why they went to prison? They didn't play a YouTube clip. They asked them in person. Think about it. They didn't say like, oh, we have the recordings, we have the audio tapes. They're like, hey, what do you believe? And they're like, it's not lawful of you to have her. I am. That's what Jesus said. Hey, art thou the son of the blessed? Hey, are you the preacher that said facts shall be put to death? I am. Hey, are you the preacher that said that the Jews killed Jesus? Yes. They're the synagogue of Satan. That's what the Bible says. You know what? That's the real boldness. Boldness is not preaching to you guys. Boldness is standing before these people and telling them what the Bible says. Boldness is looking at Herod in the eyes and saying, hey, you're not allowed to have her. That's the real boldness. Go to Philippians chapter 1. The real boldness would be to look at Donald Trump in the face and say, hey, your divorce and remarriage, that's adultery. You're committing adultery. You shouldn't have even married Melania. People would be like, oh, Melania is so much better than Joe Biden's wife or Michael Obama. Well, of course, everything's better than that. You know what? It's still adultery. It's not like, I hope that no woman is ever like Melania Trump. I mean, the woman literally sold her body online. Why in the world would I ever want any of my children or daughters to ever fall in her footsteps and to sell images of herself online and to prostitute herself online? Well, that's the first lady. I don't care. It doesn't matter. We should be able to preach what the Bible says. It's not like, oh, you like, you don't like Joe Biden? That must mean you love Trump. Wrong. People will think, like, they hear a damn Joe Biden sermon, and they're like, this guy really loves Trump. No. I still don't. Oh, Trump's gonna fix our nation. How? He had four years, and he made it way worse. I mean, if we could really go back in time and just allow just basically the next 50 years to be like that specific time, would you rather, would you rather live in 2020 for the rest of your life or 2016? I know. 2016. Because 2020 really sucked with all the COVID junk that Trump brought in and the Operation Warp Speed and all the other nonsense that was going on. That was Trump. Did I stutter? That was your favorite person, Donald Trump, who brought in all that junk and brought in the vaccines and shut down the entire country. That was Donald J. Trump that did that. Oh, but I just can't wait for him to get re-elected. So then what? What's the next step? And you know why they won't get rid of the vaccine lie? You know why they won't fess up to that? Because then they'd have to admit that everything they did was wrong. There are 15 days to slow the spread. And if they ever say, hey, what we did was wrong, then everybody will say, well, we're never gonna obey you ever again. I mean, if they said like, we pretty much completely botched it and screwed up and everything's wrong, well, no one ever trusts them again and never will ever fall for that again. But because of the vaccine hoax, a lot of people are thinking like, oh yeah, we were just waiting for the vaccine and once we got the vaccine, that's what kind of helped us and saved us and that's what saved lots of lives. And so they're basically trying to propagandize everybody to think the next pandemic, we gotta all just kind of shut it down and wait and hope for that next vaccine to come out. But you know, we had that Operation Warp Speed. How fast do you think that'll happen with Joe Biden? That is not Operation Warp Speed. That is Operation, you know, dementia, okay? And maybe they want that on purpose. Oh, we just gotta wait for that vaccine and hope for it to finally come out five years, 10 years, 20 years from now because that's when we get the freedom again like we did with the COVID issue. No, the COVID thing was a scam, folks. It wasn't that the vaccine made us safe. The vaccine didn't help us survive. The vaccine killed more people than it saved. I don't think it saved anyone. But it definitely killed people. It definitely destroyed them. And you know, I guarantee they're not wanting to let go of that because then they have to admit, hey, the government sucks. The government lied. The government's a fraud. Don't listen to us. Don't obey us next time. But you know what? They can't let go of that. What's going to be the next stage? What's going to be the next issue where they come out and say, hey, gotta wait for that next vaccine? Well, it doesn't matter to me because I don't live my life on pins and needles on who's going to be the next president. You know, I like, I think it's in the Daniel series. Pastor Anderson had this funny comment and he was talking about school board elections and he was like, hey, you should put out basically a poster for the advertisement and he was saying, specifically when he went to vote, he said he wrote in just Satan and he's like, you should put a poster out there and it should just say, vote for Satan for school board president. Experience you can trust. And I was like, that could just be the pres-, just put president, just mark that out and just put president because look, the vast majority of the presidents we've had in the last few decades are literally minions of the devil folks and they're being led by the nose of the devil and they're destroying our country on purpose. But you know what? Nuts to that. I don't care. I'm going to be like Jeremiah and say hey, this whole country is going to be nuked but I'm not and what I'm going to do is I'm going to preach until the last breath that I have and I'm going to take as many people with me as I can and I'm not going to be afraid to preach the Bible and if they put me in prison, well, you know what? Prison is the safest place and the end part of Monopoly anyways, okay? If you've ever played Monopoly, towards the end of the game, the only safe place is jail because the Jews bought all the properties and put hotels on them and jacked the rates up, okay? It's called inflation. Did you notice how that game works? Did you notice that in the game of Monopoly, you lose if you never buy property? You lose hard. This is how America's working. If you don't own any property, it's going to get ugly fast and the safest place is going to be jail. You know, that's just how the world works. But I don't really care about those things because we already learned this morning, hey, we shouldn't get a loose grip on this world. Why do I need to be so covetous of the possessions that I have? If I sow to the flesh, I'm going to reap corruption. The Apostle Paul counted it all but loss that he may win Christ. If I can't preach the truth, who cares what possessions I own? Well, you could lose them all. You could go to jail. Well, you know what? No possession is worth shutting my mouth up. Philippians chapter 1, look at verse 12. But I would that you should understand, brethren, that the things which happened in me have fallen out rather under the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places. And many of the brethren in the Lord waxing confident by my bonds are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Notice he went to prison, but it caused other people to preach the Bible more and to be more bold. And that's what we need. We need people that won't shut up and will still preach and still go to jail because that'll cause people to wax bold. But you know what? If you shut up, they'll still throw you in jail anyways under technicality, and then it'll be a chilling effect. It'll cause people to stop talking. Stop talking. Stop preaching. He says, hey, if I have to go to jail for the word of God to go forth, then so be it. You know what? We need pioneers to preach the word of God and not be afraid of the persecution. This is the last place I want to look. Look at Ephesians 6, verse 12. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, watching thereunto, with all perseverance and supplication for all saints, and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. Notice he said, hey, I'm an ambassador in bonds. Why is he in bonds? Because of what he preached, and he said, hey, pray for me, that I'll have boldness, that I may preach what I'm supposed to preach, that I might speak what I ought to speak, and we need Christians to be jailed for preaching, if so be. Don't be a coward. There's so many churches, and they're such cowards, and they'll never preach the truth, even without jail, and you know what? We need Christians to say, I'm willing to go to jail for what the Bible says. Again, I'm not saying I want to go there. I'm not interested in going there. I have no desire to be in jail ever. I pray that God doesn't even put me in jail, but what I want is the attitude, and the heart, and the mind, and the boldness to say, I will preach even if jail is threatened, and you know what? If 7,000 other Christians and pastors and churches all over this country all said the same thing, well, the government would be so terrified it'd never do it, but when it's one person, oh, they'll put him in jail. They'll bring the acts on him. We need people to wake up on these anti-Semitism laws, on all these issues that are going on in our country. We need people to realize the truth on this because otherwise, we'll just become North Korea tomorrow. We have to preach the truth. We have to preach the Word of God without fear, and we have to be willing to be jailed for preaching. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us the Bible. I pray that we'd not be ashamed of the Bible. We wouldn't be ashamed of what the Word of God says. I pray that you'd motivate us and strengthen us and give us boldness to be able to preach the Word of God, that we wouldn't be ashamed of anything that the Scripture says. I pray that you'd give us discernment to know the right times to open our mouth, but when it's a time to open our mouth, that we would have boldness to preach it. And I pray that you would just rise up a generation of Christians that are willing to preach the Bible, come hell or come high water, that they would just preach whatever needs to be preached. They would stand on the truth. They wouldn't cower or fear. You'd give us boldness and that we'd have the strength to do what's right. And we pray. Amen. Amen. For our last song, we're going to go to 375, Work for the Night is Coming. 375, Work for the Night is Coming. Song 375, Work for the Night is Coming. Work for the Night is Coming. Work through the morning hours. Work while the dew is sparkling. Work is drinking fast. Work when the day grows brighter. Work in the glowing sun. Work for the night is coming. When man's work is done. This is probably a song we haven't sang in a long time. So let's go ahead and try that first verse one more time. All right, on the first. Work for the night is coming. Work through the morning hours. Work while the dew is sparkling. Work is drinking fast. Work when the day grows brighter. Work in the glowing sun. Work for the night is coming. When man's work is done. Work for the night is coming. Work through the sunny dew. Build brightest hours with labor. Rest come sure and soon. Give every flying minute Something to keep in store. Work for the night is coming. When man's work's no more. Work for the night is coming Under the sunset skies. While their bright dims are glowing. Work for daylight flies. Work till the last beam faded. Faded to shine no more. Work while the night is darkening. When man's work is o'er. Great singing everybody. You are all dismissed. www.mooji.org