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Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Alright open up your bibles to number 126. Psalm 126 in your bibles. When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion. Psalm 126 in your bibles. Alright let's start there in verse one. When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion. We were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter. And our tongue with singing. Then said they among the heathen. The Lord have done great things for them. The Lord have done great things for us. Whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity. Oh Lord as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Then said they among the heathen. The Lord have done great things for them. The Lord have done great things for us. Whereof we are glad. He that goeth forthwith weepeth. Bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again. Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing. Bringing his sheaves with him. Then said they among the heathen. The Lord have done great things for them. The Lord have done great things for us. Whereof we are glad. Great singing. Brother Paul if you could pray for the tithes. All the gifts that have been given to you and to Jesus. Amen. We are in Acts chapter 17. Acts chapter 17 the Bible reads. Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia they came to Thessalonica where it was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul as his manner was went in unto them and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures. Opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ. And some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas and of devout Greeks a great multitude and of the chief women not a few. But the Jews which believe not moved with envy took unto them certain lewd fellows of the base or sort and gathered a company and set all the city on an uproar and insulted the house of Jason. And sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city crying these that have turned the world upside down or come hither also whom Jason hath received. And these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar saying that there is another king one Jesus. And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. And when they had taken security of Jason and of the other they let them go. And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than they those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed also of honorable women which were Greeks and of men not a few. But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea they came thither also and stirred up the people. And then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go as it were to the sea but Silas and Timotheus abode there still. And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus were to come to him with all speed they departed. Now while Paul waited for them at Athens his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews and with the devout persons and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him and some said what will this babbler say others some he seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him unto Areopagus saying may we know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is for thou bringest certain strange things to our ears. We would know therefore what these things mean for all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time and nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said ye men of Athens I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God whom therefore ye ignorantly worship him declare I unto you. God that made the world in all things therein seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Neither is worshipped with men's hands as though he needeth anything seeing he give it to all life and breath and all things and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation. That they should seek the Lord if happily they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being as certain also of your own poets have said for we are also his offspring. For as much then as we are the offspring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone raven by art and man's device. In the time of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained. Whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead and when they heard of the resurrection of the dead some mocked and others said we will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them how be it certain men clave unto him and believed among the witch was Dionysus the Arapagite and a woman named Damarius and others with them. Brother Robert, could you pray for the service? Amen. Alright. Well, I'm going to preach a sermon called the problems with paganism. The problems with paganism. So the reason why I'm preaching this is I don't know if anybody remembers the last time I was here and I was like, hey, do you guys have like a lot of pagans around here? Because I always notice that there's, you know, there's names here, street names named after Norse gods. You have Thor. Is it Thor Avenue? Then you have Freya and those are like basically got from Norse gods. I thought, well, I wonder if that's like an issue up here. And, you know, in times past, it probably has been. I mean, maybe it's just they thought it was a cool name to name a street. But I realized that every once in a while will knock the door and someone who's ever had someone say that they're a pagan when you knock on the door. See, so everybody here has had that happen. And I was kind of like people were telling me, well, it's not really that big of a thing here. But I had a couple of things that happened to me after that. And one of the things was that I ran into a guy, a pagan, a self-proclaimed pagan out soloing. And I spent about a half hour talking with this guy. And it's funny how these people act like Christians are affected by their charms or whatever. But he had, he's like, when I stopped him, he was walking past me and we'd already walked past his house, which of course I didn't know this was his house at the time. But he's like, yeah, I noticed you walked past my house. Like he had cast some spell or something. I was like, yeah, it said no trespassing. So that's why I didn't stop. And like, and like a dog, you know, people there have a lot of dogs that you just never know what you're walking into. But anyway, I talked to this guy and I'll kind of go into a little bit more about what we discussed. But I realized that I've run into several people that say they're pagan. And so I kind of want to preach about paganism tonight just because I feel like it's something that we maybe just need to know about. And obviously paganism is on the rise. It really is. And it was something that died out when Christianity made its way throughout the whole world. And, you know, it's called Norse mythology because it's mythology. It's not real. OK, it's called, you know, Greek mythology because it's myth. OK, it's not based on true stories or anything. It's just like it's. And of course, you have the Romans, the Romans and the Greek gods are basically the same thing. They just have like different names for them. And I'll kind of go through that. But so, yeah, I just figured that, you know, those things happen. And I think that we just need to be aware of how we deal with pagans, because, you know, sometimes someone will just say something to you out of soul wanting. And you've never encountered that situation before. You're like, well, I didn't really know what to say to them. So we'll kind of get into that, too. But look at Acts 17, verse 16, where it says. Now, while Paul waited for them at Athens, he his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry, therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews and with the devout persons and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him and some said, what will this babbler say? Other some he seemed to be a center forth of strange gods because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. I just want to pray real quick before we move here. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for the great day in church, for the person that got saved, for the great food and fellowship we've had. And Lord, I pray that you continue to bless here and afterwards. And I pray you fill in with your spirit. And, Lord, you give the people ears to hear what your spirit says to them tonight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. OK, so you have these verses here and this is Paul. He's actually confronted by paganism here. And I'll get into what paganism here is here in just a minute. But he runs into these and realizes the whole city is given over to idolatry. One of the things about pagans is idolatry is a big part of their religion. Now, whatever gods they believed in or whatever sect involved in, idolatry is usually the center of what they believe. It's one of the main things they believe. They have carvings of their gods. They have molten images and graven images of their gods. And, you know, not only do they make these things and call them gods, but they also serve them. So literally they're making something with their own hands, calling it God, and then, you know, serving them. Like if you ever go to like a Chinese restaurant, they have a little Buddha's right there and they like have orange peels or something underneath them. You know what I'm talking about? They're serving that idol. And people go, well, Buddhism isn't really a religion where they believe in gods. Well, why do they have a golden statue of a fat little Chinese guy with a bunch of stuff that they serve to him? If they don't believe that they're serving some kind of god, then why are they doing that? It's idolatry. And paganism has kind of a broad meaning. And like I said, I'll get into that in just a second, but the first thing you've got to think about, though, is that it's idolatry. So they're wholly given over to idolatry in this city. And obviously he's in Greece, a place where they believe in these. They're calling them by the names of their Roman deities, but the Romans got those deities from Greek mythology. And this kind of stuff has lots of different religions all around the world that would fall into the realm of paganism, even like Native American religions and things like that. So then he runs into these certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics. And basically they're just people. They're just different sects of philosophers. But they also still believe in those mythological gods, so for the most part. And they're basically like sects of different, so Epicureans, they're named after. And he basically, and these Stoics are people that just think that you should make the best out of your hard life. And like the Hindu Stoics will stand on one foot for like five years or whatever and then tell their whole legs about to fall off. You know what I'm talking about? So Stoics are people that just like feel like they need to endure hardness, physical hardness, and it's weird. But anyway, but then it says he seems to be a center forth of strange gods. So basically they do believe in gods, they just don't believe in the God of the Bible. And so that's the second thing you should notice about these people that would be considered pagans. And you know, and why do they think that? Because they preach unto them Jesus and the resurrection, which is the truth. And so Paul gets to the city, his heart stirred, his spirit has stirred up within him. And so what happens when you're stirred up to do something for God? Then you're going to preach or do whatever it is that God set your heart upon to do. And that's what he does. He preaches them a great sermon at Mars Hill. But before we get back to that stuff, I just wanted to kind of open up with the fact that this is Paul dealing with pagans. Well how does he deal with them? Well he shows them that what they believe isn't true and then he tells them about the true God. Right? And that's what we have to do also. If you're going to deal with a pagan, don't apologize for what you believe. Don't feel bad for telling them what the truth is. You know and a lot of the pagans that you're going to run into now are neo-pagans. They're not really, they don't really have a lot of different terms. And they're probably not following all the things that all the old pagans did. Because if they did, they'd be doing human sacrifices and you know animal sacrifices and stuff. So really they like to call themselves pagans and sometimes I wonder sometimes if they just say that for the shock value alone, that a Christian is going to go like, a pagan? It sounds like the devil or what you know. But it is, I mean they do worship the devil really. They'll try to say they don't but you know anything that's not of the truth is a lie. Anything that's a false way is not the truth. So we're supposed to hate every false way. We hate the way. We don't hate the person that follows that way necessarily. But paganism is a term for, and I got this from Wikipedia okay. Well paganism is a term used in the 4th century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism. So that's, hence they say, put a strain, you know that Paul is setting forth these strange gods. Practice polytheism or ethnic religions other than Judaism. In their individuals fell into the pagan class either because they're increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population. Or because they were not Meletus Christi soldiers of Christ. Formed terms used in the Christian text are Helen, Gentile, and heathen. And that's terms that are in the Bible actually, the heathen, the Gentile. Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of the ancient Greco-Roman religion. And was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. Paganism has broadly, has been broadly said the religion of peasantry. So, and basically so it's like you get these people out in these rural areas. They'll start to just believe all this weird stuff. And throughout you know thousands of years people always try to, they always seem to come up with some kind of religion. So, and you know when the Romans first went to Great Britain they had all the druids were there. And they were pagans. But it's funny because they were pagans coming to another pagan place and killing them because they were pagans. You know people want to say that like these original places where people first had their religions. These indigenous people or whatever. That their religion was good until the white man came and destroyed their pagan religion or whatever. It's just like it's trash. It is. It's trash no matter what kind. And look here's my view about indigenous people. We all were indigenous of Noah's Ark. Okay that's where everybody came from. That's where the boat landed. And so if you want to say we're indigenous people. Yeah we're indigenous people to Mount Ararat of Turkey. Okay that's where we all came off the same. We all came off the same boat. And we all just spread out throughout the earth. The Tower of Babel happened and everybody was spread out. So they weren't, nobody's indigenous to a certain place in reality. They went there because God confounded their languages. And he sent the Russians to Russia and the Canadians to Connecticut. Obviously Canada wasn't really a country back then but I'm just saying. You know God spread forth all these people into all these corners of the earth. And people just get really weird about now it's just colonization and stuff. You know what I'm a colonist. I'm going to colonize people for Jesus. And if people were actually doing that back in those times then good I'm glad. Because it got rid of headhunters, cannibals, people that were just molesting and letting homosexuality run rampant. All that kind of stuff ended when Christ's name went forth with the gospel. And so now it's starting to creep back up. And it's something that we have to realize is that as the world gets worse. As the world draws itself away from Christ. That we're going to have to deal with people like this that are saying that they're pagans. And so let's see where we're at here. And after the middle ages the term paganism was applied to any non-Christian religion. Which is kind of what I would say that it basically is today. So the term presumed a belief in false gods. The origin of the application of the term pagan to polytheism is debated in the 19th century. In the 19th century paganism was adopted as a self descriptor by members of the various artistic groups inspired by the ancient world. So that's what your modern pagans would say. In the 20th century it came to be applied as a self descriptor by practitioners of modern paganism, neo-pagan movements and polytheistic reconstructionalists. Modern pagan traditions often incorporate beliefs or practices such as nature worship that are different from those of the largest world's religions. So what else is an indicator? They worship mother earth. They worship nature. They worship animals. Contemporary knowledge of old pagan religions and beliefs come from several sources. Sources including anthropological field research records and evidence of archeological artifacts and the historical accounts of ancient writers regarding cultures known to classic antiquity. Most modern pagan religions existing today, modern neo-paganism express a world view that is pantheistic and polytheistic or animistic. But some are monotheistic. So here's another article. And I do have a lot of articles here so just bear with me a little bit here. But I want to give you some numbers about pagans that I just kind of found on the internet because the internet is always true. But anyway, some studies suggest that there are at least 1.2 million pagans in the United States. So that's a decent sized number out of 300 million or whatever. But it is rising. The American pagan buying audience numbers 10 million persons according to an executive of Barnes and Noble. So you've got 10 million people buying things, reading material that is paganistic in its origin. And then the website religioustolerance.org suggests that there are about 750,000 Wiccans in the US. So someone that would self-proclaim as a pagan, maybe they'd get that off a census or something like that. Then you've got other numbers saying that there's 10 million people buying things. Barnes and Noble is tracking what they're buying and says that there's about 10 million people that are buying stuff like that. Because everything you guys buy is tracked now. And it's really easy. Or Costco or whatever, right? Or Walmart. But anyway, so 750,000 Wiccans in the US. And that's basically kind of like the new, it's like neo-witchcraft or whatever. It's the new style of witchcraft. And witchcraft does fall into paganism also, I believe. That's my opinion about it. Because most of those pagan religions had some kind of priest or priesthood. They had animal sacrifices. And witchcraft is tied to all that stuff. So Wiccans, they say they're like the good witches or whatever. And they're the light, the witch, they're not like into black magic or whatever. But if you're trying to use any kind of, if they're saying they're Wiccans, they're doing witchcraft. There's no witchcraft that's good. The Bible condemns all practices of witchcraft. It's wicked and it shouldn't be tolerated. Isn't it funny how they made all these movies where people are, you know, witch hunting all these people. Like, you know, what is it, Salem, Massachusetts and all these different places where, you know, they wrote books about it, about how bad it was that people were being accused of being witches. And they probably did take on a hysteria. People always go overboard with stuff. But just because people went overboard with stuff doesn't mean that witches don't exist. It doesn't mean that there isn't really bad evil witches that are out there. There really are. And there still is today, there's still witches practicing black magic to this very day. We haven't gotten rid of them all. And now when someone even suggests that witchcraft is even evil, they just kind of look at you like you're some kind of religious nut. But God still feels the same way as he did in Leviticus and Deuteronomy when he condemned those things. So it's still condemned in the New Testament. Witchcraft is one of the works of the flesh. I mean, it's mentioned multiple times. Anybody that is doing sorcery, you know, sorcerers, according to Revelation 21 verse 8, deserve to go to hell. Right? So anybody that's practicing those things, you know, is evil. And they do fall into the category of witchcraft because think about this. All the druids, what were they involved in? Witchcraft, reading stones. And what did they do? Sacrificed human beings, sacrificed probably children. It was a really evil religion. So, you know, it was so bad that the Romans thought it was bad. I mean, that should just tell you. I mean, because the Romans, guys in the world, I mean, they did crucify, allowed Jesus to be crucified. That was their method of killing people was hanging them on a cross. And who did Jesus get hung on a cross between? Two thieves. Last time I checked in the Bible, it doesn't say that you're supposed to crucify thieves on crosses and break their legs before sunset or whatever. I mean, they were pretty brutal. So if they thought the druids were overboard, then that's pretty bad, right? So here's another article. It says, this is from a recent article in Spokane. As a matter of fact, it's only two months old. It says at 8 a.m. September 17, 2022, vendors from North Idaho, Spokane, and surrounding areas arrived. Pagan-themed businesses like Three Sisters Broom Shop. So there's your witchcraft tie-in right there. From Coeur d'Alene. Dandelion crystals and jewelry. From Spokane, as well as sponsors like Shadow Fox Witchery. Spokane Magical Moot. And over a dozen more were represented. Heatley, this is one of the people that put this Pagan festival on. And associates wanted to keep everything local and relied on community connections and word of mouth to attract participants. By 10 a.m. as the opening ritual began, volunteers lost count how many cars filled the parking lot. Hours of revelry followed. Live music, live dancers, belly dancing, crafts and workshops, archetypes, ancient knowledge, and crystals were held indoors. Even children were occupied with crafts. So I mean basically they're just teaching people how to be Pagans. They're trying to go back to this old stuff that all these people believed in before Christianity became what it is today. And they're trying to go back to that stuff. And notice how it's all tied to crystals and witchcraft and all this others. I mean there's two different places that were, one just was called Fox Witchery. I mean what do you think that they do there? So Magical Moot, what do you think they're into? How about the Three Sisters Room Shop? You know, what are they into? So it is a thing. And no one expected 800 plus people to turn out for the inaugural Northwest Pagan Fest. Not even the attendees. They put this thing together and they didn't think it was a big deal. And obviously 800 people in the grand scheme of things, there's what, 700,000 people in this area or whatever. But if we put on a special preaching night, do 800 people show up here for that? No, they don't. Even one of the most famous preachers in the whole world showed up here, how many did we have, like 45, 50? I mean infamous or famous, you can pick which one. He's infamous in some circles. But my point is, is that they throw this event together and they didn't even expect that many and 800 people showed up locally here. And here's what they say. And this is, you know, when people say blanket statements like this, sometimes you just have to read the opposite of it. We're not Satan worshippers, Waters said. Why would they say that? Because people like me would say they are Satan worshippers, right? A pagan is a Satan worshipping person, whether they believe that or not, whether they know that or not, if you're not serving the true God and you're not following His word, then you're not in a true religion. And so who made up all the other religions? The devil, Satan, right? To fool the masses, to blind them spiritually. So it says we're not Satan worshippers, Waters said. She goes on to explain that pagans are inclusive, buzzword right there, inclusive, accepting and respectful of others beliefs. But I guarantee you, if we went down there with our Bibles and said, this is wicked, this is pagan, you're all going to hell or whatever. Do you think that they'd be inclusive with us? They probably wouldn't be. They wouldn't be inclusive, would they? That's what homos always say, too, right? They're inclusive. They just want to love. Love is love. Except for you, Christian, I hate your gods and wish you death. So here's another quote from the article. There's no wrong way to be a pagan. So what does that mean exactly? Anything goes. Anything goes. She continues, it comes down to appreciating the earth, so worshipping, expecting all living things from Star Wars and parts of nature. Tuesday nods in agreement. So, and Haley, this other person that organized it, has similar thoughts. Pagan is a Christian word, she says. Paganism as a Christian term is an umbrella term used for any non-Abrahamic religions like Shinto, Buddhism, Hindu and Native American religions. Well, I would say it's just anything that's not Christian. That's my personal opinion. Obviously, you know, the Muslims will call us infidels, which means unbelievers, but they're the real infidels. But, uh, Haley is not a Christian. Oh, big surprise. So she identifies as pagan. She isn't drawn to ancient gods or pre-Christian northern European beliefs. Rather, she considers herself spiritual. That spiritually manifests itself in happiness and joy connection, she says. Happiness and joy. Happy, happy, joy, joy. Was she Ren and Stimpy religion or what? But anyway, but this is the, look, so it's on the rise, but it's not really like the old pagan religions. It is like a form of it. It's kind of like how Wiccans are supposed to be good witches and whatever. They're not into the black magic sorcery or whatever, but it's still, it's still a false religion. It's still fake. And she goes out of her way to not identify as a Christian, but wants to and not doesn't want to identify as, you know, she's not drawn to the ancient gods or pre-Christian northern European beliefs, but she considers herself spiritual. So there's a lot of people out there that will just say, I'm spiritual. Right. I'm a spiritist. We knocked on the door and I told you, I was going to tell you a little bit. So we're not. So the first door we knocked on that opened the door, full blown transvestite transitioning from a man to a woman. And I just wanted to just like shrink away from the door because I didn't want to start a fight or whatever. I've learned that, you know, just starting to fight over that, it's just not worth it to just walk away. We got kicked out of there anyway, apparently. So apparently the manager, apartment manager people were queers too or something. So a big surprise that they're going to throw us out and call us solicitors. But, you know, when we're trying to offer the gift of eternal life, that's not soliciting. That's a free gift. So learn English, learn the law, freedom of religion. Anyway, so we knock on this. So that's the first door, a tranny. Then we get up around the corner to the second level. And then it's this black lady and she's like, oh, yeah, where's the church at? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Acts like she's interested. Come in, I want to show you something. She's being all nice. And then like as soon as she closed the door, it was like, wee, wee, wee. She's like either really schizophrenic or a full blown, like demon possessed psychopath. But she has all these pictures on her wall in her house. She's like, look at those pictures. She's like, you know I got more than one wall, right? But the first thing she does is puts down the King James Bible. She's like, ugh, you got that Bible? And like me and Kyle are just like, I'm not sure what he was thinking at the time. But if he was thinking what I was thinking, it was like, help, get us out of here. We need to go. Help. Is that what you were thinking, Brother Kyle? Pastor Thompson, should we go? We're just trying to like, you know, kind of just ride the wave until we can find, because she just wouldn't let us talk or anything like that. But she would ask us questions and then she's like, you're scared of me, aren't you? She's like, no, I just want to really leave right now. I just said, I don't agree with you. You know, because here's what she said. I'm a spiritualist. And I was like, oh, man, here we go. That's what this lady says, too. But she's got pictures on her wall from the Shroud of Turin and pictures that she said supposedly appeared to her. And like, so there's just all these pictures of the face of Jesus, supposedly, on this Shroud of Turin. Who's ever heard of the Shroud of Turin before? So they say it's the burial cloth of Jesus. And so there'll be like blood and, you know, he has long hair, of course, and a crown of thorns on his head or blood splatter or whatever where his head was, all where the wounds of Jesus would have been. And they take this little thing all over the place and they probably used to make people pay money to see it. I'm sure they still do. But anyway, she has all this weird stuff on her wall, all these pictures of Jesus' face, you know, the Jesus that they think is Jesus. And she's like, what do you think about all this, huh? You know, she's just like really just she flipped the switch, didn't she? She was she was being like really aggressive, but like at the same time, like laughing strangely and stuff. And she was like, you're just you just don't really know what to think about someone like me, do you? And I was like, well, I just think you're wrong, you know? So I was like, I know I'm in your house, but I don't agree with you. I was like, number one, Jesus put a napkin on his face that he wrapped up and put in the corner of of the place where he was buried. And it was it's detailed in the Gospels. She's like, oh, the Bible, you know, she's like, oh, the Bible. You know, so she just she's putting down the truth and everything. And then finally me and Kyle just was like. Oh, and then Kyle hesitated, I was like, go. Go like because he had his hand on the door, she was still talking. I was just like, just go, go. But I feel like God just allowed us to go to that door because he knew I was preaching this sermon or something, because this person is saying the same thing. So spiritual, I'm spiritual can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. And so I would categorize that person as a pagan, just a really strange person anyway. So the 21st century has witnessed remarkable historic events. The rise of Russia after the demise of the USSR, the resurgence of militant Islam, the rise of China, the fragmenting of the European Union and even deepening divisions in the United States. However, one of the most rising events has been the reemergence of ancient ideas, the traditions in Western nations once called Christians. Turn to Acts chapter 14, verse number 11. So Paul runs into this a lot because where is he going? He's going to places that used to be the Greek Empire and are now a part of the Roman Empire. So it's now no doubt he's going to run into people that are pagans that believe all this stuff. So they believe in multiple gods. They believe in idolatry. They, you know, they have problems with all that. And then, of course, witchcraft and human sacrifice and animal sacrifice come into it. But, you know, I feel like Satan just wants to mimic what God puts forth, but then add his own sin to it also. Instead of one, there's multiple gods. And so that's how he corrupts every society. We were kind of talking about this last night and how there's all these temples all around the world. And all these temples are built, you know, facing north or whatever. They're adjacent to the north. And obviously the devil wants to, you know, be the king of the sides of the north and all that stuff. So, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. But a lot of these places, like in South America and Mexico and just all over where temples are, there was human sacrifice being done. I mean, the Mayans and the Aztecs were committing massive amounts of human sacrifice. When Cortez came to destroy the Aztec civilization, you know, one of the reasons why they just started killing everybody is because they were performing human sacrifices in front of them. So they came and captured a bunch of their soldiers and took them and then sacrificed them. And when they would sacrifice them, they would do it while they were alive. They would cut their beating heart out of their chest and then burn it with fire or whatever kind of weird stuff that they did. But, you know, this is the kind of thing that paganism leads to. It ultimately leads to where people are, you know, cannibalistic. You know, they say cannibalistic ritualism or whatever, but they were eating each other. That's what they were doing. They were eating human beings. And that's when you know that the society has gone too far. And how do you know that? Because God then begins to wipe them off the face of the planet. That's what ends up happening. And when he gets to a place where, you know, I mean, obviously he didn't make sure every single person died. But, you know, when a civilization is literally taking people from other villages, sacrificing them because, I mean, the Aztecs got so bad they were just sacrificing people every single day. For every holiday, whatever they wanted to do. And, you know, that's what the Druids and the Mateles were doing, all that stuff. So, anyway, Acts 14-11 says, And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying, in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the light of the sun. And they called Barnabas Jupiter and Paul Mercurus because he was the chief speaker. So these are both in the pantheon of the Roman Empire. You know, they're also in the Greek pantheon. I'll explain that in just a second. But it says, Then the priest of Jupiter, so they had a priest, didn't they? Right? They had a priest, the priest of Jupiter, which was set before the city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gate and would have done sacrifice with the people. So they have their own priesthood for this paganistic way of life. And they're about to do some sacrifice because they're saying that Paul and Barnabas are gods coming down from heaven. And which, when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes and ran in among the people, crying out and saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you and preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven and earth and the sea and all the things that are therein. So even when, you know, obviously they're all of a sudden these rock stars because they're doing these miracles in front of people and healing people's sick family members and stuff like that. And so what do they do? They just make them into gods. And they're ready to worship them. But Paul's like, what are you guys doing? And he's saying, and it says, we are men of like passions with you. We're just like you. We're human beings and preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities unto the living God. What's he saying? Well, what you believe your reality is vanity. It's vain. It means nothing. It's wrong. It's not it's not the truth. And they're saying and they're what are they doing? Pointing them to the true God, which made heaven and earth, the sea and all the things they're in. So you have this story in Acts where they're literally talking about these pagan deities and Paul's reproving them and telling them not to do it because it's wrong. So, you know, I mean, you have examples of and here's the Greek pantheon. It's in the Romans. So basically the Greeks and Romans just call these different names, these false gods. But Zeus and Jupiter would be the same. And so they're calling, you know, basically Barnabas, Zeus or Jupiter. Then you got Poseidon and Neptune, whatever the sea god or whatever. Cronus, Saturn, Aphrodite, Venus, Ares, Mars, Hermes, Mercury, Hephaestus, Vulcan and Artemis, Diana. So so turn to Acts 19, verse 23. So these people are really zealous and these, you know, but they don't. If you try to look up scriptures for these pagans, they don't have scriptures. This is why it's called mythology because it's all word of mouth stories. They're not real. It's fake. It's probably some men that were great men in their, you know, in their culture to begin with or something. And they just make these stories up to, you know, they want to talk about how Christians will, you know, it's just made up to control people. No, this is made up to control people. This stuff is made up to control people. This stuff is actually wicked. Acts 19, verse 23 says, In the same time there arose no small stir about that way. What's that way? Christianity. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith which made shrines for Diana. So a shrine is some kind of a, have you seen shrines for Mary? Where they make like a box and then they put like a statue of Mary inside of it and decorate it and all that stuff. This is what, you know, that's what they were doing for this supposed goddess Diana. Shrines for Diana brought no small gain unto the craftsmen. Here's the other thing, false religion, you know, brings forth a lot of money to these false prophets and false teachers and whatever. It says, Whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation and said, Sirs, you know that by this craft we have our wealth. Moreover, you see and hear that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people saying that they are made with hands. And anybody that has normal intelligence should be able to understand that you can't make your own God with your own hands. That's just stupid. It's idiotic. And so, you know, an alternate title would be why paganism is stupid. It is stupid. You can't make a God with your own hands. And God mocked people for that whole time in the Bible. It's just like, it's just weird. Why would you, where would you get that idea? Well, I know the devil. So, so basically this guy is getting everybody fired up because Paul is ruining their business of making false idols and graven images and shrines for Diana. Look at verse 27, so that not only this our craft is in danger of being said it not, but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised and her magnificence should be destroyed whom all Asia and the world worshipeth. And when they heard these things, they were full of wrath and cried out saying, great is Diana of the Ephesians. Then, of course, you know what happens after that. They shout that for like two hours straight. So they are zealous for the things that they believe in, these pagans. But what is happening is something that's uncontrollable. When Christ is spread forward, which is what he told everybody to do. I mean, this is the beginning of this happening. And what's happening to truth is making people go, oh, it is kind of dumb that I just carved this statue and put gold over the top of it. And now I'm worshipping it and serving it and giving him orange peels or whatever. I mean, it's weird. It's false. So that's a result of Christianity going through the world. But again, we are going backwards right now as a society because there is falling away happening within the Christian religion. And so what I talked about this morning, how this is a beacon of light to the world in this community. And I agree that I believe that that's true. I'm not just saying that to say that. I believe that's true. Now, turn to Exodus chapter 20. I'm just going to read you a little snippet here about Norse mythology. So Norse mythology does not have a Bible either. Big surprise. So they don't have scriptures. Again, these are fables. These are not true, made up stories that didn't happen. So Norse mythology does not have a Bible. Its stories were orally passed down from one generation to another. Some Norse characters are depicted in ancient art like rock carvings, Odin, Thor, Freya. But the Vikings didn't keep written records and there is no comprehensive book that explains their world view. And that's why it's called mythology because it's a myth. A collection of myths, the definition of mythology, a collection of myths especially one belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition. So again, culture can dictate their religion. So the culture makes these gods and then lords them over the people and enslaves the people to serve these false gods. And for people to make money and give money and give sacrifice to this false religious system. But it is still myth. So Christianity is so important. But look at all these pagan religions that have resisted the truth. I mean, do you think India is like a great place to live? No, because you've got a bunch of dirt worshiping heathens over there that are just, you know, they're into millions of gods. Their gods are evil. And, you know, obviously, again, one of the oldest religions in the world, but still wicked as hell. Wicked. What about China? How are they doing spiritually right now? Are they doing well? Oh, I mean, now they're communist. I'm sure there's still people that believe the same old religions too. See, people will, when culture got destroyed, so to speak, by Christianity and all these old false pagan religions were destroyed, some people still hung on to that and still snuck it on through the centuries. And that's kind of what's happened with paganism. So these Vikings, they don't really have a written story or a Bible. I mean, we have stuff that's been passed down for thousands of years. It's word for word, kept true, copied perfectly, and translated correctly so we can understand it. I mean, this is a big book. There's a lot of reading in here to just read through the Old and New Testaments. That's not everything that happened. God just gave us what we needed to know to get through this life. And like I said this morning, we have all wisdom in our hands. Everything that we need to know is in this book. Everything that's going to help us in our life, everything in regards to salvation, and just everything in life. Working hard, being a good husband, being a good wife, being good children, being a good father, being a good mom. All this stuff that the Bible teaches us to do, and what do they have? Throw your baby in the fire. And then God will give you the things you want. I mean, it's just wicked. That's what paganism is. You're like, well, not all of them did that. Yeah, they did. Yeah, they did. And all these Eastern religions, maybe they've toned it down, but I mean, they're still evil too. And what is the goal of a Buddhist? To never come back again, right? To experience nirvana, where you stop coming back as whatever you're coming back as within their twisted mind. And what else do they do? They worship their ancestors. They worship people that are dead and gone in all these different religions, don't they? They worship death. You wonder why Japanese people kill themselves so much? They worship death. It's a culture of death. That's why. There's no life found in these pagan religions. It's just death. Ultimately leads to death, leads them going to hell. Exodus 20, verse 3 says, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. So they're striking out left and right on all this stuff, right? So they have multiplicity of gods. They make graven images, and they make images of all these different things in heaven above and in the earth beneath and in the water under the earth. It says, Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them. So they're not just making them. They're also serving them, right? It's exactly what God said not to do. And it says, Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. So all the people that propagate these religions and pass them on, you know, they're just guaranteeing that the third and fourth generations are being visited by God like that, too. They're just storing up wrath upon their family. They think that they're preserving their family values. They're destroying their family values by resisting the true and living God. It says, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. So these pagans should convert to Christianity, and God will love them, and He will guide their lives as long as we continue to follow Him, right? We get saved. So God's going to show mercy on people that get saved. But those people that He mentioned up above from verse 3 to verse 5, they're doomed. They're doomed unless they get saved. Obviously, people can get saved out of this stuff. I'm not saying they can't. But the people that propagated these priests and all this stuff, those people are probably reprobates. They're a prophet of their own religion, right? So now there is such thing as Christian mythology, but it's not found in this book. There's no Christian mythology. Everything in here is true. What would be an example of Christian mythology? Well, the Holy Grail. The St. George slaying the dragon. That's debatable. Maybe he really did. I don't know, but it is still kind of like a mythology thing. It's not exactly based on a bunch of fact. But how about St. Patrick leading and banishing all snakes from Ireland? Do you think that actually happened? Mythology, folks. And Dante's Inferno is another example of something that would be a Christian mythology. Stories that are passed down. Stories that just don't really add up or whatever. But of course there's going to be that with false Christians and things like that. Or just people that like to make up fantastic stories. But this is everything that they believe. It's all based upon mythology. We actually, as Christians, base our faith upon a book. And it's a perfect book also. And it was actually, it's called the Word of God because it was passed down from God himself. They have nothing like that. They're just a bunch of dirt worshiping heathens that made up their own religion. And they all seem kind of similar in a lot of different ways. All these sacrificing, all these temples and all this stuff. We would say, you know, about the things about the Spirit. Like, hey, same Spirit of God. People are going to preach the same stuff. Well, same devil, same type of religions. Right? Why is it that all these different places all over the world that are not connected to each other have temples? Why is it, you know, Brother Robert was showing me this snake that they worship in the Mayans. Was it the Mayans? The Mayans worship the snake god or whatever. Who do you think that's based upon? Yeah, the devil. But they actually made a temple where when the sun hits it at a certain time, you can see a snake going down the side of the temple or whatever, right? It's really weird, but this is what these pagans are like. So here's another article that says, As this global trend, Iceland has constructed, excuse me, as part of this global trend, Iceland has constructed its first temple over a thousand years to worship the old Nordic gods Thor and Odin. So are you telling me it's not coming back? It is coming back. So for a thousand years, there was no heathen, no pagan stuff going on in these countries. You know, because God did reach those countries at some point. Iceland used to be, you know, quote unquote, a Christian place. So did Norway and Sweden and Finland, all those places, Russia. All these different places were considered Christian nations at one time, and now paganism is starting to creep back into these different places. Why? Because the devil likes to just play the same games. You know, and when people get complacent, when people stop following the truth, they're going to follow lies, right? So the first temple in over a thousand years to worship the old Nordic gods, Thor and Odin, is constructed by their son. In England, thousands gather at Stonehenge on a summer solstice to greet the rising sun. See, they're actually worshiping the object, the actual sun itself, instead of the true sun, which is the son of God. As ancient pagans once did. In Edinburgh, Scotland, performers painted as red devils entertain crowds to celebrate the ancient Celtic fire festivals of Beltane and Samhain or Samhain, however that's, it doesn't look like Samhain to me, but it looks like Samhain, but it is Samhain. So basically, you know, worshiping devils. You know, if you're painting yourself up as a red devil, what do you think that their religion, their old religion was doing? They were worshiping the devil. While many gather at ancient UK sites to burn a wicker man. And what did they put in the wicker man? Anybody know? People. So they would make this big sacrifice and make this big wicker man out of all these sticks or whatever and then they would put people in it and burn it as a sacrifice to their demon gods. In America, thousands travel to burning man festivals catering to uninhibited behavior resembling old pagan practices. So all these people just go out to the desert. I don't know how many people go out there. I haven't really looked into it that much, but I know some place out in the middle of nowhere they burn, it's called the Burning Man Festival or something. All this debauchery and wickedness that's going on. In Greece, Hellenists are promoting the worship of the ancient deities Zeus, Apollos, and Athena. While in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, children write prayers to Aphrodite or Venus, the Greco-Roman goddess of love and lust and patron goddess of prostitutes. Oh yeah, that's what we want to do. Let's go back to the old ways. Let's go back to worshiping these false women gods that are goddesses of lust and the patron goddess of prostitutes. Let's turn our children into harlots and whores. In Eastern Europe, people celebrate ancient fertility rites by dancing around and jumping over fires, customs from a pre-Christian past in Russia. Church leaders note the concern with growing interest in pagan traditions. In America, the fastest growing religion is witchcraft. Witchcraft. Something that God says, suffer not a witch to live, is the fastest growing religion in the country. And these people still think we're not Babylon USA? Doesn't it talk a lot in Revelation about witchcraft of the nations? And statues promoting Satanism appear on public grounds. The U.S. Air Force Academy has even constructed a pagan chapel. They have to have like satanic chaplains in these military branches now. So why should the return of paganism matter to progressive western nations today? Where tolerance, acceptance, and diversity are promoted and celebrated, is there a largely unrecognized significance to the dramatic changes taking place? Are we ignoring the important lessons of history? If so, what consequences await us in the days ahead? Why should you be concerned? Well, there's a lot of things to be concerned about with going back to our pagan ways. And the article goes on to say, in Greco-Roman paganism, there were few creeds. Truth was relative. There was little comprehension of absolute right and wrong. That's a problem. That's a problem in society. And no real concept of sin, guilt, or judgment. If you don't have those things, society is going to just go to hell in a handbasket very quickly. Each person decided his or her own path through life. Pagans focus primarily on earthly life, gratifying physical desires, and pursuing personal happiness while deceptively appealing and subtle in some of its errors. It does not take much research to see that the whole of the pagan approach is utterly alien to what the Bible teaches. Why are you preaching this, Pastor John? Why are you reading all this stuff to us? Well, because it's growing quickly. And so if witchcraft is a part of paganism, it's the biggest religion growing in the United States. People would say, well, witchcraft isn't paganism. Yeah, it is. Yes, it is. Why are the three broom sisters holding a paganist conference here? Or festival or whatever? Because it's tied to paganism. So, unlike the God of Scripture, the gods of the Greek pantheon, for example, were promiscuous myths abound with tales of their lust, envy, murder, and other gruesome deeds. Brother Paul was telling me about some of the stuff, and he didn't even want to get into it with me. It's so bad. About what Odin did, and he flies around with these ravens, and I think he murders his own father on this quest for knowledge or something. You know, just wicked horror stories is what it is. Yeah, I want to worship those gods. Open sexuality and debauchery characterize many pagan ceremonies, especially the spring and midsummer fertility festivals. The worship of Aphrodite involved visits to temple prostitutes that generated revenue for the temple, which the Bible also condemns. Turn to Leviticus 19, verse 29. So, it promoted sexual promiscuity. It promotes adultery. It promotes whoredom. It promotes, you know, just wicked, you know, sexual wickedness. Leviticus 19, verse 29 says, Do not prostitute thy daughter to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall into whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness. Well, I mean, why do you have such a problem with paganism, Pastor Thompson? Well, because it promotes prostitution and harlotry, which God says, Don't prostitute your daughter out to be a whore. Or the land is going to fall into whoredom and become full of wickedness. And so, what is it going to bring about? Well, wickedness in our land. You know, we've already got enough whore problems in this country as it is. Well, let's not add to it. So, now look at, turn to Deuteronomy, chapter 23, verse 17. So, also in Greco-Roman society, fornication, homosexuality, and the sexual abuse of children, advocated by Plato, by the way, and practiced by the Spartans. You know, that movie 300, they were the real fags. You know, they blamed it on the Athenians, but in reality, they were the ones that were the queers, running around with their shirts off all the time with their six-packs or whatever, not wearing clothes, not wearing pants. The Persians made fun of them. Like, look at these queers. So, let's see, where was I at? So, this kind of stuff was commonly practiced. Plato was a queer, okay? All philosophers were queers. They openly talked about pedophilia. You know, so, oh yeah, those are the people we want to follow. They'll teach that crap in high school. They'll teach that stuff and acting like, you know, it was just so important. There's, you know, all this philosophy from Greece and from the Romans. It's trash. They had some good things about them, but their philosophy wasn't good. So, they also, their art would be termed as pornography here. Like, what was the place that blew up the Pompeii and uncovered some of the stuff that they've uncovered. It's just pure pornographic, written all over the walls, disgusting. You wonder why God destroyed that place. But, so, in the Roman baths and inns, taverns were locations for gratifying any kind of physical desire. One reason pagans saw biblical religion as a threat was that they feared that the Bible's teaching about sex would turn the lights out on the merry dance, in quotations. I don't know what the quotation is from, but you're in Deuteronomy 23 verse 17. Look what it says. It says, there shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel. So, does it go against the Bible teaching? Absolutely it does. Thou shall not bring the hire of a whore or the price of a dog into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow, for even both of these are abominations unto the Lord thy God. The practice of homosexuality goes hand in hand with the abuse of children, which was propagated and it was talked about as if it was no big deal by these Greek philosophers. Where are we headed? The same place. Where they'll let just little kids dress up like drag queens, they'll give them puberty blockers and stop them from changing, you know, to going through changes in their life so they can keep them as their little pet queers or whatever. How can you decide what you want to be when you're three years old? It's disgusting. It's wicked. I can't even believe it's happening in this country and we'll get silenced for actually preaching against that smut and that filth. Where they're taking them to drag queen story time and, you know, I've ranted about that a lot, about how they're letting children become cats in their classrooms and stuff. It really is happening. It's a fact. In Eugene, Oregon, this happened just not too long ago and people rose up and people were tired of it. What is a bar and a freak dancing around and a man dressed up like a woman writhing all over the place and letting little kids walk up and put dollar bills in their waistband? What is that teaching? How is that helping society? It's not helping society at all. It's sick. And the more this stuff happens, the more sick and wicked this country is going to become to where people just act like it's normal. I can't believe people aren't rising up and just, you know, I mean, taking the law on their own hands. And I'm not saying that people should, but I could understand why people would because this would not have been tolerated years ago. But they're protected by our government. That's the problem. They're protected by our government because they're a bunch of fags and perverts themselves. It's disgusting. It's sick. And I just I don't want to tolerate it. I don't tolerate it at all. But unfortunately, I mean, I can't even knock a door in Spokane without the first thing being some faggot when I open the door. It's gross. Anyway, I don't know how I got off on that, but oh, yeah, the Romans were fags, too. And so the Greeks, right? Every society, great society, why does it fall? Well, because there becomes there comes a point of no return where God just says, that's it. I'm done with this place. Shuts it down. Now, let's see. Go back to Acts 17, where we started. Acts 17, verse 19. So Paul goes to this place and it's called the Arab page. Arab pages. I think that's how you would pronounce that. But look at verse 19, it says, and they took him and brought him to into Arab pages. Saying, may we know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is for that bring us certain strange things to our ears. We would know, therefore, what these things mean for all the Athenians and strangers which were there, spent their time and nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing. So they wanted to hear the newest scuttlebutt. That's kind of where these people were at. But it kind of works out to Paul's advantage because they're like, well, we want to hear all this new stuff. And then Paul is going to get the opportunity to explain what he believes and what the truth is. And so that Arab pages place is actually also called Mars Hill. It's this big rock that's in Athens. And people would get up and speak there and things like that. But it's called Mars Hill, which is also, I think, a Roman god or whatever. But anyway, Paul gets up to speak. Look at verse 22. It says, Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious. Now, the modern versions will change superstitious, but superstitious is the right word. Here's what it means. False religion, false worship. Here's what else. Excuse me, excessive exactness or rigor in religious opinions or practice. So they had set up this idol to the unknown god. And Paul saw all the idolatry. He says the city was given holy to idolatry. So much that Paul was stirred up about this and just felt like he needed to do something about it. So he gets up and speaks here. So superstitious means that they're putting into practice things that aren't really commanded by God. Observing religious rights that are commandments of men, things like that. But it's also false religion and worship. It's excess of scruples in religion. And, you know, we would say you're too superstitious, like, you know, step on a crack, break your momma's back and all this other superstition that people. That is superstition also. The stuff that's just not real. It's false. All this reading the tea leaves and whatever. There's a lot of things that people that are superstitious. But what Paul is talking about here is that they're, you know, he's about to explain to himself about why he believes they're wrong. And the way that they're talking about this unknown God. It's like basically they're just like whoever this unknown God is that we forgot about. That's the one. This is for him just in case we messed up. So doing something that they are so superstitious that they just are worried that they might be forgetting one of the gods. So anyway, pagans, and before I get into that, I want to just kind of break down what pagans believe here, okay? So I just want to recap here. So pagans can briefly be summarized by putting them into categories. Number one, they're idolaters. God commands that we don't do that, right? And then two, they believe in a multiplicity of gods. Three, animal and human sex. Four, animism, which is like the worship of animals or animal-human hybrids, kind of like the Egyptians. And then ancestor worship, worshiping your dead relatives or you're not supposed to make cuttings in your flesh for the dead. Or put tattoos on your face right here or whatever. Witchcraft, sexual activity, which would be part of nature worship or they just worship all of nature. Like they act like it's the force or something from Star Wars. Anyway, so pagans are also called infidels. An infidel is one who is not a Christian or opposes Christianity. A heathen, so infidels and pagans are kind of in the same stripe here. A heathen is one who lives in the country, woods, a pagan. A pagan or a gentile, one who worships idols or is unacquainted with the true God. So this is what Paul's about to explain to us here in a little bit. But it says, in the scriptures the word seems to comprehend all nations except the Jews or Israelites as they were all strangers to the true religion and all addicted tithes. Now be applied perhaps to all nations except to Christians and Mohammedans. But that's just a dictionary definition. We call someone a heathen, it's an unbeliever, right? So Psalm chapter 2 verse 8, I'll have you turn to verse 14. But Acts 2, excuse me, Psalm chapter 2 verse 8 says, Ask me and I shall give thee a heathen for thy inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. So when the apostles were supposed to be out preaching the gospel, Paul was doing what God told him to do. And the heathen are going to be the inheritance of the Lord Jesus Christ and the uttermost parts of the earth. There's people that are saved all over the earth and God has them living in the place that they have and they're going to get reached over and over again throughout this world. So an unbeliever is an infidel who discredits revelation or the mission, character and doctrines of Christ. So I mean all these terms, pagan, heathen, unbelievers, all that kind of stuff is kind of interchangeable. You're in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 14 says, Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers for what bullshit hath righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion hath light with darkness. Oh, that kind of goes with the sermon, I should have used that there. But it's true, right? It's part of the division, right? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? I'm showing you this to help you understand that he's using this language to help us understand what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? What's an infidel? An unbeliever, right? And what agreement of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Almighty. So, God has a lot to say about, you know, staying away from these idols, these temples. You know, we are the temple of the living God, so God doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, he dwells in the temple of our body. And we shouldn't have anything to do with some kind of wicked temple from another religion. But anyway, Acts chapter 17, let's go back there, I just wanted to kind of define some of these terms for us. But Paul is the mission, and the first mission, you know, this mission, he finds himself in Athens where paganism is just alive and well. Acts 17 verse 23, it says, Paul says, For I passed by and beheld your devotions. I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God, whom therefore ye ignorantly worship. Him declare I unto you. So, it doesn't matter whether people say, you know, that they're worshipping God or believing in God, that lady that got saved today, I had to think to her like, you say that you've believed all these years, but you don't get to believe however you want to believe. You have to believe what God, how God tells you to believe. You have to get saved the way God tells you to get saved. It's not just our ignorant worship that God's just going to accept it. He doesn't have to accept it, nor will he accept it. He said the way of salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone, and you have to understand that it's life. So, it's not just, you know, we have to worship him in spirit and in truth, right? Acts chapter 17 verse 24, look what it says. God, the real God, the God of heaven and earth, a bone here real quick, will make him a statue and him a shrine so people can offer to the unknown God just in case. And then we're good, right? No, you're not good. That's why Paul has to explain things to them. Look at verse 26, and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation. So, again, these heathen customs are coming back and God did determine where all these people were going to live, where every nation, where every culture was going to be, but the heathen culture is coming back with this indigenous culture's garbage and is being celebrated as if it's some great thing. If you sacrificed your own children in a fire, that doesn't need to come back, folks. I don't care what the culture says. Now, I'm not against culture. I like culture. I think culture is great. But here's what I don't like about it. I don't like when it comes back in the form of their old gods and their old religion. And that's what's happening, folks. When you go over to Hawaii, they have the cultural center where they go and show you all the, you know, because in that pagan festival, they're like doing the belly dances. That's what they do in Hawaii, too. A bunch of half-naked women dancing around a bunch of dudes, a bunch of dudes with dresses on, dancing around in front of other dudes, you know, and they're like, it's weird. Why do men wear dresses? You're supposed to be so manly. Like, why are you wearing a dress, bro? Why is your hair long like a woman? But that stuff needs to die. That part of the culture needs to die. Why bring it back? Why is it so hard to bring it back? You know, all this Native American culture stuff that's going on. I think it's Native American Heritage Month or something. And I want Native Americans to be saved. I want the Indians to be saved. We've knocked most of the reservation in Yakima because we care whether Indians get saved or not. And these people that want to call us colonizers and tell us to leave them alone, well, you know, you might be going to hell, but maybe they don't want to go to hell. So why don't you just leave us alone and let us colonize a little while? But my problem is when customs are evil that are brought forth or, you know, in 1 Thessalonians 5, it says, prove all things, hold fast to that which is good. So, again, I don't have a problem with holding on to culture as long as it's good. If it's a good culture, like, hey, get strangers into my home and feed them. Or, you know, like, there's some people called the Chuukese people, and they're islanders in the Pacific. And a lot of times, at least when they first started coming to Vancouver and places where I'd see them, they're always, the women are wearing traditional dresses, the men look manly, and they always invite us in to sit down, and they would allow us to preach a gospel to everybody in their whole house. That's a good custom. I like that custom. But, you know, I'm not going to sit there and drink pig's blood. You know, I had a Hawaiian trick me with some pig's blood one time. I was really angry about it. I was like, don't ever do that to me again. He, like, had me taste it. I mean, we're not supposed to eat blood in case you didn't realize that, but I'll never do that again. I'll never eat anything unless I know exactly what it is, but that was bad. But anyway, with the culture, I'm fine with the culture, as long as it's not evil. Acts, let's go back to Acts. I think that you're still there. Acts 17, 27 says, that they should seek the Lord if happily they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being as certain as of your own poets have said. For we are also His offspring. For as much then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, silver, or stone graven by art and man's device. He's given it to them over the idolatry here. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Why? Because there's no reason for ignorance now because the true message is out there. The Savior has come. The Savior has died for us. The Savior is sending them forth. And God's not just allowing or winking at stuff. He's commanding all men everywhere, all the bounds of the earth to repent. Why? Because He's appointed today in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained. So how do we deal with pagans? Well, we show them they're sinful. It's wicked to do idolatry. And then we explain to them that they have to get saved. And why? Because God's appointed today in which He's going to judge the world in righteousness. And you know what? If He judges someone and they're not righteous, they're going to hell. So this is what we have to do to reach the pagans. We have to tell them the same thing that we would tell anybody else. And whether they listen or not, we don't have to have some special presentation for them. We don't have to have some special ending necessarily. But we do have to warn them that there is a true God. And we have to serve and worship Him the way He wants to be served, not the way we want to do it. This isn't Burger King Christianity where we have everything our way. So I don't even know if that's a slogan for them anymore, but I don't think it is. I don't even know if what they're serving is actually food anymore. But anyway, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. Some pagans are going to mock you. And others said, we will hear thee again of this matter. So that's a good answer too. That's like, well, let me think about that. So Paul departed from among them, how be it certain, and clave unto him and believe. See, there's always going to be those people that will also believe. Now the guy that I was talking to that I ran into in Yakima who just like, he was really smug. But when I first started talking to him, he was shaking like uncontrollably. His face was twitching. It was really weird. I was with Remy. He can attest to everything I said. But he thought that I was afraid to walk by his house because of some juju or whatever he put on the house. It's like, no dummy. It says no trespassing. You have a dog barking in the window. I didn't want to get eaten. I wanted to make sure he knew that I wasn't just afraid because of his pagan gods that he was believing. He believed in the Norse mythology. And he was Mexican. So I don't understand that. But anyway, he's talking about all this Norse mythology stuff and how his grandma is a witch. Big surprise there. So it's like, you know, this guy was a complete bozo. And, you know, he watched a little too bit of Marvel Comics movies or something. Like he's like talking about Odin and Thor and all this stuff and ice giants and all this other crap. And I know I've got to be done. So I'm just going to kind of give you my closing thoughts here. But, you know, this guy, he had all the tattoos. He really was a pagan. Like he had the weird looking earrings and all that stuff. He was a total pagan. But when I was talking with him for, like I said, for like a half hour. And he was being respectful enough to where I was still talking to him. But at the end, I finally just, you know, he's talking about Ragnarok and, you know, how everybody's going to get killed. Only people that fight and fight and have a good death and battle. I don't know. They believe some weird stuff. But anyway, I asked him during this conversation what a pagan has to do to be saved. Guess what he told me? Just somebody take a guess. What did he say that pagans had to do to be saved? Huh? No. They just have to be a good person. I was like, really, bro? Just like every other religion. That's exactly what I said to him. I said, do you know that you are teaching about salvation what every other religion teaches except for Christianity? He goes, well, yeah, but here's the thing. You know that all these majority of all these people believe the same thing. So why don't you believe what they believe? And he said, you know, he said, like his common sense of that was like, well, if everybody believes the same thing, then it must be true. I was like, yeah, how about how'd that work out vaccination thing? And I just started talking about that. I better not say vaccination. I'll get medically destroyed of that. But anyway, so he said, you know, I said, in reality, you know, it's the opposite of that. You should actually just take a look at the fact that Christianity is the only religion that you're saved because of what someone else did for you. And you have to accept what someone else did for you. You have to believe in what someone else did for you. And none of it's about yourself and what you do. I said, that's the one thing that the Bible. You know, I just said, can I give you a verse before I leave? And it was Matthew 7 13. Go ahead to Matthew 7 13 real quick. This is the verse I quoted to him. Because I just want to share a verse with them. I don't want to leave enemies with them or anything like that. But he said, I said, entry in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth under destruction. If everybody else believes that, it's the broad way, isn't it? And many there be which go in there at. Because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it. See, the Bible teaches that few will be saved. And, you know, the fact that everybody else believes you have to be a good person and repent of your sins to go to heaven. Even the Buddhists, even the Hindus, everybody believes that garbage. The Christians believe that there's only one way to get to heaven. That's Jesus Christ. And he said, he's the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by him. So, he says, well, thank you for that. Thank you for that. He said, let me leave you with one last thought. I was like, OK. He said, God said that he would take and remove all wickedness from the earth. I was like, OK. I mean, he is going to do that, but he hasn't done it yet, right? OK, where's he going with this? He said, Odin said he would take away the frost giants. I don't see any more frost giants. I was just like, yeah, then he dropped the mic and walked off or whatever. I'm like, he actually thought that that destroyed my argument. This is what is stupid about paganism. It's mythology. You know why there's no frost giants? Because there never has been any frost giants.