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

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to Faithful Word Baptist Church. It's very nice to see you all here for our Sunday evening service. Find your seats, please. Grab a song book. Go to hymn number 18. We'll get started this evening. Hymn number 18. Number 18. Take the name of Jesus with you. Hymn number 18. We'll start on that first verse together. Number 18. Take the name of Jesus with you. Hymn number 18. Sing it out. Hymn number 18. We want to ask the Lord's blessing on the service, so I ask for the Scott Oats, if you would please come forward please. Thank you for our church and for the souls that were won today. Please bless this church service and give us wisdom. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Right across page number 19, hymn number 19, there is a fountain filled with blood. Hymn number 19, we'll start on that first verse. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. Hymn number 19, lift it up now. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. So as far as what the schedule's gonna be like on that Thursday, like I said, we got the two services, but then also there's gonna be a time during the afternoon where we're gonna go to a place called Jake's Unlimited. This was Brother Segura's brainchild. I've never been there. But anyway, it's a lot of, I guess, like bowling, laser tag, video games, stuff like that. And then there's gonna be soul winning in the late afternoon before the service. Friday we're gonna have roller skating in the afternoon from two to five during the conference. So roller skating from two to five at Skateland. And then Saturday during the afternoon we're gonna have a German picnic at the park. And so we're gonna be having authentic homemade pretzels and bratwurst and all kinds of good stuff like that. And German desserts as well. So basically the idea is every single day there's a morning service, there's some fun in the afternoon, there's a soul winning time in the late afternoon, and there's a service again in the evening. That's kind of the basic schedule on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. So there's something to do the whole day. Or if you just wanna just go about your normal work schedule as usual, you can just pop into those evening services when you can, whatever you wanna do. We'll release the detailed schedule soon, but that kinda gives you an idea of what we're looking at. We got some guest preachers coming in like Pastor Jonathan Shelley from Steadfast Baptist Church. We got Pastor Kevin Sepulveda coming from Australia. And we've got Brother Dylan Oz who, is he a pastor yet or he's about to be a pastor? He's about to get ordained I think. But he's gonna be out also from Steadfast. And all of these guys have participated in missions trips over the last 12 months that they're gonna be talking about. See, we like to keep things fresh around here. We don't just talk about the glory days from five years ago, 10 years ago, and we don't sit around fantasizing about what we're gonna do in the future. We talk about the stuff that we're doing right now, the successes that we're having right now, the souls that are saved this year in 2024 through our missions program. And so it's gonna be an exciting conference. I'm looking forward to it. Time to get inspired. Also you just learn a lot of great geography and by the end of this thing you're gonna know where the Dominican Republic even is. You're even gonna know what Armenia even is. You're gonna know the difference between an Armenian and an Armenian, okay? So that's about it for announcements. Let's go ahead and sing our next song. Or actually let's count up the soul winning real quick, sorry. Going back to Thursday, any soul winning to report from Thursday? Oh, from the Samoa trip, excellent, very good. Okay, anything from Thursday? All right, how about Friday? Okay. Anything else from Friday? There we go, I knew I saw a hand somewhere. Gotcha. Okay, and then what about Saturday? Anything from Saturday? Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, got it. Is that a five? Okay. All right, anything else from Saturday? And then how about today Sunday? Right, two with the main group with brother Scott for North Phoenix for the week. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, anything else? Help me out if I'm missing anybody. All right, very good. All right, very good. Keep up the great work on soul winning. And one other note just on the back of the bulletin, the very bottom, the Jamaica missions trip. A lot of people are getting there on Thursday, November 28th, but the official dates are actually the first through the seventh. That's kind of like the main part of the trip. If you're thinking about it or planning it or whatever, the first through the seventh is gonna be the main push, although a lot of people are getting there on the 28th. So probably going forward in the bulletin, we're just gonna publish it as first through the seventh. All right, let's sing our next song. All right, so find the instant in front of your hymnal with be thou my vision. If you don't have an answer, you can raise your hand and we'll sing it out together right on that first. Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. Sing it out unto the Lord of the sea. Thank you. Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. God be all else to me, safe at thou art. Thou art best gone by day or by night. Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light. Be thou my wisdom and thou my true word. I am her with thee and thou with me, Lord. Thou my great Father, I thy true Son. Thou with me dwelling and I with me one. Be thou my battle shield, sore for my fine. Be thou my dignity, thou my divine. Thou my soul shelter, thou my high tower. Praise thou me, headward, O power of my power. Precious thy heat and your hands empty praise. Thou mine inheritance, thou and always. Thou and thou only, first in my heart. My King of Heaven, my treasure thou art. My King of Heaven, my victory won. May I reach heaven's joys, O bright and sun. Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, still be my vision, O ruler of all. Let's go in your hymnals now, hymn 341. Pentecostal power, hymn number 341. Lord, as of old at Pentecost, thou didst thy power display. Hymn number 341, lift it up on that verse, number 341. Lord, as of old at Pentecost, thou didst thy power display. We're planting, purifying, playing peace and on us today. Lord, send me on thy power, the Pentecostal power. Thy flood is a blessing on us, open wide. Lord, send me on thy power, the Pentecostal power. Let sinners be done for them, and thy name glorified. For my keywords for thee prepare, and strengthen every heart. Come take possession of my love, and never for depart. Lord, send me on thy power, the Pentecostal power. Thy flood is a blessing on us, open wide. Lord, send me on thy power, the Pentecostal power. Let sinners be done for them, and thy name glorified. All self-consume, all sin-destroyed. With earnest zeal and doom, each way give our to earth for thee. O Lord, our faith renew. Lord, send me on thy power, the Pentecostal power. Thy flood is a blessing on us, open wide. Lord, send me on thy power, the Pentecostal power. Let sinners be done for them, and thy name glorified. King, Lord, before thy throne we wait. Thy progress we believe, and will not let thee go until the blessings we receive. Lord, send me on thy power, the Pentecostal power. Thy flood is a blessing on us, open wide. Lord, send me on thy power, the Pentecostal power. Let sinners be done for them, and thy name glorified. All right, this time we'll quickly pass our offering plates around. As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Psalm 33. Psalm 33, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1. Follow along silently with Brother Dan as he reads Psalm 33, starting in verse number 1. In Psalm 33 the Bible reads, Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. Praise the Lord with harp, sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings. Sing unto him a new song, play skillfully with a loud noise. For the word of the Lord is right, and all his works are done in truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment, the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathereth the waters of the sea together as in heap, he layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast. The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to naught, he maketh the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. The Lord looketh from heaven, he beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioneth their hearts alike, he considereth all their works. There is no king saved by the multitude of an host, a mighty man is not delivered by much strength. An horse is a vain thing for safety, neither shall he deliver any by his great strength. Behold the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy. To deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waiteth for the Lord, he is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we hope in thee. Father in heaven, thank you for salvation through the blood of your son Jesus Christ, which is eternal life. And I pray that you please bless Pastor Anderson with the fullness and the power of the Holy Spirit as he preaches your word. In Jesus name I pray, Amen. Man, the title of the sermon this evening is American Christianity. American Christianity, and a lot of times when you hear people use this term, American Christianity, usually it's negative or disparaging, like, oh, this kind of American Christianity. Somehow acting like Christianity is better somewhere else or everywhere else. And truly America does probably have Christianity in the second worst way or the second worst Christianity in the world. But the first worst Christianity is everywhere else. Okay? And so the bottom line is that American Christianity actually represents the most saved people, the most soul winning, the best Christianity in the world, not the worst Christianity in the world. But you get this propaganda out there that somehow, you know, that there are other places in the world where Christianity is just thriving and all this wonderful soul winning is going on, but, you know, it's just America that's doing so poorly when it comes to Christianity. Not only that, but you get this idea that, oh, salvation by faith alone, that's such an American doctrine or, you know, that's just a doctrine that's just tailor made for the United States of America, this doctrine that says you just believe on Jesus and you're saved. Well, you know what? If that is an American doctrine, then God bless America then, because salvation is by faith alone. Now I'm going to explain to you why American Christianity is very different than Christianity in the rest of the world. If we go to Europe, Christianity is a lot different in Europe than it is in America. Religion is viewed a lot differently in Europe than it is in America. Okay? We could go to other places in Asia and Africa and South America and Central America. You know, I would like to know where this hotbed of just awesome, wonderful Christianity is if it's not in America, because I've traveled the world and many of you have traveled the world and I think you'll probably agree that we run into more saved people soul winning in America than soul winning anywhere else. If I go soul winning in Europe, I'm going to run into less people who are saved at the door. If I go soul winning in Africa, I was running into less people that were saved in Africa, less people that were saved in Asia, less people that were saved in South America. And here's the thing about that. Let's say you do get to these pockets where there is a lot of just great soul winning going on and churches are thriving and you're running into tons of saved people in places like, say, the Philippines or certain parts of Mexico or Africa. It's usually through the influence of American missionaries that have actually done that work and actually laid those foundations in those places. So I don't really like this attitude that says, oh, this American Christianity, it's so watered down and lukewarm. Well, here's the thing about that is that maybe it's just that your church is watered down and lukewarm because I'm sitting right now in a church in America, in an American church, and we're getting tons of people saved every week. We're out knocking doors. We're getting hundreds of people saved all over the world, missions trips, soul winning all over Arizona, all over America, all over the world. Our church is thriving. Our church is going full speed ahead. So what's wrong with this? See, there's nothing wrong with it. People are complaining about American Christianity. Maybe they just need to get out of their dead liberal church and get into a red hot, soul winning, independent, fundamentalist, King James Bible preaching Baptist church because it's not just faithful word that's thriving. Our friends churches are thriving, growing, reaching people, winning souls to Christ. And so the problem is not American Christianity. If there's a problem, it's just a problem with human nature. Of just maybe just people not wanting to work hard for the Lord anywhere because people are just lazy or people are not serious about serving God. But it's not America that's the problem. Okay. A lot of other countries hate America, but here's the truth. They hate us because they ain't us. Okay. They're envious in many ways. And I'm just being honest with you. The state of Christianity is pretty much worse everywhere else. Okay. You know, and again, you could point to certain places that would be the exception to that, but usually it'd be because of the influence of American missionaries. Now, why has, why has America been so successful at actually evangelizing and why do we have so many people here that are saved? Why do we go soul winning and we're just constantly running into people that are saved? Why are so many people in America, evangelical Christians or Baptists when we go to other parts of the world that would be the case? You know, if we were in say Germany or England or somewhere like that. Well, I'm going to go through some of the reasons for that tonight. First thing, first let's just look at a couple of scriptures here that were, that were there in Psalms. It says in Psalm 33 10, the Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to naught. He maketh the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the Lord standeth forever. The thoughts of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he had chosen for his inheritance. You don't have to turn there, but Psalm 144 15 says, happy is that people that is in such a case. Yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord. And again, I believe that the United States of America has probably been the most evangelical nation in the history of mankind. Okay. We've had tons of evangelical Christians, saved Christians, Baptist, and continue to have, and have done more missions and evangelized more of the world probably than any nation in the history of mankind. So why is Christianity different in America? Why has the gospel been so successful in America? I'm going to give you three reasons tonight, and these three reasons are, are all really connected to one another. So in one sense, you could just say it's one reason. Okay. But let me just give you right up front the three reasons, and then we're going to look at each of these individually. The number one reason is religious freedom. Okay. Number one, we have religious freedom. That's a big reason why the gospel has been so successful. Number two, we've had a very low government regulation of churches or religions, which has created like a free market economy of religion, like a religious free market where competition takes place. Just like when it comes to the economy or financial matters, the same thing is true of religion, where there's a free market, there's competition, there's low regulation, and so you're allowed to just let things play out. Again, it's connected with religious freedom. And then number three, a low barrier to entry for clergy, for ministers, for pastors. Like, like you don't have to have some super advanced theological training to be a pastor in America, right? You don't have to have a certain degree or you don't have to have the master's degree or the PhD. You know, a lot of people have those things, but you don't have to, right? There are a lot of guys that are just simple people, laymen who are just called to preach and they just become pastors and they preach without having all of these hoops to jump through. There's no government body licensing certain people that they can be ministers because they've been through our program and blah, blah, blah. It's just a low barrier to entry to those positions. Now let's talk about these each individually. Go through it to Matthew chapter 13. First thing I want to talk about is religious freedom. And I did a sermon. You know, I'd forgotten that I had preached about this, but someone recently reminded me, I did a sermon a while back and I want to say it was called hybrid religions. Was that the title of that sermon? Her hybrid religion or something like that. And in that sermon, I'm pretty sure I kind of talked about some of the reasons why I believe in religious freedom, why it's important. I know I've also touched on it on Wednesday nights within the last few months and so forth, but here's the thing about religious freedom. Religious freedom is going to allow God's people to just preach and evangelize and do as the spirit leads without the government hindering them, persecuting them and so forth. But it's also going to allow weird cults to thrive and be able to move forward unhindered. And you see, let's compare, and I might compare a lot with Germany tonight just because Germany is a place that I'm kind of familiar with. And I think it's a great example of just being the opposite of America when it comes to religion in a lot of ways. But if you think about a place like Germany, they have really persecuted and even made illegal a lot of cults over there. So you know, they're not going to let Scientology run rampant. They're not going to let the Mormons run rampant. They're not going to let the Jehovah's Witnesses run rampant. But here's the problem with that. The problem with that is that they're also going to persecute real legitimate Bible preaching as well. Because they have, in essence, a duopoly of religion in Germany. They have these two giant churches in Germany. You have the Roman Catholic Church and you have the Lutheran Church. And basically any Christianity that is not Catholic or Lutheran is considered a cult. It's considered a sect. And so it's going to be demonized by... I mean, look, my wife grew up in Germany and she was raised Roman Catholic. But she got to a point where she rejected the Roman Catholic Church. She did not believe in it. And because she thought that that's all that was out there, she just became an agnostic. She didn't realize that biblical Christianity, being a Baptist, being an evangelical, she didn't know about that alternative. She wasn't exposed to that alternative. It's just like, well, if this is Christianity, Catholic, Lutheran, well, then, you know, this isn't for me. And then she just became an agnostic. Ultimately, I, an American, went over there and actually preached to her the gospel from the Bible, showed her the Romans road. She didn't get saved right away. She had to hear the gospel many times before she got saved. But finally she got saved. Okay. And let me tell you something. The Lutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Church are almost the same thing. Okay. Especially in Germany. I mean, I remember when I was in Germany back in the year 1999 and again in the year 2000, when I was there, there was a newspaper article or magazine article that I read where it was talking about how the Catholics and the Lutherans were just so buddy-buddy with each other and cozy and they literally issued some joint statement about how the reformation was all just kind of a big misunderstanding. Right. So that's, that's where they're at. So you have this kind of Coke Pepsi kind of a thing going on. And you know, you can get all territorial about Coke versus Pepsi. It's the same drink. You know, you sit there and you order a Coke and they're like, is Pepsi okay? It's like, well, duh. Yeah. It's the same thing, right? I know some of you might be offended by that because your taste buds are so attuned to that perfect little balance of sodium benzoate and artificial color and artificial flavor. You know, the caramel color or whatever. But the point is, you know, neither, they're both junk. I think we can all agree that that's not a healthy drink. Coke or Pepsi, right? None of it's milk, none of it's fruit juice, none of it's kombucha. It's virtually in the scheme of things. If you look at all the drinks that are out there, it's like, oh, Coke and Pepsi. Well, Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church are Coke and Pepsi, except they just don't even taste good. And so you have this duopoly in Germany. Other countries have a monopoly of religion. Okay. And yeah, they're good about shutting down cults like the Scientologists or the J-dubs or the Mormons or something. But what they end up doing also is shutting down biblical Christianity, evangelical Christians, because it's only their dead old crusty mainline religions that are allowed to exist, Catholic and Lutheran, which are pretty much the same thing. Look what the Bible says in Matthew, chapter 13, verse 24. It says, Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not that sow good seed in thy field? For once then hath it tares? And he said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. And in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. Now, obviously, there are a lot of ways to interpret this parable that are legitimate. The Bible is very deep and there are multiple interpretations. But here's a legitimate interpretation that I would like to give you of this parable tonight. You can think of this as the tares representing fake false versions of Christianity, right? Because, of course, when Jesus explains the parable, he says the tares are the children of the wicked one, right? The children of the devil, the good wheat, you know, obviously those are the Christians, the saved people. So we could think of this in a way as you've got these fake bad versions of Christianity, whether it be Roman Catholicism itself, whether it be Mormons, whether it be Jehovah's Witnesses, whatever, right? You have these wrong versions of Christianity, these cults or false religions. The problem is that when you try to eliminate them and say, hey, we're going to eliminate all the heretics. We're going to burn all the heretics at the stake. We're going to shut down all these false churches and false religions. We're going to only allow biblical Christianity. The problem with that is who decides what is that? It's going to be the wrong people because broad is the way that leads to destruction. And many there be which go in there at, straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leads them to life and few there be that find it. And the thing about that is that in the process of rooting up the weeds, rooting up the tares, you end up accidentally rooting up the wheat as well. So when Germany says, oh, we've got to crack down on these cults. We don't want Scientology. We don't want Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, it turns out they don't want fundamental Baptists either, you know, and everybody's getting labeled as a cult or a sect. And look, even if legally churches can operate in Germany, they are culturally just labeled as cults. And many Germans will just consider Baptists or Evangelical Christians to be in the same breath as, you know, Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or Scientologists. There's just Catholic Lutheran and a bunch of cults. That's their view of the world. And it's wrong. And so we need to have religious freedom. Let them grow. Let both grow together. What's God saying? Let real Christianity, the children of God, and let fake false counterfeit Christianity, the children of the devil, let both grow together until the time of harvest. And then at the time of harvest, God will separate the wheat from the chaff. It's not our job to violently shut down false religion or violently enforce and say, hey, it's got to be this one right religion. Because typically, you know, the people enforcing that end up enforcing the wrong religion anyway. So we believe in religious freedom. There's a lot of reasons for that. I don't have time in the sermon to explain all the reasons why religious freedom is so important. But here's the thing about America. Because America has had religious freedom, Evangelical Christianity Baptists specifically have been able to thrive here. Right? Right now, approximately 15% of our country, which is approximately like one in six people, identifies as Baptist in America. And obviously, there are many people who are at Evangelical churches, non-denom churches that are not Baptist that are also saved Bible-believing Christians at non-denom churches. So we have a huge number of people not only professing faith in Christ, but also actually saying, hey, it's by grace, through faith, you can't lose your salvation. There's a huge number of people that believe that. And part of the reason for that success in America is the religious freedom that we have. You know, think about other places. Think about Spain or something. It's just, it's Roman Catholicism. They persecuted people hardcore for trying to deviate from Roman Catholicism. Right? We've all heard of the Spanish Inquisition and so forth. And so religious freedom is a big reason for the success of Christianity in America. Why is American Christianity different? Because of religious freedom. Good churches have been allowed to thrive in America because of religious freedom. Now, we also have a bunch of weirdos and cults thriving. We also have just millions of Mormons, millions of Jehovah's Witnesses, right? We got millions of people in a bunch of weird snake handling, kind of weird Pentecostal type cults. But look, at the end of the day, though, would you rather live in a world where you got a bunch of Mormons and JWs and snake handlers and weirdos, but that biblical Christianity is also allowed to thrive? Or would you rather live in a place where everybody who's not Catholic or Lutheran is persecuted, right? Just let, let them both grow. Let the wheat and the tares grow together. God knows the truth. God will separate them when the time comes. And we don't need to violently enforce anything. We don't need to have a state religion or a ban on this religion or a ban on that religion. Let, let them all grow together is what I would say. So number one, religious freedom. Number two, why Christianity is different in America, why it's been so successful is a low barrier to entry for clergy, right? So if you're in these established mainline denominations or religions, like let's say the Roman Catholic Church or one of these mainline Protestant denominations, you know, a lot of times there's a high bar of entry to get into a pastorate position, a ministerial position, a clergy position, especially if you look at the time when our country was founded. So let's think back to when our country started, you know, let's just say 1776, right? When America declared its independence. If you go all the way back to 1776, here's kind of the state of Christianity in our country. You had very few Catholics, almost no Catholics in America at that time, okay? The most Catholic colony in the American colonies was Maryland, okay, which is literally called Maryland because it was founded by Lord Baltimore to be a haven for Catholics because frankly Catholics weren't wanted or welcomed or even allowed in a lot of places in the early days of America. Wait, I just talked about religious freedom and now you want to ban the Catholics. But anyway, but the point is, you know, you can see where they were coming from. It's true. All right. But the point is that Maryland was the most Catholic colony. You want to know what percentage of the population was Catholic in Maryland? Three percent. And that was the most Catholic colony. Okay, so we're talking about Roman Catholicism just wasn't even hardly a thing in this country. We have a lot of Catholics in America today. That's because we've got a lot of immigrants from places like Ireland, Italy, Poland, Germany, right? Mexico. Obviously we know we absorbed a lot of Mexicans who are already here. They're not all immigrants. But the point is, you know, that came later in our country's history. Okay, in the early days of our country, the big mainline established Protestant denominations, okay, were mainly, were looking at the Congregationalists. We're looking at the Presbyterians, Church of England. Okay, those kind of mainline denominations were big in the early days of our country. Well, here's the thing. You know, they had their universities that they set up at places like Harvard, and they trained their preachers, and they would only ordain guys who were highly educated. They were usually upper class kind of people, you know, coming from wealthy families, highly educated, upper crust of society. Those are the kind of guys that are getting ordained into the ministry in those days. Well, here's the thing about highly educated ministers in general is that they probably want to make a lot of money. They probably want to get, I mean, if they're going to have that much education, they probably want to be paid pretty well. And here's the other thing is that they probably want to minister in a big city. They probably don't want to be out in Podunk Hall or pastoring some tiny church where, you know, they can't really enjoy the life of the big city or receive a good payback. Or pay check or anything like that. Okay. So what happened is that as America moved west and masses of the population are moving west to the frontier. And keep in mind, when I say the frontier, I'm not talking about the western United States that we would know today. You know, we're talking about like just a little bit west of the East Coast, right? That was the frontier back then. You know, just literally just inland and, you know, even like the upstate New York or something is kind of frontier or something, you know. Like basically what we would consider today like the Midwest or something, right? Those kind of places. And just moving a little bit west, still east of the Mississippi, but in those frontier areas, you know, as the population moved there, and then ultimately, yeah, the population did go all the way to California and all those type of places. As the population moved west, these type of really educated, highbrow, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Episcopalian type ministers, they don't want to go to those places. They can't get pastors to go to those places because the bar for entry for the clergy is just so high. Whereas there are two religions that just thrived on this movement west, which are the Baptists and the Methodists. And here's why. Because the Baptists and the Methodist pastors were not having to be these college educated guys. They didn't have to be these upper class guys. They moved west with the people, you know, because they were just kind of common guys like them. And so they were often bivocational farmers, blue collar guys who are just called to preach and they're just filling pulpits and preaching the Word of God from the heart without having a big education. So therefore, as the country expanded west, there's just Baptist and Methodist churches just popping up like crazy all over America as the country expands westward. Whereas like the mainline denominations can't keep up because they only have few preachers because they make it so hard to become a preacher. You know, you got to go through all this college, you got to have all this money, you got to go through all this. And then once you go through all that, you don't want to go out to the middle of nowhere. You know, you want to be on the East Coast, part of the social life and everything like that. And so this is why the Baptists and the Methodists started to just take over and thrive from the very beginning of the history of our country, even all the way back to 1776. The mainline denominations, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, they're already dying. And the Baptists and the Methodists were already just taking over. Because of the fact that there was freedom, religious freedom is what was agreed upon in our country. And so new religions are able to just spring up, thrive, succeed, start new churches. They can just plant new churches wherever they want. And you know what? They just grab a guy who's filled with the Spirit of God, just grab a guy who's excited about preaching the Bible, grab a guy, train him. And he doesn't have to go to a university, he doesn't have to have a PhD, he doesn't have to jump through all these hoops. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So they could fill the need, they could fill the pulpits. If there's some town out in the middle of nowhere on the frontier, the Baptists or the Methodists can find a guy to go there and fill that pulpit. Whereas the Presbyterians can't in general. The Congregationalists certainly can't. Now here's the other problem that the Church of England had is that they're the Church of England. And so when the United States defeated England in the Revolutionary War, well all of a sudden the Church of England's not really that cool anymore. A lot of the people that were in the Church of England in America were big time England supporters, so when America became independent they went to England. They went back to England, they left. Or it just doesn't sound cool when you just fought a war to defeat England and you're like, oh I go to the Church of England, I'm Episcopalian or whatever. So that pretty much just messed up the Church of England in America, that's why Episcopalian's always been small. You know, it's not been one of the dominant forces religiously in America. Now, when we stop and think about this kind of low bar to entry for pastors as far as like when we're talking about financial standing or education or things like that. Is it biblical? Is it biblical to require pastors to be highly educated? Or should, you know, less educated men who are, you know, filled with the Spirit of God, love the Bible. Is it okay to have pastors that are not educated or should we be more like these mainline denominations requiring high levels of education to enter the pastorate, to enter the ministry? Well, let's see what the Bible says. If you would flip over to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. And while you're turning to 1 Corinthians chapter number 1, I'm going to read for you from Acts chapter 4 verse 12. It says, Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. 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 so therefore, we can see that when Jesus Christ chose his apostles, he chose men that the world looked at as unlearned and ignorant men. Right? I mean, that's who he chose. He did not choose highly educated, upper crust, nobility types. He chose the common man, fishermen, blue collar guys who love the Lord, who are filled with the Spirit of God. That's the kind of people that God uses in the Bible. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 25. It says, Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. Now, again, if we stop and think about the early days of the United States of America and we think about how the mainline denominations, the Protestant denominations from Europe are basically saying, hey, you need to graduate from Harvard. You need to graduate from these universities. You need to have all this theological training. You need to be from this kind of upper crust of society in order to be in the pulpit because we don't want bozos in the pulpit. We don't want idiots in the pulpit. You've got to come from this high level. You know, is that consistent with the Bible? Now, look, if you have a low barrier to entry, hear me well on this. If you have a low barrier to entry, you're going to get some bozos in the pulpit. You're going to get some idiots. You're going to get some stupid people preaching. But you know what? You're also going to get some awesome people preaching who just don't have a bunch of formal education, who are just from a more humble background. But they're still fired up servants of God, the fishermen, the carpenters, the blue collar guys, the farmers that are getting up and preaching the word of God with power and boldness. You're going to get both. But you know what? If you say, well, we've got to lock out the dumb people. We've got to lock out the bozos. We've got to lock out the idiots. You know, when you pull out those weeds, be careful that you don't pull up some of the weed as well, because by saying, well, everybody's got to go spend eight years in school in order to be in the pulpit. Everybody's got to spend six years getting formal training. You're locking out a lot of great people that God wants to use because God is specifically saying that he does not choose a lot of wise men after the flesh. So he's not choosing a lot of guys from Harvard. He's not choosing a lot of nobility. He's not choosing a lot of mighty men. God has chosen the foolish things of the world, verse 27, to confound the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty and base things of the world and things which are despised. Has God chosen yet in the things which are not to bring to naught things that are that no flesh should glory in his presence? And listen, I don't want to name any names because, you know, I never want to criticize or insult great men of God. But I can think of some men of God that I grew up under as a young person. And I can think of one church in particular where I was greatly, greatly inspired and fed with the word of God. And greatly taught in the things of God. And frankly, the pastor was not an intellectual at all. The pastor was not educated well. You know, he didn't come across as being a super smart guy at all. But you know what? That man was greatly used by God in my life and in thousands of other people's lives. And he did great works for God. Why? Because you don't have to be an intellectual to be greatly used by God. God can use the simple man. God can use the man that is from a humble background or humble upbringing. Now look, this does not mean that there are no intellectual preachers that are greatly used by God. There are. But there aren't many. Because what does the Bible say? It's not many wise according to the flesh. That means there are some that are wise according to the flesh. It's not many mighty. There are some mighty. There are some noble. But not many. Why? Because usually God ends up using simple people to do his work and he gets all the glory. And you know, all of these dried up Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists and whatever, they can glory in all their learning and all their intellect and all their education. But you know what? At the end of the day, a lot of these guys are talking in so much theological jargon and they're just so puffed up in their intellect that no one normal listens to them. They kind of just listen to each other. You know what I mean? And what does the Bible say about Jesus? It says the common people heard him gladly. The common man could listen to a sermon by Jesus and understand what he's saying and not have to wade through all the theological jargon and so forth. And look, I'm not against education and I'm not against you being as smart as you can possibly be, right? We've all been given a different level of intellect by God. And I think it's our job to cultivate that and to learn as much as we can and to grow in grace, but also in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And I'm all for you learning math and language and science and history and whatever else. I am for learning. Anybody who knows me knows that I love, love learning. Okay, I'm super into it, but here's the thing about that is that I am not going to sit there and say, oh, well, because I'm into it, everybody else has to be into it. You know, because I want to spend hours a day reading Greek and Hebrew, so everyone else has to as well. That's garbage because let me tell you something, God can greatly use a man who knows zero Greek, zero Hebrew, and no calculus and just has a basic. Obviously, he's got to be able to read and write, but just a basic, simple high school education or whatever, right, that we all pretty much share in America, a basic high school level education or whatever. You know, God could greatly use that man to do magnificent works for him. And he's not going to come behind the intellectual pastor because at the end of the day, it's not the smartest man that wins the race. It's the one who is filled with the Spirit of God that's going to achieve things for God. And you know what, if you're an intellectual type, and look, some people are intellectual types and some people aren't. Some people are athletic, some people aren't, right? Some people are mechanically inclined, some people are not mechanically inclined, right? Different people have their, some people are musical, some people are not musical. But you know what, let's say you're one who's an intellectual, do not despise the preacher who's not an intellectual. Because God can greatly use the preacher who's not an intellectual, okay? And you can sit there and scoff at his ignorance or his lack of learning, but at the end of the day, if he's winning souls, if he's preaching red hot sermons, if he's filled with the Spirit of God, you know what? Amen. And so we don't want to set this high bar to entry. Now look, we do want to have a high bar spiritually, morally, right? We want to make sure that we're not just making, we're just ordaining pastors all over the place. Every bozo begins, that's not what we're saying. But what we're saying is there shouldn't be a requirement for years and years of formal training. Being trained in your local church should be enough. You should be able to come up through the ranks of your local church as a layman, as a blue collar guy. You should be able to come up through the ranks of your local church, be trained in the field, doing soul winning, preaching, be trained by your local pastor. You should not have to go to some seminary and receive formal training in order to get into the ministry. And part of the reason why religion is different in America is that in America, you don't have to have a certain level of formal training in order to go into the ministry. And so throughout our history, especially if you go back to the early days, the frontier days, the westward expansion of America, you have just all kinds of just simple guys, common men being ordained by two denominations, mainly the Baptist and the Methodist. Okay. They're the ones who are just basically just saying, hey, this guy can preach. This guy knows the Bible and he can preach. Put him behind the pulpit. We don't care if he went to Harvard. We don't care if he has a degree. Put him behind the pulpit. And therefore they were able to just found churches like crazy and actually expand and reach people. Now, look, let me just stop and say this. I do not approve of the Methodist. And it's not that the Methodist have become bad. The Methodist have always been bad. Okay. The Methodist are a false religion. Basically today, the two big evangelical denominations are Baptist and Pentecostal. Am I right? The big mega churches, the big liberal churches, they're pretty much either Baptist or Pentecostal, right? Those are kind of the two big evangelical denominations in America. And obviously the Pentecostal, there's a bunch of different kinds of Pentecostal, just like there are a bunch of different kinds of Baptist. But in general, you know, you got the Baptist and the Pentecostals. Where's the thing? The Methodist were like the Pentecostals of back then. The Pentecostals of today are analogous to the Methodist of back then. Okay. And so it's always been a lose your salvation type of a doctrine, right? Which ultimately is a workspace salvation. Okay. So I'm not saying that the Methodist had the right doctrine, but what I'm saying is that Methodist and Baptist had this in common of saying, Hey, we're not going to set this really high bar of entry to where you have to have all this formal training in order to go into the ministry. And that's why they were able to expand westward. And frankly, both the math, Methodist and the Baptist, because they weren't getting all crusty in these educational institutions, they're both preaching fiery sermons. And again, the Baptist are the ones that are doctrinally correct for the most part. The Methodist are teaching false doctrine, but at the end of the day, they're both ripping face. They're both preaching hard. They're both getting up and preaching dynamic sermons that people want to hear. That's why the Baptist and the Methodist thrived, because they're preaching sermons that people want to hear. Now, at the end of the day, obviously we know that there's only one true gospel of Jesus Christ, and that is by faith alone, not of works that any man should boast, and that you cannot lose your salvation. And obviously that's not what the Methodist in general were teaching. Okay. And so do not misunderstand me that I'm condoning them. I'm just explaining to you the history of our country. I'm just telling you, those are the two churches. Those are the two religions that were just thriving and booming and multiplying like crazy from 1776 and onward. Whereas the mainline Protestant denominations, people act like the mainline Protestant denominations started like dying in the 20th century, but I'm telling you they've been dying for over 200 years. Like they were already dying even in the early days of our country. Now they're just even more dead and even more pathetic and lame and whatever. And the Methodists are super pathetic and lame, and they've been replaced by the Pentecostals, which are basically like the Methodists of today. The Methodists back then are like the Pentecostals of today. Look, if you would, at 1 Corinthians chapter 2. You were in chapter 1 there. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2. So look, the people that were succeeding at reaching people or founding new churches or expanding and growing in numbers are the people who are preaching to the common man. They're preaching the Bible in simple language, not delivering these super scholarly high level homilies that are going over half the people's head or 90% of the people's head in reality. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 1. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Look at verse 4. My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and power that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world that come to naught. He's saying, look, worldly wisdom is not equivalent to or a replacement for the power of God. And this is why God can use everyday normal. And I'm not talking about an imbecile behind the pulpit, but I'm just talking about an everyday Joe who's not super educated, but he's in his Bible, he's in his prayer closet, he's out soul winning. You know what? That guy can be greatly used as a preacher, as a pastor. He doesn't need to have a bunch of degrees and theological training because a lot of that theological training is a bunch of junk anyway. It's a bunch of weird Greek philosophy just repackaged as Christianity. I got to move on for sake of time, but let's talk about the third point, which is low regulation or like a religious free market economy that leads to competition, right? Because why has America been financially successful? The free market economy, right? We don't have some communist like controlled planned economy or whatever. You know, we have a free market economy, which is what works financially. Well, guess what? A religious free market economy works as well. What do I mean by that? Competition. Okay. If a pastor is preaching sermons that no one wants to hear and down the street, a guy's preaching sermons that people do want to hear, they're going to go to the guy down the street. And the guy who's preaching lame, boring sermons, his church is going to eventually just shrink and die. Now, if you're in a country where it's a monopoly, you're forced to go listen to the boring, lame Catholic priest go through his little homily over and over again week after week because he's the only game in town. Or it's like you go to the Lutheran church, it sucks. You go to the Roman Catholic church, it sucks. You're just like, wow, okay, I got to do one of them. Or you just don't go to church or whatever, right? But in a free market religious economy, there are just all kinds of options. It's not a monopoly. It's not a duopoly. It's all options. And so here's the thing. Churches are actually motivated to do a good job and reach people. Pastors are motivated to preach a good sermon because they want people to come and hear the sermon because their existence depends upon it. Now, stop and think about this. In these places like Germany, for example, people are literally paying taxes to the Roman Catholic church or to the Lutheran church. My wife just Googled it this afternoon. Certain areas, it was like 8% of your income. I guess they just don't quite get to the tithe, but it was like 9% or whatever. I mean, there are people who are literally in these countries having money taken out of their paycheck, just like taxes, to go to the church. So here's the thing. The church is government funded, okay, in a lot of these places. They don't have the separation of church and state that we have. They have government funded religion. So here's the thing. You're some crusty pastor who's got your PhD from one of these institutions and you've got your job and you're paid by the government or you're paid by the denomination. You're paid from above, not paid from below. Well, then here's what happens. You don't really have any motivation to really go out there and pound the pavement and knock the doors and preach hard and whatever because you just don't care. You just have your little position and there's no motivation there to excel or succeed and people are coming to your church because they just kind of have to because you're just the church that's provided and you're the church and so there's no competition. Here's the thing about monopolies. They get lazy. Think about just monopoly corporations. They're just lazy, right? They already have all the business. Whereas when you have a whole bunch of options, people are working hard to innovate and do better and succeed and so forth and so America has had a religious free market. Go over to 1 Corinthians chapter 9 and I don't really have time to go into this, but I had some stuff in my notes going back into the Old Testament and looking at how the Levites are distributed throughout Israel and how the Levites are supposed to live off of the animal sacrifices. That people bring to worship the Lord and they teach the people to worship the Lord and then those people turn around and actually pay their bills as it were by bringing the animal sacrifices and offerings to the Lord. That means that just from a carnal perspective, the Levites are motivated to get people worshiping the Lord because they got to get people worshiping the Lord so that people bring the offerings so that they can even have a job because if they're a bad preacher, if they're not reaching people, if they're not evangelizing, if they're lazy and sloppy, then you know what? Eventually they're not going to have a job because people are going to be worshiping Baal or whatever. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter number 9. It says in verse 9, Nevertheless, we've not used this power, but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? Right? Talking about the Levites, the priests, they live of the things of the temple. And they which do wait at the altar are partakers with the altar, even so hath the Lord ordained, watch this, that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel. Those who preach the gospel should live with the gospel. So here's the thing. If you're out there founding a church, if you go start a church somewhere from scratch and knock the doors and reach people, right, and you want the church to grow, you want to get the thing off the ground, right? And then eventually you get enough people coming. You can actually pastor the church full time because there are enough people there to actually provide for the needs of the church and a salary for the pastor, maybe even other staff to be hired and so forth, right? Because of the fact that you reached people. So you you preach the gospel and you live up the gospel. Think about how sometimes we send missionaries to the foreign field, not us, but I mean, we as Christians, other Baptist churches, what we affectionately sometimes refer to as the old IFP. They will send missionaries to the foreign field and they're getting paid from America, right? Like churches in America are supporting them. And a lot of times they'll go over there and just kind of sit around and do nothing and just be totally ineffective, totally fail, never get anything off the ground. And sometimes they'll just continue like that for 10, 20 years, just getting paid and accomplishing very little. But here's that they just keep getting paid. Now, they're not really living of the gospel there. They're kind of because here's the thing, what they should be doing is obviously reaching people, filling up that church with people, and then eventually the tithes and offerings of that church would support them. But because they have money coming from above, maybe they're not as motivated as they should be. Now, obviously, we should all just be motivated to serve God because it's the right thing to do anyway. We should be working hard and whatever. Obviously, our church has about 400 people in it. So, yeah, I could just slack off and phone it in and I'd still get paid the same. But the point is, obviously, I want to do my best because I want to do my best and I want to work hard because this is my life's work because I love people and want to get people saved and I want to reach people and preach the best possible sermon that I can ever preach. But these bunch of crusty, you know, seminarians coming out of these old mainline denominations, you know, not only are they just interested in worshiping their own brain, but also they don't really have any motivation to grow or compete anyway because it's like, well, we're just the Presbyterian church in town and people are just Presbyterian or people are just Lutheran or people are just Catholic or whatever. It's just what they are. Whereas in America, when you're going west into all these new areas, there is no established denomination. It's up for grabs. It's a free market. And guess what? People are competing. The Baptist church is competing with the Methodist church, competing with the Presbyterian church, and they're going to be out there working hard, preaching, getting people saying, hey, come over to art. This is where the truth is being preached. Don't be down the street of the Methodist church. Be at the Baptist church. Be at the Presbyterian church of the deep freeze, Calvinist church. Come over to this church. And so you want to know why religion is different in America. If you just sum it up in one word, it's freedom. Freedom, right? Number one, freedom of religion. The reason why the Baptists and other saved evangelical Christians have been allowed to thrive in America, why have they been allowed to thrive? Because they're not being persecuted so they can just grow and start churches and preach and say whatever they want, do whatever they want, and that allows us to grow and thrive and do well. In other places, persecution slows things down. I mean, look, let's face it. Persecution is slowing down the work of Christ in Germany right now in 2024. Am I right, Anzam? Persecution is not helping the matter. It's slowing it down. In America, the freedom and lack of persecution has allowed God's people to do great works for God without having to spend their time with a tool in one hand and a weapon in the other hand like Nehemiah. They're just able to have a tool in both hands and just work full speed ahead. Right? We don't, I mean, look, we can do way more for God because we're not worried about getting persecuted all the time. We're just working for God. And you know what? We ought to take advantage of the opportunity that we have. I mean, other people are being persecuted. We shouldn't just sit around and just rest on our laurels when we have just a door that's wide open to preach the gospel and do great things for God. So number one, religious freedom. That's why religion is different in America. Number two, the low barrier to entry for clergy. And again, we're not saying just, hey, just ordain anybody and just make the lowest of the people priests like Jeroboam or something. But what we are saying is you don't have to be an uber intellectual. You don't have to be a PhD. You don't have to have a master's degree. You don't have to go to some Ivy League school and get some crusty education. And here's the thing about that. That does two things. Number one, it allows us to fill pulpits with the people that God wants because God doesn't choose a lot of those people anyway. He doesn't choose a lot of wise men after the flesh. He doesn't choose a lot of noble men. So it allows us to fill pulpits with the people that God wants. Okay. Number two, it allows churches to grow more quickly because we don't have to wait to send some guy to some school for eight years. And here's the big one. Number three, when he comes out of that school eight years later, is he even going to be the same guy? Because a lot of people who go off to these seminaries come back with a bunch of stupid ideas in their head, a bunch of stupid doctrines. They've been brainwashed that the KJV is not the word of God. They've been given just enough Greek and Hebrew to make them dangerous. They don't give them enough to actually be fluent and be able to read the thing. They give them just enough to be dangerous, to think they know more than the KJV or the traditional readings of the test. And then they get on all these exotic new readings of the Bible as opposed to the traditional understanding and reading of the text as represented in the way it's translated in not only the King James Bible, but in all the other Reformation era Bibles. So is he even going to be the same guy when he comes back from that super high level education and comes back all and look, I'm not saying that everybody who has that education is bad. Of course they're not. But there are not many wise after the flesh, not many noble, not many with that high level of education who are serving God. There are some, but not many. So if we're going to say, well, you know, you, we got to only have the really high IQ guys preaching. If we're only going to limit preaching to the guys with the very high IQ, we're not doing business the way Jesus did business. And we are not following the principle that we see in first Corinthians chapter one. And I, you know, I've talked to some of my pastor friends about this very issue. And, you know, I've talked to my pastor friends and I've gone back and forth and, and, and, you know, one pastor friend of mine in particular, we've argued about this a lot about this thing of, you know, how educated somebody needs to be to be a pastor. You know, and again, I'm not saying we want any dummies or imbeciles or anything like that. That's not my point. But my point is that I do not believe that we need to have intellectuals only preaching. And look, Hey, I, I like, I personally gravitate toward, I like to listen to preaching. That's more intellectual. I like to listen to pray, but that's just me. But here's the thing to sit there and say, Oh, that's, that's the standard. That's what we need to do is to deny what the word of God is explicitly saying that he is mainly using common men who the world would look at who the educated elite or the religious elite would say, these guys are unlearned and ignorant men. And yet that's who God used. That's who Jesus handpicked. So we can't lean on our own understanding on this, right? We got to go with what the Bible says. And I, I read some quotes from Martin Luther where Martin Luther was saying how like that the clergy has to be super educated. They need to be these real intellectual guys. But look, that's not what we find in the word of God. Okay. What we find in the word of God is fishermen, carpenters, unlearned, ignorant men, blue collar guys, tax collectors, whatever. Okay. That's what the Bible actually teaches. And then lastly, this, why is religion different in America? Free market economy, not just for business. There's a free market religious economy. Okay. And what that creates is not only competition, but also variety. Okay. What do I mean by that? Well, here's the thing. What if you lived in a restaurant? Let me give you an illustration this way. What if you lived in a, in a town where there's only two restaurants in the town. So you live in a town and there's Burger King and McDonald's. Now maybe you like those places. I don't. If I lived in a town where there was a Burger King and McDonald's, I would never go out to eat in that town. I just wouldn't go out to eat. I would just eat at home 100% of the time. I would never go there. Okay. But what if you lived in a town that had a hundred restaurants? Chances are you're going to find a restaurant that you like in a town with a hundred different restaurants. So people will make fun of America like, Oh, there's like a hundred different kinds of Christianity. There's a hundred different denominations. It's just, you just list just so many different denominations. That's good. Because then there's actually variety and then you can actually have competition and you can actually find the church that you want to go to. Now look, why do you think so many more people go to church in America than in Germany? Because they can actually find a church that they want to go to. They can find one that's actually preaching the word of God. Now again, if we look at who are the winners and who are the losers in this religious economy, you want to know who the losers are? The ones who are denying the miracles of the Bible. Which, I mean, which religions are dying? Look at the religions that are dying. Episcopalians, United Methodists, the mainline Presbyterians. They are Lutherans. They're dying. Guess what? They're, they're the ones who are denying the virgin birth. They're the ones saying that Jonah wasn't swallowed by a whale. Jesus didn't walk on water and they're getting smaller and smaller. Why? Because why would you go to church and listen to some preacher preach who doesn't even believe that it's real? Right? Who's succeeding and thriving today in America? Baptists and Pentecostals. Again, Pentecostals are preaching the wrong gospel. Work salvation, lose your salvation is wrong. And I think they're an embarrassment with all their flopping around and barking like a dog and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, though, they're professing to believe something supernatural. The Baptists are professing to believe something supernatural. Hey, we're both saying come and get something that's real. We got something real to offer you. Now, the Baptists are telling the truth and the Pentecostals are lying, but what do they both have in common? They're both offering the real deal. They're offering the real deal. One's telling the truth, one's lying, but they're both saying God is real, Christ is real, heaven is real, hell is real, salvation is real. Now, one is saying it's by grace through faith, plus nothing, minus nothing. One is saying, oh, you can lose your salvation. You got to, you got to repent of all your sins and follow the commandments and do whatever. You know, they're adding to the gospel and telling people they can lose their salvation. But at the end of the day, they're both professing to offer something real. Okay. So how many people go to church in America? And I'm out of time, but I just want to give you just a couple quick stats because we're talking about American Christianity, right? And I saw someone criticizing American Christianity and they said, they said only 2% of Christians in America regularly share their faith. I'm surprised it's even that high. I thought it was even lower than that, but in Faithful Word Baptist Church, it's like the majority of the church. So, you know, hey, you could have a powerhouse of soul winning in America and I'd like to know what country in the world more than 2% of Christians are regularly sharing their faith. I want to know where all these awesome soul winning Christians are and it, and I guarantee you, if you point to it, it's probably something founded by an American missionary in a place like the Philippines or Africa or something like that. But anyway, I got some stats here of how many people go to church and like in America, church attendance has been declining, but I think a lot of that is that a lot of people are just watching church online. It's not that they stopped professing faith in Christ. They're just doing it. No, that's wrong. They need to get their butts in an actual, literal, physical church. We're not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, but still in America, people who attend services every week or almost every week is still at 30% in America. 30, 30% of people are still attending services in America every week or almost every week. Okay. Compare that to England. It's like 7%. Compare that to Germany. It's like 4%. Okay. It looks like, uh, let me find the exact statistic here. It's like, uh, Catholics 4.3%, 3% for Protestants or something like that. So 3 or 4%. So, so when you have the duopoly in Germany, you got 3 or 4% of people going to church because the church sucks because it's lame because there's no competition because he's the only game in town. So you can preach the crustiest, lamest sermon in the world, but it's super educated, super educated, super lame sermon, and 3% of people will show up to hear it. Right? In America, it's just anybody who's got a leather lung and a leather-bound Bible gets up and preaches. Now you got 30% of people going to church because there's more choices. It's not just two choices that are both lame. You have 100 choices, so more people show up. Just like if you had more restaurants, more people are going to go out to eat than if you only have two restaurants. If you have 100 restaurants, more people are going to eat out and so forth. And so that, that's it for that. I just wanted to preach this sermon to say that, you know, even though we don't like in many ways the way America is going, even though America is being de-Christianized, even though there are a lot of liberal, lame, watered-down churches in America, and even though it's sad that like 98% of Christians aren't doing any witnessing or soul-winning or whatever, even though those are sad things, don't come at me with this, oh, American Christianity. Take your commie, liberal, anti-America crap somewhere else, okay? Because it's not America that's the problem. It's just humans that are the problem. Humans are the problem, okay? Christians are just lazy everywhere. It's not America that's the problem because America has been the most successful nation spiritually in the history of mankind. And I think that any way you look at it, you're probably going to come to the same conclusion. And so I just want to talk about why is that? Why is America so different? What's, is there just something magical over here in America? Why we're so much more evangelical? Why religion is so different here than it is in Europe? No, it's one word. It's freedom. It's religious freedom. It's a low bar to entry for the clergy, and it is a religious free market. And these three principles, which I showed you them all from the Bible, you know, allowing false religion and righteous Christianity to both grow and not to try to just force one religion is a biblical concept. Number two, having an uneducated quote unquote clergy is also biblical, right? Because there are not many wise men after the flesh called. And it is also biblical to have this idea that says, well, you know what? You go out and get people to come to your church, and that's how you get paid. You don't just get paid from some headquarters somewhere while you just fail to reach people. You know, if you're not reaching your area with the gospel, there's going to be nobody in your church, and then you're not going to get paid. You're going to have to work a side job, and maybe, you know, that's okay. But you're not just some fat cat getting some giant salary for some high steeple few people church with no motivation to grow or reach people or do anything because you're just a lazy fat, you know, educated whatever in your office somewhere in your ivory tower. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much that we live in America, Lord. We're blessed to live in a free country. Thank you that we can go soul winning without being hindered. Thank you that I can get up and preach the Bible, and I don't have to worry about the police coming and arresting me during the sermon because of something that I preached. Thank you for freedom of speech. Thank you for freedom of religion. And, Lord God, help us to evangelize the rest of this dark, lost, and dying world because, Lord God, we have been so spiritually blessed in America, even though we don't always appreciate it or look like it, and our country is getting more and more sinful and ungodly, Lord, help us to bring the light of the gospel to other parts of the world that are even darker spiritually than we are, Lord. Help us to shine that light of the gospel, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Let's take our psalm books, please. Go to Hymn 375. Hymn 375. Work for the night is coming. Hymn 375. We'll sing this out and be dismissed. Lift it up on that verse, number 375. To the sun it hoot. We'll pride our skies with labor. Rest on the shore and soothe. Give every flying minute something to keep in store. Work for the night is coming When man works no more Work for the night is coming Under the sunset skies All the burdens are glowing Work for daylight flies Work till the last we've fainted Fated to shine no more Work while the night is darkening When man's work is sore Good thing tonight we are dismissed