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Jeremiah 27, the Bible reads, In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiachin, the son of Josiah king of Judah, came this word unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Thus saith the LORD to me, Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck, and send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which come to Jerusalem, unto Zedekiah king of Judah. So God starts out by having Jeremiah do this object lesson in his preaching where he actually makes yokes, the Bible says. So he's going to put bonds and yokes and basically put this thing on his neck and think about somebody having a big wooden yoke on their neck and actually be bound to it, actually chained to it or attached to it. And he put that on literally and preached with that on. And the reason that we know that he actually preached like that is that in the next chapter, a guy comes up and breaks it off of him. Another false preacher who doesn't like the sermon, comes and breaks it and so forth. So Jeremiah is preaching this really dramatic sermon because he's got this yoke that he built. And often throughout the Bible, God has preachers use these type of object lessons and sometimes they're very extreme like this yoke thing or there are all kinds of places in the book of Ezekiel where Ezekiel is told to build a city and have all these army men set up and so forth or where he's supposed to lay on his side for this really long period of time, 390 days just in order to make a point and everything. So God has a lot of these prophets do sort of extreme object lessons and the purpose of that is to get people's attention. You know, when they see Jeremiah show up to preach and he's wearing a yoke on his neck and he's in bondage, that's going to get people's attention. They're going to remember that sermon and God's really trying to get their attention, get them to listen. Now, I strongly believe that in 2016, we need to preach in such a way that gets people's attention. You see, even if you teach perfect biblical doctrine, if nobody's listening, then it doesn't matter how good the sermon is because nobody's listening. And so people will often accuse preachers like me or others who get up and yell and beat the pulpit and kick the pulpit and make extreme statements that, oh, you know, you're just preaching this sensational style preaching and you're just trying to get attention. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. I'm trying to get attention on the Word of God. I'm trying to get attention on the truth because it doesn't matter how good the doctrine is. It doesn't matter how right the preaching is. If nobody's listening, then it's not doing anybody any good. And that's why every preacher in the Bible yelled when they preached. Jesus yelled when he preached. They're trying to get people's attention. They want people to listen because if I preach, I want people to listen. Otherwise, I'm just talking into the air. Otherwise, I'm just wasting my time. And so I don't think there's anything in the world wrong with the preacher being entertaining or using illustrations that get people's attention, that people relate to, or even using object lessons. When I think back to my childhood and I try to remember as many sermons as I can from my childhood, most of the sermons that I remember are the sermons where people were brought up on the platform and there was some kind of an illustration or some kind of an object lesson was brought out. Like I remember I heard a sermon one time where this guy got out an overhead projector and he put ants all over this overhead projector. So he projected it giant on the wall. There's these ants crawling around, literal ants. And then he was smashing the ants and killing them on the projector. I mean, you're never going to forget that sermon. I still remember it. And it was a sermon about fearing God and not fearing man. Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul. And he was saying, it'd be ridiculous for these ants to fear each other. They should be fearing me. You know, I have the power to destroy them. But the point is that stuff like that sticks out in your mind, especially when you're a kid. Or I remember a preacher who had a chocolate milk and a pink lemonade. And he was talking about how good chocolate milk is. And he's talking about how good pink lemonade is. And then he mixed them together and had people drinking it and they were feeling sick and everything. And, you know, it made a point. He was saying, you know, living for God is sweet. There's joy there. There's pleasure there. And then, you know, living for the world has the pleasures of sin for a season. But you can't try to have it both ways. You're going to be miserable, you know. So these kind of sermons stick with you because they have an object lesson. And I think that's great. And I think that there are plenty of examples of that in the Bible. Jesus used parables. And sometimes these physical object lessons, like wearing a yoke or whatever, they can really sometimes drive in the point. And I think that they can be very effective. So don't listen to these bunch of boring Calvinist types, Presbyterian types, or where they just they want to go down deep, stay down long, come up dry. And any sermon that's actually entertaining or interesting, they just shun it and call it a three-ring circus or something. Well, you know what? It's biblical to preach in such a way where people are listening. It gets people's attention. That's what we ought to do. We ought to try to reach as many people as we can without compromising the message. Yay, enhancing the message through illustrations, through object lessons, and so forth. So Jeremiah preaches this sermon. And here's what I think is really interesting. Besides the fact that he puts the bonds and yokes on his neck, look at verse 3. It says, and send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah. What we're seeing here is God is telling Jeremiah to get the word of God to people in foreign countries through people from those countries who are visiting in Jerusalem. He's telling Jeremiah, look, you can get this message to the Moabites, to the Ammonites, to the Edomites, because there are people from those countries visiting in Jerusalem. This is exactly what we see at the day of Pentecost, when there were devout men out of every nation under heaven that were visiting Jerusalem, and they're able to win them to Christ with the idea that those people can bring the gospel home to the countries that they're from. Another great example of this is the Ethiopian eunuch. The Ethiopian eunuch is traveling on his way home from Jerusalem. God specifically sends Philip the evangelist to go preach the gospel to him, get him saved. Then the Ethiopian eunuch, now saved and baptized, is on his way back to Ethiopia with the gospel. And so you don't necessarily have to go to Ethiopia to get the gospel to Ethiopia. You can actually just win the Ethiopians to the Lord that are right here in Phoenix. I won a guy to the Lord one time in Phoenix that was literally an Ethiopian. You know, I said, where are you from? Ethiopia. And I won him to Christ. And he was right here in Phoenix, and it was one of the easiest people I've ever won to the Lord. He just walked right... I was soul winning, I was finished soul winning, I was just heading for the car, and he just walked up to me, and I talked to him, and he got saved. And boom, there's an Ethiopian saved. I was able to save money on the plane ticket, and the trip over there, and everything, because he was right here. Now, going into all the world to preach the gospel to every creature is important. And I'm all for missions, and I'm really happy about the trip that we took a few weeks ago to Botswana, and the great things we were able to do over there. And honestly, over there, it was more receptive when we were physically over there in Africa. The soul winning went better, and the people were more receptive than they are here. But you can still win Africans to the Lord right here in Phoenix, Arizona, and in other major cities across America. You see this idea of just the mission field being this distant, abstract place. No, the mission field's right here in Arizona. It's right here in Phoenix. People from all over the world. And you know, another great mission field, I was talking to Brother Garrett, that basically we're going to start reaching more out to the Native Americans in our state here, and going to the Indian reservations. We've already had a few soul winning marathons on the reservations, and they were very receptive. It was great soul winning. So I told Brother Garrett that, you know, while he's waiting until we go to the next African country, in the meantime, we're going to be doing additional soul winning. And he's going to especially be focusing on reaching the Indians. I mean, that's a whole mission field right here. In the United States. The Native American reservations all over Arizona. And the biggest reservation in America is right here in Arizona, the Navajo reservation. But there's also the Hopi, the Apache, all other tribes scattered around this state. And it's often a very receptive place. And it's similar to foreign missions in a sense. But not only that, if you walk up and down the streets of Tempe and go soul winning, you're going to run into East Indians, you're going to run into Europeans, you're going to run into Asians, you're going to run into people from all over. Go to ASU. And you've got students from all over the world at ASU. And it's a biblical model for getting the gospel to the world by going soul winning right here at home to the foreigners that are here amongst us. Win them to Christ. I mean, you want to be a missionary to Mexico? Good night. There are whole neighborhoods here where everybody's from Mexico. You want to be a missionary to Africa? You know, Brother Ramon just called me this week and he said, hey, give me directions to that place that you call Little Africa. Because there's a place about four or five miles from here where everybody's straight from Africa. And we've had great success soul winning there. And he asked me, where is that place? Probably because he was inspired by all the stories about Botswana. He's like, man, I want to do some of that. So he's doing it right here. It's right here. It's here. It's everywhere. So many missionaries today, they don't even go soul winning in the United States at all. But then they talk all big and show all their slides about all the great works for God that they're going to do when they get to some other foreign country. And really what they do is they go there and they sit their butt in a language school for years. And then they're slow and inefficient and watered down and ineffective. You know, it's a joke. And people are giving so much money to this week after week. And they get these prayer letters that all they talk about is like construction projects. Or the update on the transmission of their car. Or the update on potty training their son. Or the update on going to dinner with locals. Or the update on language school. Why don't they send the update of a whole bunch of people being saved and people being dunked, people being baptized, people, you know, doing something. I'll tell you why, because they didn't do that stuff when they were here. Because if you can't do it here, you will never do it there. If you do it here and then you go there, you'll get a lot done. We got a lot done in just a real short time. You know, we didn't want it to be a real short time, but it was a real short time. We got a lot done, because we've been practicing here for decades. That's why. And so we need to, you say, I want to win the world to Christ. Okay, start here. Start with the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, and Zydonians that are right here visiting in Phoenix. Win them unto Christ. Let them take the gospel back home. Not only that, but these messengers that they gave the gospel to, that are heading back to their home country, that could also symbolize the internet. I mean, that's another way to send the message to all these different places, you know, by the hand of, you know, an electronic messenger in a sense, by getting the preaching out to the world through the internet, which is like the printing press of the 21st century. And so there are plenty of opportunities to serve the Lord, plenty of opportunities to win people to Christ, but we need to be men of activity. We need to be people who don't just sit around doing nothing, but we need to be getting out there, rolling up the sleeves, and doing a work for God. You say, okay, well, how do I get started? Well, start by showing up to a soul winning time. Start by showing up on Wednesdays at 5.15. Show up this Saturday at the soul winning marathon, up at the Faith Forward Baptist Church North. Show up there at 10 o'clock and go out as a silent partner. Let somebody show you the ropes. There are plenty of opportunities. There's plenty of work to be done. The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he'll send you out into the harvest, and that he'll send for laborers into his harvest. So I really like that verse three there, about getting the gospel to other countries through people that are visiting, because I've always believed in that, and I've always taught that based on the day of Pentecost, and based on other scriptures that are similar to that, and just based on common sense. Common sense tells us that we can reach the, you know, we can reach the Iranians that are here in Phoenix. Even if we were to go to Iran, we'd probably be instantly arrested for soul winning, and deported even faster than we were deported out of Botswana. So anyway, look down at your Bible there, verse four, and let's get the message that he's preaching. It says in verse four, Command them to say unto their masters, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Thus shall ye say unto your masters, I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power, and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me. Meet, M-E-E-T there, means that it's whoever he finds it appropriate to give it to, or whoever it suits him to give it to. Meet means suitable, or appropriate, or befitting. So he says, I've given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me. Whoever he wanted to give it to is basically what he's saying. Whoever he thought it was best to give it to. And now, have I given all these lands into the head of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon my servant, and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come, and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. And it shall come to pass that the nation and kingdom, which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. Okay. So God is going to use the king of Nebuchadnezzar by his hand, by Nebuchadnezzar's hand, he's going to bring judgment upon the nations that refused to serve the king of Babylon. That judgment will come in the form of, look at the end of verse 8, the sword, famine, pestilence. Okay. Now, warfare and a conquering army is going to bring all of those things. It's going to obviously bring the sword. It also brings famine because when an army comes in, they're going to eat up all the food. They might demolish crops or demolish the field. They're going to take a lot of food for themselves just to feed their armies and so forth. People's work is going to be interrupted because they're going to be fighting instead of growing the food and so forth. And then pestilence, which means disease, is also going to be a natural result of conquest and warfare because when you have a lot of dead bodies around, that's going to produce a lot of disease. Also, when you have a foreign army coming in, they're bringing germs from that other country that the people in this country are not used to. So when they come in, they're bringing all those germs, it's making people sick, dead bodies are laying around. That breeds pestilence and sickness. Now the reason I point that out is that in the book of Revelation, we're not going to turn there, and this isn't a big sermon about Bible prophecy, but I just want to point out that in the book of Revelation, when you're going through the seven seals, and when you're going through the first seal, second seal, third seal, fourth seal, and you see a lot of death and destruction, some of what's mentioned there is famine, pestilence, the sword, the beast of the earth, some of those same things that you see here. And what I want to point out is that clearly, those seals leading up to the second coming of Christ, the rapture, and so forth, those are brought about by man. Those are not the wrath of God. God's wrath does not begin until after the tribulation is over, and after the rapture happens. The Bible is real clear that after the tribulation, it says in Matthew 24, that's when the sun and moon are darkened, and that's when Christ comes in the clouds and gathers the elect, after the tribulation, okay? But when the sun and moon are darkened, it clearly says in Revelation that at that point, when that happens, that the great day of his wrath is come, meaning right now, and who shall be able to stand, meaning that God's wrath does not begin until the sun and moon are darkened. The sun and moon are darkened, that's the beginning of God's wrath being poured out. Sun and moon are darkened is the end of the tribulation. Therefore, the tribulation and God's wrath are two very different things. The tribulation is over here, then you have the sun and moon darkened, then God pours out his wrath. And God's wrath being poured out, that's the seven trumpets and the seven vials. And there's a big difference between the events of the first five seals and the events of the trumpets and vials. First five seals, what are they? You know, the first seal is where the Antichrist goes forth conquering and to conquer. The second seal has to do with the great world war. Peace is taken from the earth, the world's at war. The third seal has to do with famine, which again is a result of warfare, just as we see here. And then the fourth seal is just death all over the world due to what? Famine, sword, hunger, beasts of the earth, pestilence, those type of things. If we study Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, Revelation 6, we see that the fourth seal is death for a lot of these same reasons. The fifth seal has to do with the martyrs of Jesus being killed for the cause of Christ. And then at the sixth seal, that's when that sun and moon are darkened and the great day of God's wrath has come. So the point being that all of those seals leading up to the sun and moon being darkened, leading up to what we commonly call the rapture, none of those are God's wrath. Those are man-made. Those are the devil using governments, using the Antichrist, using man and his armies to create destruction upon this earth and to create problems and so forth. So I just wanted to kind of touch on that. I don't want to spend too much time on that. But for those of you who know a lot about Bible prophecy, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But here he's saying that the King of Babylon is going to bring these judgments upon those who will not serve him. And God is the one who has decided that this would be so. God says, I'm the creator. I've created man. I've created the beast. I've created the whole earth and I can give it to whoever I want. And I'm giving it all into the hand of the King of Babylon. Whoever refuses to put their neck under his yoke, I'm going to destroy that person or that kingdom by his hand. And those who submit to the King of Babylon and the whole rest of the chapter kind of repeats this and reiterates this multiple times that those who submit to the King of Babylon and surrender and say, okay, we will bring ourselves under the yoke of the King of Babylon. We will become a part of the Babylonian empire. We will allow him to rule over us. He says, those people will be spared. And throughout this chapter, he says, you know, why will you die? You don't have to die. All you have to do is surrender and submit to the King of Babylon and everything will be fine. But if you try to fight against him, God's going to judge you. God's going to punish you. Now you have to stop and think about what this message must have sounded like. I think it's just easy to read over this and not really think about this. Imagine what this must have sounded like to them. Okay. So let me just help you by putting it into the United States, 2016. Okay. Let's say there was an enemy that was menacing us. A foreign country is taking over countries, taking over all different nations. They've already defeated a whole bunch of nations. And, you know, in school and on the news, everybody's seeing maps showing that nation kind of how they're conquering and they're spreading their influence out. And people are saying, you know what? America could be their next target. This foreign nation could attack America next, right? Okay. Has everybody got the picture? Everybody picturing this? There's some foreign enemy. They're out of control. They're taking over. Country after country is surrendering to them and falling. And the rumor is that they're coming for the United States next, right? Okay. Now imagine a preacher getting up and saying, hey, listen, everybody. We just need to surrender to these people. In fact, God is disgusted with our nation. His wrath is toward us. And God has commanded me to tell you that we have to surrender to this foreign power. And if we surrender to them, everybody's going to be fine. And if we try to fight against him, we're going to be killed. In fact, I'm saying this message to other nations that they need to just surrender or be destroyed. Now, what do you, what would people think if I got up and preach that? They'd say what? You're a traitor, right? They'd say what? You're a spy. You've been paid by that government. You're an infiltrator. Well, guess what? That's exactly what they said about Jeremiah. If you read the book of Jeremiah, it's not in this chapter, but they say you have fallen away to the Chaldeans, meaning you're a traitor. You're on their payroll. They put you up to this and Jeremiah says, no, that's a lie. It's false. I'm just preaching what God told me to preach. Now you got to put yourself in Jeremiah's position. He's being asked to preach a really hard message. I mean, you got to think to yourself that when, when he got this message from the Lord, that he's supposed to preach, he's probably thinking to himself, man, if I preach this, people are going to hate me. People are going to think that I'm a traitor. People are going to think that I'm some kind of a spy or an infiltrator. And you know, I'm probably going to get arrested. I'm probably going to be beaten or killed or what. I mean, how can I preach this? But yet Jeremiah faithfully preached that message. He did go to prison. He did get abused. He did get beaten up. In the end though, God protects him. God brings him through everything safely and he ends up prospering in the end. And everything's great in the end, but he didn't know how it's going to end up. He's going through these trials and afflictions and tribulations, faithfully preaching the word of God. Now, what can, what can we learn from this? You know, you know what? One of the biggest things I learned from this, and if you would go to Isaiah chapter 40, we're going to come back to Jeremiah 27, is that first of all, the whole idea, and you know what? Some people are going to get mad maybe when I say this or just have kind of a knee-jerk reaction when I say this. I kind of cringe when I say this and just kind of bristle like, I don't know. That can't be right, you know, and panic. But listen, don't panic when I say this. Just breathe into a paper bag if you have to. Just stay calm and don't just kind of shut off and get emotional. Is that the whole concept of patriotism is totally unbiblical and it's not found anywhere in scripture. How dare he? Show me. It isn't there. Totally unbiblical. And this has become like an idol in churches today. It's like an idolatry. It's a worship of the United States of America. And in fact, putting the United States of America in the place of the Lord, or even above the Lord. It's out there. Now look what the Bible says, and I could preach on this all night, but let me just show you. Look at Isaiah chapter 40 verse 15, and let's see what God thinks about our nation, how important it is to be an American. Isaiah chapter 40 verse 15. Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket. You ever heard that expression about something being a drop in the bucket? This is where it comes from, this verse. He said the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Now, what is he saying there? Okay, here's what he's saying. If you're carrying a bucket of water, you go down to the river, you fill up a bucket of water, and one drop falls out, nobody cares. Nobody says, go back and do it again. You lost one drop. If you drink a glass of water and one drop remains, it doesn't matter. It's meaningless. God's saying, that's what I think of your nation, your patriotism, your pride, your national pride. He said it's like a drop of a bucket. And then the next thing he compares it to is the small dust of the balance. He's saying basically, you go to the store and you buy a piece of meat, and they put the meat on the scale. You don't say, oh, wait a minute, there's a speck of dust on the scale. You expect me to pay for that dust? Wipe that dust off and then weigh the meat unto me. Wouldn't that be foolish? And why? Because that dust, the small dust of the balance, the small dust of the scale is meaningless. It's not affecting the price in a meaningful way. The drop of water in the bucket is not affecting it in any meaningful way. When you talk about a drop of a bucket or a drop of water on a hot stove, you're talking about things that are so small, so minuscule, so meaningless, that they're not even worth mentioning or talking about. And God basically says, the nations, that's what they are. Behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. He's saying you could burn the biggest forest in the world and burn all the beasts of a whole nation, every animal. It's not enough of a burnt sacrifice to give the Lord all the honor and praise that he deserves. And then it says in verse 17, all nations, all, all nations before him are as nothing. But is this what people believe today in churches in America? Is this what the churches believe and teach? No, of course not. But God said, well, all nations before him are as nothing. Wait, no, that's giving them too much credit. They're counted to him less than nothing and vanity. I mean, just in case you didn't get it, when he said it's nothing and it's less than nothing, vanity. I mean, how could he say it any stronger? I don't think that he could have been any stronger here about what he thinks of the nations, the nations. What does it mean to him? How important is it to him what nation we're from or what nation we fly the flag of? How much does that matter to him? It matters to him so little that he just spends three verses just trying to explain in the most extreme language possible, how meaningless it could possibly be. Less than nothing. I mean, that's a pretty extreme statement. But yet today we go to churches. I mean, I just saw a picture of a church yesterday and it was like the whole church, it had like these gigantic American flags, like gigantic sideways, you know, the giant sideways, like, you know, they must've been 12 feet tall, these sideways American flags. And then it had like 10 American flags lined up and then it had like a floral centerpiece, red, white, and blue flowers. And it looked like it was ready for a campaign speech. I mean, it looked like it was ready for some dictator or something to come in and just, you know, and for everybody to just be like, you know, in some worship of government. And it's like, that's a church. Why don't you emphasize Jesus Christ and get off this patriotic... It's not biblical, folks. And look, if I'm wrong, show me where I'm wrong. Show me where I'm wrong. This is why you never hear sermons on patriotism. Cause there's no Bible. I mean, we're all told be patriotic, patriotism, and fly the flag and pledge of allegiance and all this stuff, but you never hear a sermon teaching us why to be patriotic because there's no Bible to base it on. Okay. And then one time my wife told me, she like, I found this sermon on patriotism. I'm like, what? Like, what's it going to say? We downloaded it and it was some just backwoods hillbilly preacher. And he was, and the sermon was called the spirit of patriotism. And the guy was just so, it was the most incoherent. He just would tell a Bible story that had nothing to do with patriotism and just be like, you know why? Cause it was the spirit of patriotism. Didn't he? What were some of the stories he told you Joe? Was it like the Jacob and Esau? And just, it was just like, what in the world? He just told all these stories. He's like, this is the spirit of patriotism. And we're just like, what is this guy talking about? I mean, we had a good laugh, but we didn't learn anything about the Bible. That's for sure. And, and, and my friend, you know, you can get emotional. You can huff and puff and blow the house down, but it isn't biblical. And it definitely has no, why don't you take that to your little barbecue somewhere if you want, but what place does it have in the house of God? In the house of God, we worship the Lord. We don't worship America. We don't worship ourselves. You know, we don't worship our country. And by the way, our country is turning into a modern Sodom and Gomorrah and even God's chosen nation, Israel in the old Testament, when they got out of line, even the chosen ones, when they got out of line, you know what he told them? He said, you know what? You're going to serve Babylon. And it's not because he liked Babylon better than Israel or Israel better than Babylon. Cause you know, it's all less than nothing to him. He doesn't care. And God doesn't have some special relationship with America where America just gets a free pass because they're American. No, God's not a respecter of persons. And to him, there's no difference between the Jew and the Greek. He makes no difference between the American and the Mexican. He makes, or they are American, sorry. The United States, American citizen and the Mexican. He doesn't make a difference. It's all the same to him. He doesn't care. If you're an American, or if you're a European or an Asian or it means nothing to him, you know, it's not, it's less than nothing to him. And you know, there's so many people with their nationalistic pride, but I would just say to that him that glory, let him glory in the Lord. You know, my, the country that I seek after is a country that's not of this world. You know, the Bible teaches that the country that our allegiance is to is that heavenly Jerusalem. It's that Zion up in heaven. It's the spiritual city. It's heaven. It's the Lord that we have allegiance to. But yet today you have all kinds of pastors and all kinds of Christians, and they're on a big crusade about patriotism. And they get all upset because some guy sat down during the Pledge of Allegiance, right? And preachers are just fuming. Oh, it just makes their blood boil. Bunch of fags can walk up and down the street and parade, and they don't have anything to say about that on Facebook, do they? They don't have anything to say about that. That's fine. Oh, but this guy sat down. That's fine. Oh, but this guy sat down. You know what? It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever pledge allegiance to the United States of America. So put that in your pipe and smoke it. Say, well, yeah, but you just don't appreciate what you have. I appreciate what God gave me. You know who gave me what I have in America? God did. So, you know, these soldiers, no, no, God gave it to me. You know why we have the freedom of speech? Because God gave it to us. You know why we have the freedom of religion? Because God gave it to us. You know who I'm thankful for? That I was born in a country where I still have some freedoms. I'm thankful to God. I'm not thankful to Obama. I'm not thankful to Hillary Clinton. I'm not thankful to a bunch of American soldiers. I'm not thankful to any of them. I'm thankful only to God because God's the one who gave it to me. Because every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. I'm not going to pledge allegiance to something that changes all the time. I'll pledge allegiance to God because he never changes. I'll pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ because he never changes. I'll pledge my allegiance to the Bible because it never changes. This country changes all the time. It's constantly changing. You know what? My grandfather who went and fought in World War II earned a Purple Heart, earned other medals that I don't worship or anything like that, but he earned some medals. He got a letter from Admiral Nimitz and he was commended and he had the medals. Here's what he told me. He said if I would have known what this country was going to turn into, he said I wouldn't have wasted the best years of my life over there fighting for it. I would have done something else. But he has the right to say that because he was over there. When he was 17 years old, killing people, he has the right to say that. Well, you know what? I have the right to say it too. That I don't want anything to do with what our country represents. You know what? I'm not going to fly an American flag. I'll fly the Jesus flag, but there isn't one, so I'll just do it verbally. You know what I mean? Look, we need to understand that God is not impressed with the United Sodom States of America. You know what? And you can sit there and say, well, you went over to Botswana in South Africa and you got persecuted because you don't have the same freedoms over there that you have over here, right? But that's not because our government wanted to give us freedom. It's because we still have it from a long time ago and they're trying to get rid of it. And in fact, how do you think I felt about the United States of America when I found out, after being arrested and deported, that it was the United States government that it was their idea to arrest and deport us and that they were the ones paying for it and that they were the ones who were behind it. And they're the ones that were calling. Look, listen to what these people say. I went back, you know, once I got home and I had time to kind of sit down and think about everything, I went back and listened to the words of Minister Jigoba of South Africa. And I listened to the words of these politicians in Botswana and South Africa. And they talked about speaking with the US embassy about us and speaking to the United States government about us and what they do. They kicked us out. And then we get the document proving that on September 21st, exactly two weeks ago today, two weeks ago today, that the United States embassy in South Africa gave $8,000 to our arch enemy over there that persecuted us, that was responsible for the whole thing. All of the persecution against us in South Africa and Botswana was initiated by this gay SA radio. And they received eight grand from the United States embassy in South Africa, who's supposed to be there protecting us. They're giving eight grand to people, to person. Look, the United States government is paying to persecute missionaries in South Africa and Botswana, who were there for one reason, a soul winning marathon. We weren't even there to talk about homos, but our government is so obsessed with perverting the whole continent of Africa, you know, that that's all that they wanted to make it about, even though they had nothing to do with that. And in fact, you know, when I went on that radio station and got arrested, you know, I'm not the one who brought up homos. Did I know they brought me in there and they, so how do you feel about homos? They did. Is that what happened? You were there. I didn't go in there and say, all right, let's talk homos. You know, I'd rather talk about the gospel. I'd rather talk about Jesus. I'd rather preach just about anything more wholesome than that. No, that's what they want to talk about. And so our government was behind it. Our government was persecuting us over there. They would love to do the same thing to us over here. There's only one thing stopping them. The first amendment, which wasn't their idea. It was God's idea. And you know what? These bunch of politicians that are running our country right now, they would love to take away our freedom of speech and make it illegal and call it hate speech. And that's what they're working on doing. You say, well, but pastor Anderson, that's just the government, the people of America are great people. No, they're not. This is a sinful, wicked nation. And the people are just as wicked as the government. That's why we have the government. It's a representative government folks. It represents us. You want to look in the mirror of the spiritual condition of America. Look at our politicians that we elect. And when you see all that corruption and decay and sin and iniquity, realize that's a reflection of the people in this. Look, if our country were righteous, we wouldn't even have these kinds of people. Look at the candidates and then ask yourself the morality of our nation. I mean, look at all the candidates. I don't care if it's, if you want, what, who do you want to talk to? You can talk about Hillary Clinton. You can talk about Donald Trump. You can talk about Gary Johnson, just wicked, ungodly, filthy people. And you know what? It's a reflection of the people in our country that that's who they pick. That's who they want. People like that. Sorry, am I stepping on your little Republican toes tonight? You know what? That is a reflection of our, well, but America is a godly people. Really? Is that why one out of four women have already murdered their own baby through abortion? Cause we're such a godly nation. Is that why there's more people living together in sin than married now? There are more people just living with someone that they're not married to. It's more than 50% now. I mean, less than half of homes are actually a married couple. How is that Christian? How is that righteous? How is that godly? And you know what? Our country is living on past glory. We have a name that we live, but we're dead. And so yeah, do we enjoy freedoms and liberties this country? No, thanks to the people running our country. It's all thanks to God and him alone. And it's all thanks to people from the past. Our generation. I mean, if you gave our generation their way, they'd tear up the constitution and bring in the United Nations, one world ridiculous environmental agency of Sodom and whatever. I mean, the young people today have no understanding of what our country is supposed to be about. They have no understanding of biblical morality. And it's only going to get worse and worse and worse. And you're swearing to have allegiance to this thing for the rest of your life or something? I mean, how long is that pledge good for? Is that just for the day or is that for the week or is it for your whole life? I don't know. I don't know. But I'm telling you, man, we're going downhill fast in this country. But you know what? I'm not going downhill. My family's not going downhill. Our church isn't going downhill. Look, our church is growing and thriving. Look around. This is Wednesday night. This is the Wednesday night service packed, right? Sunday morning packed. Sunday night packed. Show up for soul winning. The church vans packed. The cars are packed. Everything that we're doing is succeeding and growing and thriving. Look, my family's prospering. I hope your family's prospering. I'm growing spiritually. I hope you're growing spiritually. You know what? We don't have to fail. We can actually be more than conquerors through Christ. But you know what? When you attach yourself to the USA as just, you know, oh, it's all about America and patriotism. You know what? You're grabbing onto a sinking ship. Get in the lifeboat with me. Let's get out. And look, I'm not saying that I'm not saying, you know, to necessarily physically leave the United States. I don't think it's to the point where that's necessary because we still have the First Amendment, thank God. And hopefully we can keep that our whole lives. We can keep the First Amendment and stay here forever. You know, I hope that I go to the grave in Arizona. Amen. It'd be great. I don't want to go anywhere. You know, I'd rather stay here. Say love it or leave it. No, because I was born here and I belong here. Why don't the bunch of weirdos leave and I can stay here? I don't have to go anywhere. God, well, but, you know, no, because God owns it all. God, God wants me here. God likes me here. God likes you here. God's people belong here. And you know what? We can succeed. We can grow. We can thrive. I'm not pessimistic about life. I'm not pessimistic about my family or church or anything. But look, our nation put a fork in it. It's done. It's game over. You know, so just get off. So quit worshiping it. Quit the idolatry of just the worship of, I mean, I literally, you're not even gonna believe I'm going to tell you this, but you're not even gonna believe me. I sat in an independent fundamental Baptist church and this guy came in this guest preacher and he was a Filipino American. And so he was talking about how he was so glad to be in the United States and, and, you know, it was better than the Philippines and just, you know, praising the United States. He preached a whole patriotic sermon. And the sermon was called something along the lines of I love America or something like that. And he literally, I kid you not, and he said it repeatedly because I kept thinking like, you know, am I hearing this guy, right? Like, did he just say that? And when he said it, he said it multiple times and you could have heard a pin drop because everybody was kind of like, Whoa, I hope that's not what he just said. He literally said, I'm an American first and Christian second. And he said it repeatedly because he said, you know, there's so many people, they have like another interest group, you know, they say they're a Filipino American or an African American, you know, Muslim American, Christian American. I'm just American. Or that, that was the title of the sermon. I am an American. That was the title. I am an American. And he literally said twice, he said, I'm an American first, Christian second. I mean, what in the world? But that's the kind of stuff that you hear. That was an independent, fundamental King James, soul winning Baptist church. And when he said it, the place kind of went silent because everybody knew that's not right. What he just said, then he said it again and everybody's just kind of like, well, I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear that. And then he kept on, he continued with the sermon. It is weird. It's very weird. But you know, I, when it, when it's not, I love America Sunday, it's, I love Israel Sunday. You know? And it says, it says all this glorification of nations and just a glorification. And look, it has to be coming from somewhere. I mean, it didn't come from the Bible. If so, please see me after the service and correct me where patriotism is in the Bible, how I need to be waving the flag and pledging allegiance and, and cheering for my country as they bomb others, as if it's like a football team that is from my hometown or something. Okay. You know, correct me if I'm wrong. You know, I'm open to being corrected on this, but you know, where was I going with that? Somebody help me out. Anybody read? Yeah. Israel. Yeah. That's a good subject. We can talk about that for a while, but you know, all the, all these, all these nations and just, you know, a glorifying of America, glorifying of Israel and, and just this, this, this, I forgot where I was going, but I'm gonna go somewhere else. Okay. I just, I thought of something totally different. Oh yeah. Where's it coming from? See, you just got to give up and then it comes to you. Okay. Where's it coming from? If it's not coming from the Bible, I'll tell you where it's coming from. Indoctrination. You grow up, you're four years old. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the Republic for which it stands one nation. You know that I'm not going to finish it cause I swore I never would. Right. You don't want, I don't want to break my promise that fast. Good night. But anyway, that was for demonstration purposes only and I didn't make it to the end. So you're taught your whole life, you're brainwashed to just wave the flag and, and, and anyone who doesn't is demonized. Oh, these evil people, you know, no, you know, who's evil. People who hate the Lord, they're evil, but somehow you could hate the Lord. You could hate Jesus, but as long as you served your country, you somehow get a pass, but God's not a respecter of persons. Plus most of the people, and, and here, this will make some people mad, but. Oh, well, most of the people that go into the military these days are serving their wallet. Every person that I've ever personally known who joined the military flat out told me it was for the money. Every single one. Now I'm not saying that there aren't people out there who have, you know, their, their blood flows red, white, and blue and everything, but I will say this. Everybody that I personally talked to just said, well, it's, it's a living. It's good money. GI bill. Funny. The veterans are nodding their head. Yeah. Money. Getting paid. And look, yeah, a lot of people are deceived by it and they think that, that America is, is the savior of the world and all that, you know, bringing in feminism and bringing in sodomy and bringing in sex, drugs and rock and roll. Yeah. I know, I know there's some people actually believe that, but a lot of people are just doing it as a job and it's not even the most dangerous job. In fact, being a logger is more dangerous. Being a small aircraft pilot is more dangerous. Being a cab driver is more dangerous. Being an electrician is more dangerous. Being a long haul trucker is more dangerous. Look at the stats. It's true. You're more likely to get killed being a truck driver. Okay. So the bottom line is we need to get a biblical viewpoint on these things and cut through the brainwashing and cut through the programming and get this programming right here that says, you know what? When the nation goes bad, God doesn't care who wins. And if he says the king of Babylon is going to win, well, you know what? Just shut up and obey the king of Babylon and start flying that Babylonian flag because you know what? Your flag doesn't matter anymore because God decided that you're going down. That's what it, that's what this whole chapter is about. And nobody liked it then and nobody likes it now. And in chapter 28, they all get mad about it and they, they, you know, of course. But the reason why these pastors love to get on Facebook and huff and puff about their patriotism is because everybody likes it. Nobody gets mad when you fly an American flag. They only get mad when you don't. Nobody gets mad when you get up and say, oh, it really chaps my hide that that guy wouldn't pledge allegiance. They're like, yeah, they're getting all kinds of likes and shares and, and all kinds of praise of men, but it's funny how they don't really attack the real evildoers. You know what I mean? The people who are really messing up our country and, and you know what? People who hate Christ, hate the Lord, hate God, those are the enemy. You know what? Today, the people of Russia are not my enemy. The people of Mexico are not my enemy. I don't have any problem with Mexicans, Iranians, Iraq. I would love to see them all get saved. You know what? I just love all the nations of the world in the sense that I want the people to be saved. I want the people to be saved in, in Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan. And you know what? I don't want to see them all bombed into the stone age. I'd like to see them get the gospel. I'd like to see the Bible get in there. I'd like to see soul winning happen there. I love all the, I love all the nations of the world as far as the people are concerned for their souls. Don't you? Or do you just hate them because they're of some other nationality? No, I love those people. I'd like to teach all nations the gospel, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, but see, people want to brainwash you that your enemy is some guy over in some other country of some other culture, some other language, some other skin. That guy's your enemy or he's messing up the economy or he's the threat. But you know what? The real threat is right here in America. It's people who hate God. It's people who hate the Bible. It's people who hate Jesus. And you know who that is? People that are in charge in our country. You know who that is? The people running the public school. You know who that is? The people who live on your street in many cases. So, you know, the enemy's right here, my friend. So instead of getting all worked up about being an American or not being an American, being a citizen or not being a citizen, why don't you worry about whether you're a citizen of heaven and why don't you worry about whether your neighbor is a citizen of heaven? You know, I don't care if the Mexican painting my house is a citizen of America or not, of the United States of America, but I'd like to get him a citizen of heaven. I'd like to get him a spiritual green card. I'd like to get him spiritually, uh, uh, what's that word that they always use? Some spiritual amnesty, right? Let's get some spiritual amnesty for the lost souls of Mexico. Ah, but they're not legal. Who cares? Yeah, pretty soon soul winning's not going to be legal. So what? But you know what? The devil loves for us to get all worked up about the wrong things and get all, get all into some political fight, right? Or get all worked up about somebody's skin color or, I mean, that's the, isn't that always the thing? Even in 2016, it's still about black lives matter or they don't matter. Everybody matters. It's like, who cares? But that's the kind of junk. Why don't we talk about, you know, somebody said, somebody contacted me, pastor Anderson, do black lives matter? And you know what I responded? Black souls matter. I don't care about your politics and all this junk. All I care about is the word of God, Jesus, the Bible, salvation. That's all that matters. And, and, and, and my, my political, you know, where my interest in politics come in is just, how can we get these people to leave us alone? Yeah. To me, that's the only question that matters. Will they leave me alone? And you look at the candidates, it's like, no, no, no. Right? I mean that, because God said that the only matter with our leaders is that they would let us live a quiet and peaceable life and all godliness and honesty. So the only thing I care about is just give us freedom. Give us the freedom to, to, to preach and raise our families and do God's will. And, and I, you know, I'm not really that worked up about other political issues. I, you know, frankly, I find it boring. I find this a lot more interesting. This is way more interesting than Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck or Alan Combs or any of the rest of them. I don't even know if those are still the guys, cause I don't even keep up with it. Who's who are the big political talk shows that people are into? What are they listening to these days out there? Folks help me out. Rush Limbaugh still. Oh man, that guy's gotta be getting old. I just named it all, huh? Just named them all. Nothing else. Who? Yeah, it is vanity. Nobody else, huh? Nobody wants to admit that that's what they've been listening to. You know what? It's time to pop in Alexander Scorby and give those guys a rest, right? This chapter, again, you know, I read the first half, but the second half pretty much just reiterates a lot of things that we've seen over and over again in this chapter. And in the book of Jeremiah itself is that God is bringing judgment on Judah. He's using the Babylonians to do it. And he tells them, look, you need to just surrender. But we don't ever, these colors don't run. Yeah, but you know what? When God says to run, you better run and you better ask how fast, you know, as you begin to run these colors don't run. Well, you know what? If God says they do, they do. Let's make sure that we keep our focus on the main thing, which is that which is spiritual, not that which is carnal. And sure, other pastors, they're going for the easy amen by having the I love America Sunday and the I love America sermon. Yeah, they get the easy amen when they bring in the veterans and the Holocaust survivors and everybody else. Yeah, they get the easy amen. But you know what? The only people that we should bring in here to speak are spirit filled preachers. That's because that's all that matters. You know, this other stuff, you know, no man that worth entangled himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who had chosen him to be a soldier, Christian soldier in the Lord's army and spiritual fight. Let's have a word of prayer. Lord God, thank you so much for this chapter, Lord. And thank you for a man like Jeremiah, very unique man who preached a very unpopular message at a very unpopular time, Lord. But yet he did not compromise the message. He endured the persecution, Lord, because he did what was right. And I pray that you would just help us to realize that everything we've heard our whole lives and been taught our whole lives isn't necessarily true, Lord, and help us to glorify the spiritual fight and not to glorify physical warfare, Lord. And, you know, kids today are growing up and playing a video game where they're blowing people apart and they think it's cool to blow people apart with machine guns and bazookas, Lord. But there's not a there's not a soul winning video game. So, Lord, I pray that you would just help us to cut through our upbringing and realize that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, Lord. And thank you for always giving us the victory through Christ Jesus. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Wow. We broke the record tonight. I wasn't kidding about the attendance. How many people do we have here tonight? 203. So over 200 on a Wednesday night. Every time we break our attendance record, though, because we have a different attendance record for Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night, because we broke our Wednesday attendance record, that means we have ice cream for everybody after the service. So be sure to stick around for ice cream.