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

Keep praying, in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Jeremiah chapter 40, we're getting the aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem. Remember in chapter 39, Nebuchadnezzar's host of the Chaldean army has finally broken through. They had besieged Jerusalem for a long time. They broke through the walls. They got into the city. The king and his men fled. They went after them, overtook them. They slew all the princes. They put out Zedekiah's eyes, made him blind, and brought him back to Babylon just to be a laughingstock. And so the city's destroyed. The houses have been burned. The Chaldeans have taken over. And now we get into a little bit of the aftermath. After the battle's over, the war's over, the Chaldeans have won. The Jews have been completely defeated. Look at verse one of chapter 40. The Bible reads, the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after that Nebuchadnezzar Adan, the captain of the guard, had let him go from Ramah when he had taken him, being bound in chains among all that were carried away captive of Jerusalem and Judah, which were carried away captive unto Babylon. So what happened is they took captives of all the important people in Jerusalem, all the people who owned any land or had any money or were any kind of important people. And the only people that they left behind were the poor of the land who had nothing. They didn't even bother taking them captive. They just left them behind. So they take Jeremiah amongst the captives. So he's in chains. He's one of the prisoners. He's on his way to be carried captive into Babylon. But Nebuchadnezzar Adan, the captain of the host, the head military guy who was there leading the army that defeated Jerusalem, he actually lets Jeremiah go. He looses the chains from off him. Look what it says in verse two. The captain of the guard took Jeremiah and said unto him, the Lord thy God have pronounced evil upon this place. Now the Lord has brought it and done according as he had said, because ye have sinned against the Lord and have not obeyed his voice. Therefore, this thing has come unto upon you. And now behold, I loose thee this day from the chains which were upon thine hand. If it seemed good unto thee to come with me into Babylon, come and I will look well unto thee. But if it seemed ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, I will look for bear. Behold, all the land is before thee. Whither it seemeth good and convenient for thee to go, thither go. So he tells Jeremiah, look, if you wanna come with me into Babylon, you're not gonna come as a prisoner. I'm loosing the chains from off you. If you wanna come to Babylon because you wanna live in Babylon, great. Come there and I'll make sure that you do well there. I'll personally take care of you and make sure that you have everything you need. Or if that seems evil unto you to go to Babylon, then stay here. The whole land's before you. You take your pick and you go wherever it seems good and convenient for you to go. Now what this shows is that God is gonna bless us when we do what's right. Jeremiah has faithfully preached the word of God. He's been totally fearless and he's never backed down. And so now God is blessing him when other people are being chained and enslaved and taken away captive. He's given the option to do whatever he wants. And you know, the Bible even says, when a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. And so God has miraculously worked here in the hearts of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebizar Adan, and these other men to give Jeremiah his freedom and to let him do whatever he wants. And so he's being blessed while everyone else is being cursed and everyone else is suffering. Now, if you study the life of Jeremiah, he's been through a lot of bad things up to this point. Over the last several chapters, we've seen him in and out of prison. And those prisons were in various degrees of punishment. Some of them, he was just kind of on house arrest. And then at one time he was down in a pit of mire, literally like the whole of an outhouse where he's just sinking down in the mire in a disgusting situation with no food to eat. Now, the prosperity preachers of this world, they teach that if you serve the Lord and do what's right, bad things are not going to happen to you. God's gonna bless you. Everything's gonna be great. You're gonna be healthy and wealthy and prosperous. And they drive fancy cars and wear fancy jewelry. And they try to tell you that if you serve the Lord, everything's gonna go great. This is the health and wealth gospel or the prosperity gospel. The prosperity preachers of this world. Now, as in just about every lie and just about every false doctrine, there's always some truth in it mixed in, but then there's poison mixed in as well that turns the whole thing sour. So the health and wealth prosperity gospel is a lie because the Bible teaches that many are the afflictions of the righteous. The Bible says that unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. And so we have been called to a life of suffering and to go through afflictions and trials and tribulations. But the truth in that is that the Bible says many are the afflictions of the righteous, but out of them all, the Lord delivers him. If you think about a guy like Job, for example, God blessed the latter end of Job more than he had the first. Job in the end was blessed and prosperous and everything was great, but he had to go through a lot of trials along the way. So the truth of the matter is that yes, God will bless us for doing right. God will reward us. We are going to prosper. We are gonna be blessed. The Bible says mark the perfect man for the end of that man is peace. But what the health and wealth prosperity gospel forgets are all the trials and tribulations and hard times that you go through along the way. In the end, you're gonna be blessed. In the end, God will take care of you. In the end, you're gonna prosper. And when you look back over your life, you're gonna be able to say, Jesus led me all the way. And you're gonna look back at everything and see how everything worked together for good to you because you loved God and because you are the called according to his purpose. And so now Jeremiah is at that point in his life where he's given money and food, he's given his freedom, he can live wherever he wants, but he's paid his dues to get to that point. He's earned it by suffering and going through hard times and so forth. So we need to get that balance because the health and wealth prosperity gospel crowds wrong, but then a lot of times, because we're reacting to that lie, we might lose sight of the fact that God does bless our obedience and God will prosper us and God will bless us. But we need to understand that there's a timeline here of first suffering, then being blessed, being afflicted and then being delivered out of the affliction. And so Jeremiah's life is a great example of that. Now look in the end of verse one, it says, he was bound in chains along, he was bound in chains among all that were carried away captive of Jerusalem and Judah, which were carried away captive unto Babylon. Verse two, and the captain of the guard took Jeremiah and said to him, the Lord thy God hath pronounced this evil upon this place. And the thing I want to point out here is that when God talks about the place, obviously he's talking about the people that are in that place. You know, when the Bible says for God so loved the world, obviously he's not talking about the earth itself as a planet, as dirt, but actually he's talking about the people in the world, when he says God so loved the world, or when the Bible talks about the city and so forth, we're talking about the people throughout the Bible, this is true. And the reason I point that out is that there are people today with a false doctrine known as Zionism that teaches basically that the Jews are God's chosen people and God's gonna bless those who bless them and curse those who curse them. And that in them, all the nations of the earth are gonna be blessed through the Jews. That's a false doctrine that's out there. Now the true story is that God promised Abraham that he would bless those who bless Abraham and curse those who curse Abraham, and that in Abraham, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And it says in Galatians chapter three, that to Abraham and to his seed were the promises made. Now, the way that most people have misinterpreted this is to think that the seed of Abraham is referring to his physical descendants, and then they apply that to the Jews. Whereas the Bible's real clear in Galatians chapter three, he sayeth not to seeds as of many, but as of one, he said to thy seed, which is Christ. And the Bible says, if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. That's spoken to the Galatians. These are not Jews, these are Gentiles. He says to them, if you are Christ's, then you're Abraham's seed. And you are heirs according to the promise. What does it mean to be an heir? An heir is someone who receives an inheritance. We as Christians inherit the promises made to Abraham. All the promises made to Abraham are inherited by believers on the Lord Jesus Christ. None of the promises made to Abraham are inherited by Christ rejecting Israel. That's why Jesus said to them in John chapter eight, I know that ye be Abraham's seed, but ye seek to kill me. He said, this did not Abraham. He said, you do the deeds of your father. And if you were the children of Abraham, he said, you would do the works of Abraham, but you do that which you've seen with your father. He said, you're of your father, the devil. And that's why John the Baptist preached the exact same thing when he said, think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father. For I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. But according to these Zionists, he can't make children of Abraham of black people or white people or Chinese people or Koreans. Look, if he can make stone of the stones, children unto Abraham, then he can make red, yellow, black and white children of Abraham, right? Because of the fact that if you're in Christ, you're Abraham. See, he's the father of all of them that believe, the Bible says in Romans chapter four, that he might be the father of them, all of them that believe not of the circumcision only, but also of the uncircumcision. Romans two teaches that in verses 28 and 29, Romans four, whole chapter, Galatians three, whole chapter, Galatians four. I mean, over and over again, the Bible teaches this doctrine that we, as Isaac was, are the children of the promise. And that as it was then, so it is now that the children that were born after the flesh, they persecuted the children of promise. That's why in the book of Acts, you see the Jews persecuting the Christians, because the Jews are the children of Abraham, according to the flesh, and the Christians are the spiritual children of Abraham and so forth. But what's interesting is that because there are so many scriptures that condemn the Jewish people for rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ and for not acknowledging him as the Messiah, and even going so far as to say that they're anti-Christ, who is a liar, but he that denyeth that Jesus is the Christ, he's anti-Christ, who denyeth the father and the son. So whoever denyeth the son, the same hath not the father, but he that acknowledges the son hath the father also. So people who just really wanna cling to this Zionist doctrine, they're emotional about it, they're kind of sentimental about it even, would be a way to describe it. It's almost like a sports team that they root for, they wanna get the newspaper, they wanna get the sports page and root for, I don't know, the Phoenix Suns or whatever, and then they wanna get the world news page and kinda root for the Israelis versus the Palestinians. You know what I mean? It's kinda their team that they're rooting for. They get emotional about it and it really has no basis in scripture. Zero basis. So when you start pointing out scripture saying that the Jews are under the curse of God, the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost and that because they don't believe in Jesus Christ, God's wrath is abiding on them and how they're not the children of Abraham and how those branches have been broken off and you can go on and on with all the different scripts to show them this. They're always looking for some way to still kinda hang on to something. There's just something though. It reminds me of Esau when he's crying and saying like, don't you have some blessing for me too, my father? Is there not a blessing left for me? It's like, isn't there just some little blessing for, no, no, if you don't have Jesus, you got nothing. There's no blessing for you, there's nothing left. It's all been given unto thy brother. Who's better than thou, who believed on Christ and who has been grafted in. Now, but this is what I've heard lately. Well, okay, those people, they reject Christ, they're in disobedience and by the way, they don't just reject Christ, they hate Christ. They despise him and they say, well, okay, they're bad but I've heard this, but it's the land. It's like God loves the land. You know, he's gonna bless it for the land's sake. Like he just loved like, I love thy rocks and hills, you know, like God just somehow just loves that geography over there. Okay, but what's funny is right here, he said, well, at the end of verse two, the Lord thy God pronounced evil upon this place. So, you know, God can turn on that place, right? It's not like, well, God's just always gonna bless that place. I mean, if we could just get in that place, we'll be blessed, right? I mean, you could take a bunch of Christ-rejecting Polish people and put them in that place and they can change their name from Berzinski and Lebinski. They can change it to Ben Yehuda and Ben-Gurion. All those guys, all those guys who founded Israel, look up what their real name is, Kaczynski, Kapowski, Berzinski, but then they put on these names, Ben-Gurion, you know, Ben Yehuda, Ben whatever, you know, and then they show up, but because they're in that land, they're magically blessed just by virtue of being in that land and wearing a funny hat. But it's amazing how the Palestinians aren't blessed by being there. Even the Palestinians who believe on Jesus, they're not blessed somehow. But if you reject Jesus, put on thick glasses, have a funny beard, have strings coming out your pants, you know, suddenly you are the chosen one. You are suddenly blessed. Look, that is a false doctrine. Look, that place doesn't just have a carte blanche where whoever lives there is gonna be blessed or well, God just has a special dealing with that place. Well, God at this time pronounced evil on that place. He said, this place is gonna have bad things happening in it. I'm cursing this place, why? Verse three, he said, now the Lord has brought it and done according as he had said, because ye have sinned against the Lord and have not obeyed his voice, therefore this thing has come upon you. You see, if the American people will disobey the Lord's voice and sin against God, then this place is cursed. You know, Phoenix, Arizona is gonna be cursed if the people disobey the Lord and break his commandments and don't believe on Jesus Christ. And Israel is cursed today, not blessed. It's cursed because the people over there hate the Lord. And most of the Palestinians are Muslims, so they don't believe that Jesus is the son of God. They're not trusting Christ, their savior either, most of them. And then you've got the Jews over there spitting three times at the name of Christ every time they utter it. And these two groups of people, neither one of them is righteous. Neither one of them is my friend. Neither one of them would I want to team up with or yoke up with, because the Bible says, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What part hath, you know, Christ with Belial? I mean, what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And the Jew is an infidel. He doesn't believe in Christ. The Muslim is an infidel. He doesn't believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as a savior. So I can't have fellowship or communion with both. Now I'll love both and preach the gospel to both. You know, I would present the gospel to both if they'll listen. I don't hate them in my heart or wish them that they ill or death, I would wish them to be saved. As Paul said, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. I want them to be saved. But they're not my friend, they're not my ally, because my ally and my friend and my brother is gonna have to be somebody who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way I can have any fellowship or communion or get yoked up with anyone. We have to be equally yoked, not unequally yoked. So I'm not gonna get involved in that fight. I'm not gonna get involved in that struggle. I have no dog in that fight. And neither should you as a Bible-believing Christian. You speak against the Jews and their lies and then people come at you and say, oh, you're pro-Palestinian or you're for the Muslims. But here's the thing, I have no dog in that fight. You say, well, you wore a shirt one time that said free Palestine. Well, I want everybody to be free. I believe in freedom for everyone, including the Palestinians. I believe that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. And among these are life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, right? So yeah, let everyone be free in this world. Why not be for freedom? And especially for the Palestinians who believe on Jesus Christ, I'm for them. And I want them to be blessed and I want them to be free and to be able to prosper and serve the Lord and win souls and so on and so forth. So that place can be cursed just like any other place. God said, I'm gonna bring evil upon this place. It's sort of like when he said in Genesis that he would curse the ground for the sake of mankind that had committed so much violence in the earth and so forth. So the Bible said, now the Lord has brought it and done according as he had said, because you've sinned against the Lord and have not obeyed his voice. Therefore, this thing has come upon you. And now behold, I lose thee this day from the chains which were upon thine hand. If it seemed good unto thee to come with me into Babylon, come and I will look well unto thee. But if it seemed ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, forbear, forbear means don't do it. Behold, all the land is before thee, whither it seemeth good and convenient for thee to go, thither go. Verse five, now while he was not yet gone back, he said, go back also to Gedaliah, the son of Ahicham, the son of Shaphan whom the king of Babylon hath made governor over the cities of Judah and dwell with him among the people or go wheresoever it seemeth convenient unto thee to go. So the captain of the guard gave him vittles, vittles is food and a reward and let him go. Then went Jeremiah unto Gedaliah, the son of Ahicham to Mizpah and dwelt with him among the people that were left in the land. So the people that are left in the land are the poor people, people who didn't own anything, people who didn't really have anything going for them. All of the important people have either been killed or they've been taken, carried away, captive into Babylon in chains. Well, the king of Babylon has put a man named Gedaliah in charge as the governor of this region to take care of the people that are still there to keep the peace, to keep law and order so that there would be a leader. This is the aftermath of their defeat. It says in verse seven, now when all the captains of the forces which were in the fields, this is the army of Israel, of Judah, that has been scattered and they've been defeated and they're just kinda out in the field, not sure what's gonna happen next. It says when the captains of the forces which were in the fields, even they and their men heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah, the son of Ahicham governor in the land and had committed unto him, men and women, committed means entrusted with, put them in his care or in his keeping, and had committed unto him men and women and children and of the poor of the land, of them that were not carried away captive to Babylon. Then they came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, even Ishmael the son of Netheniah and Johanan and Jonathan, the sons of Korea, and Sariah, the son of Tanumeth and the sons of Ephith and Tophithite and Jazaniah, the son of Emmaacathite, they and their men. And Gedaliah, the son of Ahicham, the son of Shaphan, swear unto them and to their men. Now when it says he swear unto them, it doesn't mean that he just started cussing a blues freak. When the Bible says swear, it means to promise or make an oath. So he promises them or makes an oath unto them. It says the governor Gedaliah to all the military men who were scattered out in the field, they're the defeated army, they come back to him, he swears unto them and says, fear not to serve the Chaldeans, dwell in the land and serve the king of Babylon and it shall be well with you. Basically he's offering them an amnesty, saying, look, you've been an enemy combatant, you were fighting against the Chaldeans, the Chaldeans have won, we've been defeated, we no longer have any sovereignty as a nation, we are under the power of the Chaldeans. I'm in charge now, I'm the governor, and if you men will just get on board with the new government, the new regime, and serve the Chaldeans, you don't have anything to fear, everything's gonna be fine and you can serve the Chaldeans and it shall be well with you and he's swearing to them, everything will be fine if you do that. Verse 10, as for me, Gedaliah the governor says, as for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah to serve the Chaldeans which will come unto us, but you gather ye wine and summer fruits and oil and put them in your vessels and dwell in your cities that you've taken. So he's saying, just enjoy life, if the fighting's over, the battle's over, it's not the end of the world, everything's gonna be fine, we're going forward, you've got cities to dwell in, pick some summer fruit, get some wine, enjoy life, relax, take it easy. Verse 11, likewise when all the Jews that were in Moab and among the Ammonites and in Edom that were in all the countries heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah and that he had set over them Gedaliah, the son of Ahicham, the son of Shaphan, even all the Jews returned out of all places whether they were driven and came to the land of Judah to Gedaliah and to Mizpah and gathered wine and summer fruits very much. So everybody hears about how there's a government in place, order has been restored, there's an amnesty to the Jews that are left, all they have to do is just come on home, dwell in the cities, go to work, gather your food, everything's gonna be fine, fear not, the war's over, everybody's forgiven, we're gonna just live our lives and serve the king of Babylon and everything's gonna be great. Now here's the problem here though, this all looks great, it looks like, hey, this wasn't so bad, there was a battle, people were killed, our leaders were killed, the king had his eyes poked out, but those were wicked guys anyway. Jeremiah's off the hook, average Joe in the land is gonna be okay. He's got a house to dwell in, he's got summer fruits and he might even be able to move into a bigger house since a lot of people are dead and gone and removed. So everything looks like it's gonna be great but what you have to remember is that earlier in the book of Jeremiah, God had cursed all these people because they were all wicked, they were all sinning against the Lord. It wasn't just the leaders. Many scriptures talked about how even the common man was living in wickedness at this time. Everybody was guilty from the least to the greatest and Jeremiah's preaching against their sin and all demographics were living in wickedness. So this seems like it's just a little too easy for the poor of the land to get off and for the groups that had been scattered to get off to just kind of come home days or weeks or months later and dwell in the land and enjoy the summer. Because remember God said that there was gonna be a major captivity and a time of destruction that would last how long? Yeah, has it been 70 years? No, so it seems like here, God's word isn't really coming to pass because God said they're all gonna be wiped out, they're all gonna be destroyed and he even said even the remnant, even the remnant that's left is gonna be cursed and destroyed. Here it seems like everything's going great, right? But of course, because we know what God said earlier in the book, we know this isn't gonna work, this isn't gonna last, this isn't gonna go well. Look at verse number 13. Moreover, Johen and the son of Korea and all the captains of the forces that were in the fields came to get Elijah and Mizpah and said unto him, does thou certainly know that Baaless, the king of the Ammonites has sent Ishmael, the son of Netheniah to slay thee? That was one of the guys that was listed earlier as dwelling in the land. But Gedaliah, the son of Ahicham believed them not. Then Johen and the son of Korea spake to Gedaliah and Mizpah secretly saying, let me go I pray thee and I will slay Ishmael, the son of Netheniah and no man shall know it. Wherefore should he slay thee? That all the Jews which are gathered under thee should be scattered and the remnant in Judah, Paris. So this guy right here who we're gonna see later is a very wicked man. We don't really know that about him yet, but later on we're gonna see that this is a very wicked man, Johen and the son of Korea. He says, well, let's just preemptively kill this guy. I know that this guy Ishmael is a traitor. I wanna get to him before he gets to you. Why? Because he doesn't want this good thing that they've got going, he doesn't want it to end. He said, I don't want the Jews to be scattered. Look, God already said they're gonna be scattered as a punishment. But he says, no, no, no, I wanna keep all the Jews here. You know, I'm a Zionist. It doesn't matter how sinful or wicked or you know, unbelieving they are and how mad they made the Lord. We're gonna keep them here. And so he tries to do this, but Gedaliah, the son of Ahicham verse 16 said unto Johen and the son of Korea, thou shall not do this thing for thou speak as falsely of Ishmael. So this man Gedaliah is a little bit naive, especially because if you look at the next chapter, look at verse two of chapter 41, then arose Ishmael, the son of Netheniah and the 10 men that were with him and smote Gedaliah, the son of Ahicham, the son of Shaphan with the sword and slew him whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land. So it doesn't really take a huge host or a huge army to defeat Gedaliah. He's a little bit too naive. Everything's gonna be great. Just pick more summer fruits. Just drink another bottle of wine. Fear not, everything's gonna be great. And he's so unguarded and unprotected that 10 guys just pretty much just waltz in and just slaughter him and the people around him. And he didn't really see that coming. And he's kind of just assuming that everybody's good and nice. And he doesn't realize that yeah, this guy was really hired as a hit man to kill him. But honestly, the reason that the Lord allowed all this to happen is to fulfill his word and his punishment on them. Because if Gedaliah could have stayed in power, everything was gonna go well. But the problem is when the king of Babylon puts Gedaliah in charge, you don't murder the guy who the king of Babylon put in charge. I mean, think about it. The king of Babylon has said this guy's in charge, obey him as he obeys me. By attacking him, in a sense, it's as if they're rebelling against the Chaldeans themselves rebelling against Babylon itself. That's the way it's gonna look. So this is gonna destroy all their plans. This is gonna destroy their hope of having a Jewish nation that's sort of just under the power of the king of Babylon. That goes out the window now. Because now they have made themselves to stink in the nostrils of the king of Babylon because when he hears about how they murdered his governor and sure, they can blame him and say, oh, it was this other guy. Well, why didn't you stop him? Why didn't you protect him? Why'd you let this happen? The vengeance of the Babylonians is gonna come down on them because they've murdered their governor. Someone has, and they don't care who. So that's why this guy, Johanan, he didn't want this to happen, but it happened because it had to happen. And so the moral of the story when we read this chapter is that, you know, if God is out to get you, you're doomed. You know, there's nothing you could do to escape. You know, if God's mad and he wants to punish you and he says that something bad's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. No matter how much you protect yourself or no matter how many safeguards you put up to try to make sure that it's not gonna happen, it will happen. If we wanna be blessed by God, we gotta do what's right. And if we do evil, we should be sure that our sin will find us out and that God is going to bring evil upon us. And it doesn't matter what land we live in. God can bring evil upon this place just as much as he can bring it upon that place or any other place. The United States is not exempt. Judah is not exempt. Israel is not exempt. Without faith, it's impossible to please him. You know, those who are dwelling in Israel today because they lack faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, it's impossible for them to please God. God is not pleased with them. God's wrath is on them. And in the United States of America today, we're living in a nation that by and large is a wicked nation, but there is a righteous remnant. Obviously, those who believe on Jesus and not just those who believe on Jesus, but those who actually follow the Bible that live in accordance with the commandments of God, not those who are just living a sinful and worldly life. Believing on Jesus Christ, but bringing forth no fruit and not living according to his precepts or anything like that. But those who actually believe in Christ, and not only that, but they take it a step further and they go to church and they raise their families and children and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. You know, that's a righteous remnant in America right now that I believe is the reason why America has not yet been destroyed because of that righteous remnant. Where God was looking for a certain amount of righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah, and if he found it, he won't destroy it. So I believe that God is allowing things to continue at this time in America, even with all the wickedness. You say, well, what wickedness are you talking about? Well, you know, if you don't know, you're probably, either you just got saved an hour ago or you've never read the Bible or you haven't looked around. But our country is pretty much indulging in most sins that the Bible even brings up, right? I mean, we see murder everywhere. Abortion is a perfect example of just murder, so much murder, adultery, fornication, right? Fornication is when people sleep together when they're not married. There's all kinds of theft going on. We have a corrupt government, okay? We have blasphemy going on. We have false religion abounding. We have persecution of believers. We have all these different things going on in America. The sodomites just out and proud and that agenda being promoted by our government and even even praised from the White House and praised from all levels of government. You know, when we see all this wickedness, we have to understand that the reason why God is withholding his judgment at this time is because God is long suffering to us, word, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So God allows time to go on for us as God's people to be out winning souls and doing works for him and reaching people with the gospel before it's too late. I don't believe we can turn this country around at all. It's too late. It's doomed. And I could prove that from the Bible many different ways, why our country is irreparably doomed, but we can still reach the individuals and we can reach multitudes of individuals. We can win many thousands of people to Christ, even millions of people to Christ over the next few decades. And so as long as we are here, and as long as we are doing that and God looks down and he sees that we're winning people to Christ, he wants that to continue because he wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And that's why he's long suffering to us, word, okay. And that has to do with that verse in context is talking about the final judgment, but that could also be applied that same principle to other judgments leading up to that. And so God wants people to be saved. So if we're going out and getting a bunch of people saved, God's gonna give us some leeway to get that done before the hammer drops. Okay, but let's say the Christians in America are not doing soul winning. Then God's attitude could look down and be like, well, they're not really doing anything anyway. No additional people are getting saved anyway. I need to bring this wickedness to an end. I'm gonna bring judgment and punishment upon this nation that once had the truth and now has turned away from the truth and turned to all this wickedness and so on. So we wanna make sure that we're serving the Lord and winning people to Christ and making it worth God's while to withhold his hand of judgment. But when the judgment eventually comes, as it did eventually come here on Jerusalem, let us be found like Jeremiah. And we can have the assurance of knowing that God is gonna take care of us and bless us. Now, are some people going to be killed for Christ? Yes, a small minority will be killed for Christ, will go to prison. The Bible says the devil shall cast some of you into prison that you may be tried. It doesn't say the devil's gonna cast all of you into prison. But going to prison for Christ is an honor. Being killed for Christ is a glorious death, okay? For those people for whom that is the will of God. But most of the time, God delivers his people from death. Most of the time God protects us. And most of the time we'll end up like a Jeremiah where our chains are being loosed when other people around us are suffering and being enslaved. God could work it out for us to be spared. God can work it out to where the wrath does not come upon us. It only comes upon the others around us in this wicked nation. So, you know, I don't, I can't really pray, I can't really get on my knees and pray, oh God, please spare America. Because it's, I mean, how can you even say that with a straight face? If you know the Bible, if you understand God's word, if you understand what God is like and what he's done in the past and who he is and what our country is like, it's ridiculous. It's nonsense to get on. Oh God, bless America? It's almost a joke. It's like, oh God, please bless Sodom. Bless, God, would you please bless the devil? It gets stupid at some point, right? So, you know, you can't really pray for God's blessing upon our nation because, you know, I don't know about you, when I pray, I want my prayers to be answered. I don't wanna just go through some kind of an exercise or a vain repetition, so I'm not gonna pray something that I know can't happen. So if I'm gonna pray for America, which I do, what I pray is I would pray, God, please allow us to live a quiet and peaceable life so that we can raise our families and preach the gospel and win as many souls as possible before the end comes. So I pray that God would give us the opportunity and the tools to do great works for God in America today. I don't pray for God to bless America, but I will pray for God to allow us to do great works and win people to Christ and I do pray that the preaching of God's word would go forth, that every person in the United States would get a chance to hear a clear presentation of the gospel and that they would get a chance to accept or reject the gospel. But you know, God blessing America is probably not even the best thing for America because the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. I mean, it's like the more God blesses America, the more America is gonna think that they can just continue to spit in his face. You know, if anything, maybe we should pray for hard times to come, you know. Now, I don't wanna go through hard times. I don't think you wanna go through hard times, but you know what? If God has to bring hard times on America, I mean, maybe that's what we need. Let his will be done. You know, we know not how to pray as we ought, but the Holy Spirit makes intercession with groanings, which we can't even utter. So the point is, you know, I pray for that and then I also pray, Lord, when your judgment does come, spare us. You know what I mean? Spare the members of Faithful Word Baptist Church. You know, or spare our area or spare our region. Spare my family, spare your family. You know, spare those who love you, Lord. Don't destroy the righteous with the wicked. Because sometimes it gets to a point where God just can't bless it. He can't withhold his judgment like in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, but what God could do was pull a lot out. That was something that he could do. And so we could pray for that kind of mercy where God will keep us safe in our own little Goshen while the Egyptians are, you know, drinking blood and going through all the horrific plagues. We can be in our own little Goshen where God protects us, you know, like Jeremiah. And what's interesting, Jeremiah is one of the Jews. I mean, he's of their own nationality. He's of the Jews. But even though God's bringing his judgment upon the Jews, Jeremiah is spared. What's interesting too is that it's the world, even the world, Nebazar Adan, right, who's not one of God's people, he as an outsider is telling Jeremiah, you guys have sinned against the Lord. You guys are wicked. And that goes to show that people even outside of Christianity or outside of our church, even they can recognize when we're living in sin, when we're not even obeying our own Bible. You know, we're not even obeying our own religion. And that's a bad testimony to them. And they see that and they notice that. So we need to understand that our country's doomed, but that doesn't mean that that's something that we should be depressed about. I mean, I'm not depressed about it. You know, burn, baby, burn. Why would I be depressed about it? I mean, look, if God has a judgment in store for a wicked nation, you know, that's nothing for me to interfere with or get involved with or be depressed about. Look, I'm encouraged because I know that I'm not of this world. Amen. You know what I mean? And that's what we need. We need to get to a point where we separate ourselves in our mind from just being a part of this corporate, like we're America. You know, I'm to the point where it's like, well, no, I'm a Christian, right? I'm a fundamental Baptist, you know? I am a soul winner. I am one of God's children. And you know what? I'm not of this world. My citizenship is not in America. My citizenship is in heaven. And so we're in the world, but we're not of the world. So here's the thing. We don't have to bite our fingernails and worry and fret. Oh, man, our country's so wicked and God's gonna destroy it. You know what? Amen. Is the way I feel about it. He has to, if he has to judge it, if he has to destroy it, amen. You know, and let's just, but here's the thing. Right now we have peace. Right now we have prosperity. Let's make the most of it. And let's use every opportunity to preach the gospel, to get people saved, to raise our children and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and to win as many people in the Lord as possible so that number one, God can give us latitude so that we can continue to do that and get as many people saved as possible. And number two, so that when the judgment finally does come, he'll spare us like he spared Jeremiah. That's all I want out of life. You know, I'm not gonna sit here and pray this impossible prayer. God, don't judge America. Bless America. He can't. He would have to become a totally different person than who he is. And God never changes. He's the same yesterday and today and forever. So cheer up. In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. Christ has overcome the world. Live your life. Eat your summer fruits. Have children. Raise your children. Win souls to Christ. And you know what, just don't worry about it because God can protect you just like he protected Jeremiah. We can be safe. We can be blessed. It might not play out exactly the way that we want it to. We might be sentimental about America or sentimental about Israel or sentimental about something else, but we ought to just get sentimental about Jesus and just be happy with that. Christ is all I need. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for your protection and your provision, Lord. Thank you for showing us the life of a man like Jeremiah where we could see an example of someone who was part of a crooked and perverse nation. And in his heart, he felt bad for that nation and he kept going to you in prayer and begging you not to destroy it, but you kept on telling him to quit praying and that he was wasting his time. Lord, help us understand that we as individuals can be spared. We can be blessed. We can prosper. We can do well. We can do great works for you and see people saved. Lord, help us not to attach ourselves too closely to this doomed ship that we're sailing on. Lord, help us to just get our security and our identity from you, Lord, and not from worldly affiliations. Help us to just be affiliated with your word. And in Jesus' name, we pray, amen. Amen.