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

the national guard for the first time in U.S. history. The protests continue facing criticism this morning from Donald Trump's campaign and religious conservatives for proclaiming March 31st, which corresponds with Easter Sunday this year, as Transgender Day of Visibility. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We are going to reference that chapter several times throughout the sermon this evening. So on this Independence Day, on this 4th of July, I'm preaching a special sermon tonight. The title of the sermon is America. And what I'm going to do tonight is I'm going to answer three questions for you regarding this country that we live in. The three questions are, we're on the 4th of July today. That is the celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was actually voted on on the 2nd. And just kind of a little tidbit for you, there was a big argument for many years between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson on whether or not the Independence Day would be July 4th or July 2nd. And it's interesting because these two men, they weren't really friendly in their younger years when they were in the time of the Revolution. But later on in life, before, in their final years of their lives, they did become friends. And it's interesting, of course, Jefferson won out. We do celebrate the 4th of July. John Adams was adamant that it was the 2nd because that was the actual vote that took place in the Continental Congress. But Jefferson won out. But the interesting thing is that both of these men, who are the 2nd and 3rd presidents of the United States, died on exactly the same day, which is July 4th, 1826. So it's just kind of an interesting story there and the foundation of our country. But I'm going to answer three questions for you. I'm going to give you some perspective tonight, give you some perspective on our country. Three questions are, I'm going to read these questions off for you, and then I'm going to tell you how I'm going to attack these questions. But you're going to keep your place in Deuteronomy chapter 28. We're going to look at that chapter in other places, referencing what God thinks of nations and how God reacts to nations and how God manages nations in Deuteronomy chapter 28. But the three questions are this. The first question is, can I love America and be a Christian? That's the first question. The second question is, was America founded as a Christian nation? And the third question is, what does it mean to be a patriot today? A lot of people throw that word out there, and I want to show you what it actually means to be a patriot today. Now I'm going to kind of do things in an opposite order here. I'm not going to answer the first question first. The first shall be last tonight, all right? In this sermon, I'm going to answer the first question, can I love America and be a Christian? I'm going to answer that question last this evening. What I want to do is I want to go back to the beginning, and I want to talk about America, the foundation, that time of the Revolutionary War, that time. Who are these people that fought to be independent of England and form this very unique government that we have? It's a very unique situation that happened in the 18th century, and not to rabbit trail the sermon before I even get started, but a lot of people, you hear people throw the word revolution around a lot today and even in the past, but many times, as a matter of fact, I would argue most times throughout history, revolutions did not produce something that was a desirable result, all right? If you could just look at a couple examples, just a few years after the American Revolution, you had somebody across the ocean in Europe try to do the same thing in their country, the French Revolution, and it turned into a murderous assault on multiple different groups of people, and they traded a king for a military dictator in the end, all right? That's when Napoleon took over, and then we've got all kinds of other revolutions you can look at just in the last, in the 20th century. The Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, 1918 in Russia, led to, you know, the murder of tens of millions, you know, 50, 60 million people in the coming years. So, not every revolution has a great result that comes out of it. So, before you say, well, you know, revolution, like, just, just, but what happened in the American Revolution was unique, and I want to show that to you tonight. I want to tell you why that was, why that was unique, but let's look at this second question. Was America founded as a Christian nation? Now, before I even start, and we go into that question, this is not a sermon about current problems in the United States today, because there are many, and we are very aware, as Bible-believing Christians, what the problems are in this country. This is simply to give you perspective on America as a Christian and answer these three questions for you. So, let's go back to the beginning. We're going to ask, answer the first question last, but was America founded as a Christian nation? I'm sure you've heard this debate before. You've probably heard different sides to this story. Look, I'm going to give you the two sides of this question, and then I'm going to tell you the truth tonight. I'm going to tell you what it actually was, all right? There's two sides to was America founded as a Christian nation. The first side is this. The first side is pushed by a lot of evangelicals. I don't know if you've heard of David Barton, people along these lines, that, you know, the first side of this, the answer of this question is that, yes, the founders were mostly Christians. I mean, that's the side that is pushed by evangelicals today, the David Barton crowd. Many books have been written on this, and I'm going to tell you why books have been written on this and why it's pretty easy to write a book about these things too. I mean, they pushed this idea that not only was America intended to be a Christian nation, but most of the founders themselves were Christians. You know, the founders were Christians, all right? And look, it's very easy to back this up because most of the founders, the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, the people in the Continental Congress, the people that wrote the Federalist Papers, I don't know if you've ever read those. You should if you haven't, if you live in this country. Many of those people have written, they wrote so many things that it's pretty easy to understand what they feel about most things, all right? Some of them didn't write a lot about religion, but most of them wrote something about what they felt about religion. I'm just going to give you some quotes from some founders, and I tried to pick some ones that maybe you haven't heard of. I'm sure you've heard of this guy, but I'm going to get into some obscure ones as well. Here's Alexander Hamilton, all right? Alexander Hamilton, who was, you know, one of the founders. He was the Treasury Secretary under George Washington. He was involved since the beginning, all right? He was one of the authors of the Federalist Papers along with John Jay and James Madison. He was one of the authors of that group of, you know, the Federalist Papers was a, they were papers that were put out in newspapers to get people convinced to move from the Articles of Confederation to adopt the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, all right? So the Federalist Papers were pushing for the Constitution, what we know today, as our law of the land, which is the Constitution of the United States, all right? Alexander Hamilton, let me give you a few quotes here. He says, I have tender, before his death, he died, of course, in this famous duel between him and Aaron Burr. He was actually shot in a duel. Before his death, he said this, I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, that, I mean, I don't know, that sounds pretty Christian to me, all right? Samuel Adams, Samuel Adams, he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and one of the people that was very involved in the American Revolution. As governor of Massachusetts, he said this, quote, it is our duty to extend our wishes to the happiness of the great family of man. I conceive that we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the supreme ruler of the world, that the rod of tyrants may be broken to pieces and the oppressed made free again, that wars may season all the earth, and that the confusions that are and have been among nations may be overruled by promoting and speedily bringing on the holy and happy period when the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and that all people everywhere willingly bow to the scepter of Him who is the Prince of Peace, all right? I mean, aside from his end times and whatever he was going after there, I mean, obviously, he looks at Jesus Christ as king. John Quincy Adams, who was the sixth U.S. president, son of John Adams, wrote this, the hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever believes in the divine inspiration of the holy scriptures must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth. Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of the Bible proceed and prosper to the Lord shall have made, and then he quotes exactly Isaiah 52 10, where he says, shall the Lord have made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God, quotes it from the King James Bible, which is the Bible that they had at that time, all right? They didn't have 150 corrupt Bibles at this time, thank God. Roger Sherman, you've probably never heard of him, signer of a deck, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution itself said this, he said, I believe that there's only one living and true God existing in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I believe that God, having elected some of mankind to eternal life, maybe a little Calvinist here, did send his own son to become man, die in the room instead of sinners, and thus lay a foundation for the offer of pardon and salvation to all mankind, so as all may be saved who are willing to accept the gospel offer, also by his special grace and spirit to regenerate, sanctify, and enable to persevere in holiness, all who shall be saved, and to procure in consequence of their repentance and faith in himself, their justification by virtue of his atonement as the only meritorious cause, right? Yeah, it's got a little Calvinist tone there, but still, you know, pointing to Jesus as the only way to heaven. John Jay, one of my favorites, John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, also one of the authors of the Federalist Papers, wrote tons, he wrote a lot, there's a lot that you can read from John Jay, wrote this, by conveying the Bible to people, thus circumstance, we certainly do them a most interesting kindness. We thereby enable them to learn that man was originally created and placed in a state of happiness, but becoming disobedient was subjected to the degradation and evils, which he and his posterity have since experienced. The Bible will also inform them that our gracious creator has provided for us a redeemer, in whom all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, that this redeemer has made atonement for the sins of the whole world, and thereby reconciling divine justice with divine mercy has opened a way for our redemption and salvation, and that these inestimable benefits are of the free gift and grace of God, not of our deserving, nor in our power to deserve. And then he writes this in another, I thought this was another great quote from John Jay, informing and setting my belief relative to the doctrines of Christianity, I adopt no articles from creeds, but such as and only on careful examination that I found them to be confirmed by the Bible. Look, there's many, many, many others, I could just read and read and read and read and read to you. So this question of were the founders Christians, let me just, first of all, was this a Christian nation? Were the founders Christian? We're looking at the first view of this, you know, the evangelical view today, this is what they use, quotes from the founders. The problem with saying it were the founders Christian is this, is Fresno a Christian city? What's the answer to that question? Is Fresno a Christian city? The answer to that question is it's an invalid question because a city is not Christian. An individual is Christian. Salvation is an individual thing. It is an individual game. Salvation is not collective. We just read through Deuteronomy 28 and that was talking about nations. Nations are different than individuals. Salvation is individual, folks. A group cannot truly be considered Christian because there could be in the term that we consider Christian. We consider Christians to be people who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, have put their total faith and trust on him and him alone, that's what the Bible believing Baptist considers Christian. But the problem is this, the definition of Christian, especially to evangelicals today like David Barton and people that have written a lot of these books, their definition of Christian is broad. It is broad. It is anybody that claims to, you know, believe any part of the Bible, believe the morals of the Bible, anybody that claims, you know, the name of Jesus in any way, shape, or form. I mean, almost all founders of this country had Christian religious sounding statements that they said. And the reason is because that was the overwhelming philosophy of the day. Thomas Jefferson, who I don't think anyone could reasonably argue, maybe he got saved on his deathbed or the last few days or weeks of his life or whatever, but I don't think anybody would argue that Thomas Jefferson was saved. He openly did not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. He just did not believe it. Him, Benjamin Franklin, they wrote many things. But look, look at this. Here's a quote from Thomas Jefferson. It said, God who gave us liberty and can the liberties, God who gave us life gave us liberty and can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God, that they are not to be violated, but with his wrath. Indeed, he's actually talking about the sin that the nation was still in of slavery at this point when he makes this next statement. And he says this. He says, indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot sleep forever. So he believed in God. He believed in the God of the Bible. He believed in the philosophy of the Bible. But the Bible is not a philosophical book. The Bible is God's truth to man. And, you know, Thomas Jefferson also said, I am a real Christian. That is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ. He looked at Jesus Christ. If you've read more about Thomas Jefferson, you can sum him up this way. He looked at Jesus Christ as the best philosopher out there. That's how he looked at Jesus. He looked at the doctrines and the teachings of Jesus as an expert Socrates type of thing. He was a student of philosophy. Benjamin Franklin had a similar view. He said this. He said, here's my creed. I believe in one God, the creator of the universe, that he governs it by his providence and that he ought to be worshiped. As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of who you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw or is likely to see. But I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity. And he goes on and he talks about, look, these types of Christians at that time, they're very similar to people. If you've ever been out soul winning, people are just like, I'm against organized religion. Maybe those types of people have been, they were in a church, maybe they're in some kind of really culty Pentecostal church, or there you go, beating up on the Pentecostals again. But they were in some church teaching false doctrine, and they're just shut off to all religion, meaning they're not even going to find the true religion. Unfortunately, they've been damaged to the point, and that's what the Church of England, the Anglican Church, did to these men. They were so suspect of the state having power over corrupting religion for its use. I mean, look, that's what the state churches, the Church of England, the Anglican Church, the Roman Catholic Church, that's what they did. They combined, they created a religion that combined with the state to exercise power over the people. And that's what these men, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, others like them, that's what they were weary of. It's a shame that it shunned them away. This is what you'll find somebody, I'm not going to go to church. I'm not going to go to church. I was in a church for 10 years, and they took advantage of my family, and horrible things happened in that church. I'll never go to another church again. That was these men. They had a bad experience with organized religion, but there is a true religion. There is truth. And unfortunately, they had such distrust in it, they were damaged by it, that they never found the truth. And again, I mean, who knows who was really saved and not, right? But not all the founders were clearly saved. I mean, that's obvious. But the point is, some definitely were. Some definitely were, just by their own statements. Now here's the second view. So that's the first view, that you even have, I think David Barton even wrote a book that talks about how Thomas Jefferson was a Christian too, and like all this, you know, just like way, just like grabbing this huge net and just getting them all, basically, right? But the second view is this. So we have that view, and the second view is this, that the founders of this country were a bunch of devil-worshipping, child-sacrificing Illuminati, basically. And they did, you know, they were nothing but secular enlightenment thinkers that were just wicked masons, and they secretly worshiped the devil, and all this kind of stuff. That is just simply not true. That is just simply not true. The truth is this. The truth is this, and to find the truth, you really just have to look at the people of that time, and not necessarily these upper-level, what we call the founders of the country. The truth is this. The colonies during the Revolutionary War, the independence, the war for independence, during the time of July 4, 1776, you know, through the adoption, through the winning of the war, through the adoption of the final from the Articles of Confederation all the way to 1789, where we adopted the final constitution, the colonies were 98% Protestant. They were 98% Protestant, and I would argue that there was many, many more, and I mean, I can't really prove this, but there was many, many more saved Protestants at that time than you will find saved Protestants today, right? So you had all these Protestants. The other 2% was Roman Catholics. There was virtually no atheists. They were not represented in the population. Even the Enlightenment philosophers, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, even those philosophers of the Enlightenment itself, which had many problems, and yes, had an influence on the foundation, the Constitution of our country, even those philosophers shunned atheism. It has no place. They said it has no place many times. It would just lead to chaos. All the Enlightenment thinkers thought that of atheism. So 98% of the population was Protestant. Now, here's a little error in their calculation there. There were thousands and thousands of Baptists that are included in that 98% number. However, Baptists are not Protestant. Baptists are not and have never been Protestant. Baptists have always been outside the Catholic Church, the formation of it. We're not protesting anything. We were never part of it from the beginning. But when they say 98% Protestant, they're lumping in the Baptists of Rhode Island, the Baptists in Virginia, and all the different colonies. There was Baptists everywhere at the foundation of the United States. As a matter of fact, Baptists were even being persecuted by Protestants in the colonies at that time. It was a problem. It was a problem that Baptists knew about, and they actually had influence on the documents that we now live by in this country. There's a very famous Baptist. You can go and you can look him up. But there's many stories about this. But there were so many Baptists in the colonies that they were actually, politically they were needed. They were needed to fight the war. They were needed to fight the war against the British, and they were needed to ratify the Constitution. The Constitution could not be ratified without the support of the Baptists. That's how many there was. So James Madison was the man who went and did a lot of the liaison back and forth with the Baptists. There was a man named John Leland who was a famous Baptist preacher during that time in Virginia. And John Leland and James Madison went back and forth on this issue of the Constitution where John Leland, this head of, he represented the Baptists, John Leland was convincing James Madison that the Constitution is not good enough. There needs to be some sort of Bill of Rights to guarantee certain things in the Constitution. John Leland, just to tell you who he is, here's a quote from John Leland, this famous Baptist preacher. In 1788 he wrote this, We need to guard against those men who make a great noise about religion in choosing representatives. You see what he just said? He's like, when you're choosing who to vote for, you need to watch out for the one that are tooting their horn about how religious they are. That's basically what he just said. It is electioneering, back to his quote, If they knew the nature and worth of religion, they would not debauch it to such shameful purposes. If pure religion is the criterion to denominate candidates, those who make noise about it must be rejected. For they wrangle about it, it proves that they are void of it. Let honesty, talents, and quick dispatch characterize the men of your choice. Sounds like a preacher that I'd like to listen to right there. Madison was not only an architect of the Constitution, but in 1788 he was running as a delegate from Orange County, Virginia, to ratify the Constitution in that area. Leland was also from Orange County, and he had actually led the opposition to Madison. In Leland's view, the federal Constitution lacked a Bill of Rights, which protected the fundamental freedoms of Americans. This is a Baptist preacher here. In return for the entire Baptist voting bloc and support for ratification, Madison would include a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. And not wanting to lose the Constitution to a Baptist protest, there's more than 20 of them, folks. Nor an election, Madison met Leland in 1788 and came to this compromise. This won the day for religious freedom in America right here, because James Madison kept his promise. He kept his promise, and he brought the subject of an amendment to the Constitution to the House of Representatives. The amendment finally adopted read like this, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. That's the First Amendment right there. You know, you read the First Amendment and you think about how important that is, and why did the Baptist push for that? But it was because of Baptists that we have that. Look, freedom of conscience, unlimited freedom of mind was from the first, it was a trophy of the Baptist, and I'm quoting one historian that said that. I don't care what religion you are today, you can thank a Baptist for the First Amendment, because it was the Baptist block with John Leland leading the charge that convinced James Madison, for whatever reason, political or whatever, to put that in the Constitution. Now, the two sides of a religious freedom that people will argue today are this, and I want to show you how silly this argument is for religious freedom today that people will get into. Well, the separation of church and state, does that mean that the church shouldn't be involved in the state, or does that mean that the state shouldn't be involved in the church? Which is it? You see, Thomas Jefferson, with his view of organized religion, he loved this. He loved this, because he didn't want a state church. So from Thomas Jefferson's perspective, he's like, hey, we don't want a Church of England, that's what we fought against. We don't want some organized state religion, that's what we fought against. And you have no idea how close we were to that again. Because what was being proposed before John Leland, you know, twisted James Madison's arm, is they were going to pick five denominations of Protestants for the state to sponsor. And they came to the Baptist and they said, you can have a seat at the table. You can be one of the five. And the Baptist, you know what they said? No, thanks. We don't want any part of it. The Baptist, you would think they've been persecuted for 2,000 years. They've been the ones hunted, they've never had a seat at the power table. Now they have a seat at the table and they're like, no thank you. We just need freedom of mind. We just need freedom of choice. Why? Because they need the people that they go knock on their door to have the freedom to choose what's true and what's not true. The gospel needs freedom of mind. And they knew that. So the answer is this. Jefferson said, I don't trust religion in the state. And then all these other people say, well, you know, the problem with the United States is that we took the Bibles out of the schools. We took prayer out of schools in 1970. You know, we took the Bibles out of the school. But the Baptist, they needed the state out of religion. Jefferson wanted the religion out of the state and the Baptist needed the state out of the religion. And also they had no desire to be part of the state. The Baptist wanted it either way. Because guess what folks? I'm a Baptist today in 2024 and let me tell you something. I don't want some public school teacher teaching the Bible to my kids. Should the Bible be in public school? There's another invalid question. I don't care if you put a Bible there. What version is it? I don't even care because my kids aren't there. Because there shouldn't be some wicked secular government educating your children. The education from the children should come from, you know, their parents, their church, the people that have the truth in their life. That should always be the people that have the responsibility. So look, turn to Proverbs chapter 28. I know that was kind of a long story. Turn to Proverbs chapter 28. So you have these two sides. America was a Christian nation and all the founders were all saved Christians. It's like, that's not true. Then you have this idea that they're all like devil worshiping Illuminati bankers. That's not true either. The fact is is that the population of the United States at that time overwhelmingly believed the Bible. Saved or not. Overwhelmingly accepted the truth of the Bible. I don't know what gospel they had. There were still denominations. There were still doctrinal differences. And look, the Enlightenment, Locke, Rousseau, it's extra biblical philosophy. I get that. It's never going to be as good. All right? The 17th and 18th century were overwhelmingly kicking off monarchies, kicking off despots around the world. This is where the West came from. It's like, you know, where did the West come from? It came from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries where this Enlightenment period was kicking off all these despots. But the difference in America was you had a population of people that overwhelmingly almost completely accepted the truth of the Bible. That was the difference. And if you have that group of people, any limited government will work fine in that case with a population that follows the Bible. Because guess what? We just read Deuteronomy 28 and we're going to go back to there. Nations are judged by their works. You're not judged by your works because you're saved. You trusted on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be chastised by your works, but you're saved. You're going to heaven by the merits of Jesus Christ. But nations are judged by whether they follow the law of God or not. Look at Proverbs 28 in verse number two. Actually, look at verse number one. The Bible says in Proverbs 28, one, the wicked flee when no man pursue it, but the righteous are bold as a lion for the transgression of the land. Many are the princes thereof, but by a man of understanding and knowledge, the state thereof shall be prolonged. You have a nation that just transgresses and turns its back on the Lord, they're just going to have many rulers. They're not going to have much freedom. That's what the Bible is telling us. So the question is this, was America founded as a Christian nation? The answer to that is that's a false question. Salvation itself is individual. Salvation is up to the individual. The answer, go to Deuteronomy chapter 28 now. Go to Deuteronomy chapter number 28. Nations, in Deuteronomy 28, let me read for you verse number one. It says, and it shall come to pass if thou shall hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe and to do all. He's talking to a nation here, folks. He's not talking to a person. He is talking to the nation of Israel or any nation for that matter. If you observe and to do all his commandments, I commanded thee this day that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth and all these blessings shall come on thee and overtake thee. And then he says it again, if thou shall hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. He's saying, look, the blessings are like a 10th of the chapter. And then he goes into the cursings of what's going to happen to you if you don't follow. But tonight, just look at what he says. He's like, if you do what I tell you, if you do the works that are in the Bible, you're going to be judged by your works. I will bless you as a nation. And look, by and large, America was a Bible believing nation. You could never make the argument that America in 1776 was not a Bible believing nation. Every single time they said religion, they meant the Bible. They did not mean the Quran. They did not mean Hinduism or Buddhism. They only meant the Bible. And that is crystal clear in historical documents. America was a Bible believing nation. And that is what made it work, plain and simple. And by the way, the founders knew, you say, oh, well, what about, you know, they knew that that's the only thing that would make it work. And they said this again and again and again, John Adams' famous quote. I'll read it for you again. He says, we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Again, religion meant the Bible. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. He's saying a moral and biblical people is what he means. That man was a devout Christian. That man was a believer in Jesus Christ. That's what I believe from what he clearly wrote and wrote to his son again and again. He says, it is wholly inadequate, the Constitution, for any other, meaning any other type of people. They knew. They knew that this will not work. It will only work with people that follow the Bible. They knew this. And look, many other of the founders wrote the exact same thing. They all knew this. So look, there is no perfect government, folks. There is no perfect, until Jesus Christ comes back and rules himself in a monarchy with what? Why is he going to need the rod of iron, by the way? Because people are going to get out of hand. Until Jesus Christ rules in a monarchy with him on the throne, with a rod of iron, there is no perfect government. So whatever you can say about the state of our country today, these men that founded it are not the ones to blame. The ones to blame are the ones in this room. Not you personally, but this is the generations of the people that we can blame. If you think it's a mess today, it didn't start out that way because people believed the Bible back then. So I mean, I do have a problem with people today blaming them because we wrecked it. Garrett said a great analogy the other day. I'm going to use this. He said it's like you buy an F-150. So you go on, you buy a nice new F-150. Great truck, right? F-150, great pickup. What are they, like 100 grand now? You go on, you buy an F-150, and you drive it off a cliff. And you're like, ah. And you just wreck the whole thing. And somehow you survive, and you turn around, and you sue Ford because it couldn't fly. And they write back to you, and they're like, what are you talking about? It was never designed to fly. But you sue them anyway. That's somebody who's today blaming the founders of our country for the mess that we find ourselves in today. They knew it wouldn't work. They knew the truck couldn't fly. They told us again and again and again if people could actually read today. People don't read anything today. You want to know what somebody 150 years ago thought, they probably wrote a lot of things down. Go just read the words that they said. They knew it couldn't fly. And they said, hey, don't drive it off a cliff because it won't fly. It's not that kind of truck. It doesn't have wings. So look, saved or not saved, even trying to find out individually which one of the founders was saved and which one wasn't, it's really kind of a waste of time. You know, it's the wrong question. But one thing I do want to point out here and go on a small rabbit trail, turn to Acts chapter 10. Whether you think that this founder was saved and this founder was not saved or whatever, one thing that Christians today really need to realize is that, look, you are not saved by how good of a person you are. I mean, do I have to remind people today that you are not saved by whether you have good character or whether you have bad character? You are only saved by whether or not you trusted on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way you're saved or not saved. So what does that mean? That means you can have not saved people that do good things. You can have people, and look, I don't know, man, if you don't think, if you're one of these people that are like, oh, these people aren't saved or whatever, so they're just like bad or whatever, and look, you don't have much life experience. There is plenty of places in the Bible, I'll just show you a few, where people that were not saved were people of good character. Look at Acts chapter 10. Acts chapter 10, there was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man. This is before he was saved, folks. He was considered someone, one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always. He wasn't saved. He's praying, he's giving charity to people. Is a man of good character? Well, thank God he did get saved. I wish every man with good character would get saved. You know, and that's what we're supposed to be doing, is going out and making sure that that happens. Turn to Luke chapter 7. Turn to, actually, I'll just read for you Luke 7. You go to Acts chapter 5. In Luke 7, look at what the Bible says. It says, And a certain centurion's servant who was dear unto him, now we have a Roman centurion, was sick and ready to die. You're going to Acts chapter 5. And when he heard of Jesus, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant. When they came to Jesus, they besought him instantly saying that he was worthy for whom he should do this. They're advocating for this centurion. For he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue. Look, this man was doing good things. This man was not saved. He did get saved. But he was a man of good character before he was saved. Acts chapter 5. Look at verse 34. A Pharisee. A Pharisee. Acts chapter 5, verse number 34. Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had a reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space. This man had a good name. And he said unto them, You men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do is touching these men. He's defending the apostles. For before these days rose up Thudias, boasting himself to be somebody, to a number of men, about four hundred joined themselves, who was slain, and all as many as obeyed him were scattered and brought to naught. After this man wrote up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him. He also perished, and all even as many obeyed him were dispersed. And now I say unto you, refrain from these men. He's defending the apostles. He's not saved. And let them alone, for if this council or this work be of men, it will come to naught. But if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it. Sounds wise to me. Lest happily you be found even to fight against God. Look, this is a couple examples. These are men that were not saved. Men that are not saved can do good things. So saved, not saved, whatever you want. The founders gave us something good. They did something good. Now I would love to hear somebody argue that God did not bless the United States of America after it was founded. I'm not talking about now. But I would love to hear somebody put forth an argument that God, especially when you look at Deuteronomy chapter number 28, that God was not pleased with the formation of the United States of America. Turn to Matthew chapter number 17. How can you say that, Pastor? How can you tell if something's good? Here's how you can tell if anything's good. You do a fruit inspection. You just look at the fruit. I don't care what you're looking at you want to know is good. If you're looking at someone to give you advice, look, a lot of people are probably going to want to give you advice out there in this life. You're like, how do I know if I should take advice from somebody? How do I know everybody wants to give me marriage advice? Everybody wants to give me advice on my children. Everybody wants to give me advice on my finances. Oh, man, do people want to give you advice on your finances? Have you been on the internet? Everybody's got every kind of theory out there on how to manage your finances, whatever. But here's the answer to how to figure out who to listen to. Do a fruit inspection. Somebody's going to give you advice on your marriage and they've been married three times. Rotten fruit. Somebody's going to give you advice on how to raise children and all their children hate them or have gone the way of the world or whatever, have just completely flipped out and are, you know, I don't think so. Just do a fruit inspection. Look at the Bible. Look at verse number 16, Matthew chapter number 7. It says, you shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so, a good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree, you say, what if a tree's got mixed fruit? It says, no, a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth forth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruits, you shall know them. So look, what's the fruit? What's the fruit? Go to Deuteronomy chapter 28. What was the fruit of the, we can look back and see what the fruit of the United States was. We can look back and see if the United States was blessed or not, according to Deuteronomy chapter number 28. Look at verse number 3, or verse number 2 of Deuteronomy chapter number 28. Look at what the Bible says. Look, the first fruit is prosperity, is what the Bible is saying here. The first fruit, God says he will bless a nation that follows him. It says, all these blessings shall come on thee and overtake thee if thou shall hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. Blessed shall thou be in the city and blessed shall thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy ground. You know, there's stories, I can still remember stories from my great grandfather. And there's stories and news articles that I can remember from North Dakota in 19, in the early 1900s, where you would have somebody that would go out and buy 200 acres of land. And in that the crop from the first year would pay for the whole thing. Blessed be the fruit of the ground. I mean, this was the early 20th century, folks. Look at verse number 4. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, and the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. Just talking about this nation that follows the Lord is going to be a prosperous nation. Could anybody argue that especially, I mean, where do the industrial revolutions happen? They started here, all of them. Look at the next verse, number 7. Another blessing is victory over your enemies. The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face, and they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. Look, up until the 1950s, we were victors in every war that we entered into, essentially, up until the 1950s. But we're not talking about the bad things tonight. But the point is, you would have a hard time arguing that at the foundation through 100 years or more, this country was not greatly blessed by God. You would have a hard time arguing that. Look, here's another one. It has been the greatest nation in the history of the world as a force to spread the gospel. The United States of America. I would argue that the United States of America has the most saved people in it right now. We have sent out, this country has sent out the most missionaries of any country in the history of the world. Matthew 24, 14. You know, the gospel of the kingdom, talking about the end times, talking about the end times, the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world unto nations, and then unto all the nations, and then the end shall come. Just paraphrasing that. Look, and you have to ask yourself, you have to ask yourself, I mean, is this going away? Is this prosperity going away? Is this victory amongst our enemies going away? I mean, yes, it's going away. We can see it going away. I mean, I think peak prosperity, I don't know, you'd have to, it's debatable, but probably the 80s and 90s, somewhere in there. You know, the boomers were kind of the last peak prosperity generation. But the point is, you know, we go to wars now and we have the most powerful military in the world, but we can't win them. Isn't that something? It's almost like Deuteronomy 28 is true. It's almost like the Bible is true. But the gospel is still there. We still have that. Thanks to the Baptist. Thanks to the Baptist. Look, 15% of the United States is Baptist. There's 50 million Baptists in the United States of America. 50 million. That is a lot of Baptist. It is the second largest religious group in the United States to the Roman Catholic Church. A lot of people forget that today. Turn to Ezekiel chapter number 22. Let's go to the third question and then we're going to go back to, I've got to hurry up here. We're going to go back to that first question. But the third question is this, what does it mean to be a patriot today? Now that we know this as the foundation of our country, what does it mean to be a patriot? Look at Ezekiel chapter number 22. I'm going to give you the definition of a patriot. A patriot, this word that you probably hear thrown around quite a bit, is a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors. So I guess we need to define who are the enemies of our country today. Now that we know how we started and why we were successful and that God blessed us for certain reasons in this world, I mean, what would that take to get it back on track? We need to find out who these enemies are. What's the problem in our country? A lot of people think that, you know, the government's the problem. Look, that's a huge miss if you think the government is the problem. Look, is the government correct today and do we like the politicians today? No, but that is not the root cause. We're looking at the root cause of the problem. We are, look, maybe the Middle East is the problem. Maybe foreign nations are the problem. Newsflash, they are not the problem. Maybe the evil politicians are the problem. They are a problem, but they are not the root cause of the problem. Maybe the deep state is the problem. We're looking for the problem in our country so we can know how to defend it, right? Don't you want to be a patriot? Defend your country against its enemies and its detractors. Who are the enemies? All these things are true. The deep state, the evil politicians, the, you know, the government's all backwards and twisted around and corrupt. I get all that. I'm not arguing with that, but the root cause, folks, is the morality of the people. That is the root cause. We have the government that we deserve. Look, I mean, I was, I was talking to the kids today. We were driving out of the, I came to the church to turn the air conditioning on at noon, see how well that's working. But we were driving out of it. We were driving out of the parking lot. And I was telling the kids, I was telling them, I was like, you know, it was just Ashley, the kids. You know true Americans, before we even talk about what a patriot is, you know what a true American is to me? A true American to me is somebody who's supporting this country in the right way. Really supporting it. You know, even to the simplest, who's, who's building this country? It's like, what's an American? You know, I mean, it's, it's the people that are building this country and supporting this country, not trying to tear it down. You know, we saw some guy, some drug addict over here in the corner that he's just tearing stuff down. Just making a mess of everything. Just wrecking everything. That's not an American to me. An American is somebody who's supporting this country and building it. Somebody who, saved or not, is someone that's doing good for this country. That's what I mean when I, when I think of an American, what that is. It's somebody who's out there and just like, just building the highways. Somebody who's out there just building infrastructure that we all take for granted in this country. Somebody who's out there building and operating power plants. Somebody who's out there fixing power lines when it's 115 degrees or it's 20 degrees below zero. So you can have the lights and the heat and the air conditioning that we all take for granted every day. Somebody that grows the crops and, and raises the food that we just go to the grocery store and just pick up and we take for granted that that's where it comes from is the grocery store. No, the Americans are ones that are out there that are, that are hauling the steel, that are bringing the goods, that are repairing the services, that are providing the services. And look, most people today have no idea what it takes for them to afford the luxuries that they have in this country. But the people that are building and adding to it, those are, those are what Americans are. People that are driving the trains out here through all sorts of shifts through the night, 365, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Good men, most unsaved, but supporting this country. Look, I have found, and this is why, and I want to kind of bring this back to what I was talking about, the foundation of this country. I have found that if you meet a man, if you meet a man that gets up every day, that's hardworking, that gets up every day to work hard, to support his family at a job that the Bible says is just gain, that is building and supporting this country that we live in. I have found that there is usually a set core of values that that man and I will agree on. Funny how it works that way, whether they're saved or not. But look, it's the people that are out there that are tearing it down that just want to destroy. They want to destroy infrastructure. They want to paint up things that people built. They want to destroy. What do they want to destroy? They want to destroy the morals of the Bible. They want to destroy families. They want to destroy children. They want to pervert the truth. These are not Americans to me. These are people trying to destroy what great men before us built. So what does it mean to be a true patriot? Look at Ezekiel chapter number 22 and look at verse number 30. See, what we have to worry about in this country is not really somebody that's going to paint a bridge or even destroy property. What we have to worry about is God coming to destroy. Look at verse number 30 of Ezekiel chapter number 22. The Bible says, and I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge. Talking about the judgment, the captivity that Judah was about to go into where the Babylonian nation was going to come and take them over. And God was like, that's it, you're being judged now. And God was going to come and destroy that nation. And God was looking for a man that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it. Talking about God destroying it, but I found none. God was looking for one man and he couldn't find one. Yet there's 50 million Baptists in the United States of America. A true patriot is one that is committed to bringing the truth of God's word back to the people. That's what a patriot is. Because that's what this country needs. This country doesn't need a hundred thousand soldiers to go over to the Middle East and kill a bunch of people that don't need to be killed. This country needs a hundred thousand people, a hundred million people carrying Bibles down the street in your city. That's what this country needs. That's what a patriot is. We got our heroes all wrong today. We got what this country needs all wrong today. We got our targets on the wrong thing today. We need to be out there bringing the Bible, bringing the truth back to these people that are being confused. Persuading the people in the middle, persuading these good men and these good women just trying to raise families in this free country of ours. This is why we need freedom of mind. This is why we need freedom of assembly. You know, in despot countries, 70% of the population of the world right now lives under a dictatorship of some kind. And one thing that you will find in dictatorships, monarchies, just oppressive regimes, is it's illegal to assemble. You can't get together in groups of more than 20 people. Why is that? We look at freedom of assembly and we're like, what's that all about? We're getting together with 50 people, 20 people all the time. We take these things for granted. America doesn't need soldiers to go fight another war. It needs true patriots, it needs people to stand in the gap with God's word. Because even with this flawed system that we have been given, if the people believe the word of God, it will function. Look, the constitution is not God's word, but with the people that believe God's word, it works. So here's the last answer for you. Can I love America? You bet I can. It's an opportunity. It's an opportunity that many in this world did not have. And if you don't understand that, you've never been anywhere else. I haven't been that many places, but I've been a few and every single time I've been to another nation, I'm thankful that I was born here. I appreciate what I have been given. You should appreciate that today, because look, most people in history have lived under despotism. And guess what, folks? The Declaration of Independence does not change the Christian mission. You know what it does do, though? It just gives you a unique opportunity to live free and preach the gospel. What a beautiful thing, because guess what? The Christian mission has not changed for 2,000 years, and many didn't live free and preach the gospel anyway, and they took whatever came from that. But you have the opportunity to live free and preach the gospel. So if you're saved hearing this message and you don't preach the gospel, shame on you, because you have an opportunity that the vast majority of Christians never had. And look, for all its problems, that's why I don't want to tell you all the problems. You know all the problems. If you know the Bible, you know all the problems. Look, with all its problems, I'll take the freedom. I'll take the freedom. I thank God for this country. I thank God for the opportunities that we have. Look, there's lots of problems. There's lots of people trying to tear it down. But guess what? I am free, and I am unimpeded. I am free to come to church tonight. I am free to preach the gospel to the lost whenever I want to do so. I am free. I have a Bible. I am free to teach that Bible to my children. I have a Bible. That in itself. That's why those founders were like, we have Bibles. No, we have Bibles. Because in many nations, under many deaths, people were killed for having Bibles. We have a Bible. I can take this Bible and I can rebuke the wicked things of this world from it. I'm free to do that. I'm free to homeschool my kids. You're free to homeschool. I'm free to give my kids a biblical worldview in a messed up, wicked world. Look, for the Christian mission today, which has not changed, this freedom is a great blessing. And for that, this Fourth of July, I am extremely thankful. Let's bow our heads and have a word with God.