Sermon Tone Analysis

OVERCOMING FEAR FOR OUR COUNTRY

AOC posts about bringing a child into this world.

What is she getting towards?

She has a plan she wants to institute to make our country and world a better place.

Why are we so pessimistic?

The Hebrews lived in a foreign land.

They had no privileges.

Their faith put them in opposition with their sovereign king.

They pledged loyalty to God and wanted to obey their leaders.

But they clearly understood that God must be our highest allegiance.

And when we have to choose between obeying God or the government, they knew.

America was not founded on freedom from Religion, but Freedom to practice and live according to your religious convictions.

Amazingly, the Devil has found a way to silence what America call Christians merely by social disapproval and the theft of the rights we had purchased through the blood of the founders.

Dan 3:12-

TRUTHS TO GUIDE YOU IN A CONFUSED CULTURE.

GOD WILL ALWAYS HAVE A REMNANT. (THE 3 FAITHFUL HEBREWS AND DANIEL AS WELL)

And ultimately a consistent witness will reveal the insanity of those swept away by culture.

We see this in the media all the time now.

In our culture that no longer values marriage or life.

In a culture where people reap the consequences of MORAL RELATIVISM, we see pundits unknowingly make the case for the Lord and His ways again.

Alyssa Milano recently responded to restrictions on abortion, as if abortion makes a better nation.

She called upon women not to be involved intimately with a man who would not be willing to raise a child with them.

Hello, isn’t that what we used to call marriage before the culture mocked it and ruined it?

Is not the marriage and child bearing gifts of God that the Supreme Court by fiat, not legislation, not debate, and people having to look at the consequences etc… destroyed in one sense and disregarded absolutely?

Now we have people unknowingly advocating for marriage again, but they don’t want to say it.

Why not stay with God than be on sifting and sinking stand of fickle public opinion.

b.

AS A LOYAL BELIEVER, YOUR FAITH WILL REQUIRE COURAGE.

It took courage to choose to be loyal to God and public worship when their lives were on the line.

It takes courage in China to be a believer when they tear down houses of worship and threaten your leaders.

The Chinese government has all but outright declared formal war on Christianity with her renewed persecution of Christians and government-funded attacks against churches.

In a recent act of anti-Christian violence and to add insults upon injury, the Chinese government destroyed a church and then sent the pastor the bill for the destruction according to a report:

Pastor Jin Mingri has felt firsthand the pain of one of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s harshest crackdowns on religion in years.

Jin’s Zion Church in Beijing, one of the biggest unofficial congregations in the country, was abruptly demolished by authorities this month, who then sent him a bill for 1.2m yuan (£133,000) for the related costs.

Jin had preached there every Sunday for decades.

“Before, as long as you didn’t meddle in politics the government left you alone,” he said.

“But now if you don’t push the Communist party line, if you don’t display your love for the party, you are a target.

“Of course we’re scared, we’re in China, but we have Jesus.”

1 PETER 2:13-

C. RECOGNIZE THAT IN AMERICA, YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO PARTICIPATE IN THE POLITICS.

ACTS 2:

ACTS 22:

Thank you to Collin Kapernick and the Honorable Ted Cruz for bringing another dark time and the power of Hope and Truth to overcome.

“What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?

This Fourth of July is yours, not mine…There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.”

- Frederick Douglass

This speech was given in 1852, before the Civil War, when the abomination of slavery still existed.

Thanks to Douglass and so many other heroes, we ended that grotesque evil and have made enormous strides to protecting the civil rights of everybody.

Douglass was not anti-American; he was, rightly and passionately, anti-slavery.

Indeed, he concluded the speech as follows: “Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country.

There are forces in operation, which must inevitably, work the downfall of slavery.

‘The arm of the Lord is not shortened,’ and the doom of slavery is certain.

I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope.

While drawing encouragement from ‘the Declaration of Independence,’ the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age.”

There is a class of people who seem to think that if a man should fall overboard into the sea with a Bible in his pocket it would hardly be possible to drown.

I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.

- Frederick Douglass.

Douglass distinguished between the "Christianity of Christ" and the "Christianity of America" and considered religious slaveholders and clergymen who defended slavery as the most brutal, sinful, and cynical of all who represented "wolves in sheep's clothing".

What would he say about Christians who deny the moral imperatives of Christ today from caring for the poor to the upholding the sacredness of marriage?

D. REJOICE THAT THE LORD IS WITH YOU.

After years of the city of Jerusalem and the Walls being left in ruins, Nehemiah saw to its completion in 52 days.

Years in ruin, with people living in constant fear of attack.

How did it happen?

Well, Nehemiah didn’t wait for professional politicians or bricklayers, he mobilized everyone from bakers, to kids, to getting neighbors working side by side.

I don’t like how the social fabric has been torn in America today.

I don’t know if we will keep our union left to ourselves.

But I know God can and will bring revival to those who seek Him.

He only needs a few who pray.

Remember God will always keep a remnant.

We have a church that comes to our MAC Camp just west of Terra Haute in Illionois.

They’ve been coming for some time.

The church, Marshall Baptist Church, in Marshall Illinois exists in a town of just about 4000 souls.

The pastor has been there for over a decade.

The church had been about 50 to 70 people.

Nothing in the church changed, they were contemporary etc… in a small town.

Then about 3 years ago, people started coming.

Now they see close to 700 people attending.

They have reached 20% of their local population.

Sarah talked to the pastor and he said, we didn’t start something new, nothing changed.

God just showed up.