Examining Trials of pre-christian and post christian cultures

Well, good morning. It is good to be here with you on this morning. Interestingly enough, I was not able to come to the conference this year and really missed being here for the conference, and we were supposed to have been gone back to Zambia by then, but this adoption opportunity arose and hence the extension of our stay. So pray for us as we continue to wait. One of the reasons that my lovely bride was able to come with me on this trip. She doesn't usually come with me. With nine kids, seven of them still at home, She's usually kind of busy there while I'm doing trips like this. But the baby that we are anticipating adopting is going to be born here. We're adopting with an adoption agency down making, and so the baby was schedule with do yesterday, so we thought we could get here and be here and the baby would already be here and the babies not here. So but we've enjoyed the weekend and the time to get away and are excited about the opportunity to be here with you at Praise Mal As you know, on this evening we're going to be addressing the issue of adoption, and I look forward to doing that. This morning, we're going to look at something a little more broad than that. If you'll open your bibles to the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, Acts Chapter four, Acts Chapter four, We're going to examine the trials of Christians in a pre Christian culture and compare those to our childs in a post Christian culture. That idea is not original to me. The idea that America and really the West, this post Christian This is something that was positive long ago and was probably popularized in the nineteen sixties nineteen seventies. This idea of post Christian culture, the idea that Christianity has come and run its course in a culture and has now been rejected by the culture, ironically being rejected based upon some of the very principles of Christianity that it claims to reject. It's a self destructive mentality. It's the idea that says, as a culture, we have arisen, and we have arrived, we thrive. Now all of this is true because of the Gospel, But now that the Gospel has made us who and what we are, we will abandon the Gospel. It's an amazing thing. Having had the privilege of traveling and preaching throughout many parts of the world, I've learned some things. And one of the things that I've learned is that as you travel throughout this world and you see the difference between what we now call the developed and the undeveloped world, or the developed the developing and the undeveloped world, or what used to be called the first world and the third world, what you come to realize is that the difference between these cultures that have supposedly developed in these cultures that have not is not technological. If you were to look at a map and you were to look at those cultures that have flourished, that have flourished in terms of not just economics, but have flourished in terms of personal freedoms, have flourished in terms of the arts, industry, technology, what you will find is the difference between the cultures that have flourished and the cultures that have not. Is that the places where the Gospel took root are the places that flourished. The places where the Gospel was thwarted and or perverted are the places that have not flourished. It's interesting there are many people in the West who used to think that there was a racial or ethnic component. It's the superiority of Westerners, the superiority of Europeans that has caused that culture to flourish. Well. The fact of the matter is when the Gospel came to Europe, Europeans were barbarians, Amen, somebody eating each other before the Gospel came to Europe. It's the Gospel, not ethnicity. And by the way, the Gospel came to Europe from the Middle East. Lest we think for a moment that this is about ethnicity, Amen, this is not about ethnicity. It's not about superior races of people. This is about a superior worldview. This is about the Gospel and the flourishing of the Gospel, which is why it's so ironic for cultures to become posts. We flourish because of the Gospel, and then we think we're so sophisticated that we can abandon the very gospel. It's kind of like teenagers. If you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch. From the time you're twelve to the time you're about nineteen, your parents get dumber every year. Then you get out on your own and they become more brilliant every day. The teenager is ready to throw off the restraints. He knows everything, and he's ready to go out into the world and prove that he knows everything. And he's a fool. And it's not until he gets out there on his own that he realizes he has nothing. He knows nothing, and he is nothing. And Mama's house looks real good. Our culture is the national equivalent of a petulant, ignorant adolescent. There is a difference, though, the teenager Kentucky's tail between his legs, and in his twenties come home and say I was dumb. But what does a nation do when it has destroyed itself? Well, that's beyond the scope of the message today. But today, what I want to look at is how we respond in the midst of a culture going through this kind of a change. Acts chapter four. If you remember to Acts chapter three, Peter and John have healed the lame man who was begging at the gate. Be it going about their business, and there's a man there who's begging for alms, but he's begging from two broke preachers. How do I know there are two broke preachers? Because that's what they said, silver or gold, we have none. In other words, we broke. You're asking the wrong people. Man. We can there's nothing we can put in your bucket. Matter of fact, we probably need one ourselves. But what we have we freely give the name of Jesus. Rise walk. That old boy didn't follow instructions through. Well, they said rise walk. He got up, running and dancing everything else, and the word went out. And that's where we pick it up chapter four. And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple, and the and the sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. That was the problem, no problem with a person being healed. And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. On the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas, the high priest, and Cayphus, and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high priestly family. And when they had set them in the midst they inquired, by what power or by what name did you do this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed? Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that, by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, he could have stopped right there, y'all right, he could stop right there by the way, Why they're in trouble preaching preaching what resurrection? Standing in front of the Sanhedrin, This would be like being brought before the Senate for us, this August body sitting in front of these robed individuals, who are the rulers of Israel. In terms of religious practice, now they're under the Roman rule. But because of the Edict of Religion Elicitae, Rome allowed religions that were older than the Roman Empire, that were in place and in practice before Rome conquered, and that did not present themselves as a direct threat to Rome, to continue to be practiced. Therefore, Judaism could continue to be practiced, and the Sanhedrin could rule and make decisions concerning that religious practice and not have to go to Rome for those particular issues. That's who they're standing in front of. I say all that because this next line is important. The name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. In case you're wondering which one by him, this man is standing before you will this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation and no one else, For there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Amen, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. All I asked him was how'd you do this? And he took full advantage of the opportunity. Now we see our pre Christian culture responded, and it mirrors the response of our post Christian culture. The first thing I want you to understand is that neutrality was not an option. Neutrality was not an option. They could not live and live. Why wasn't it an option for them? Turn back to the left. I want you to see this, turn back to the left. Look at John John chapter eleven, John chapter eleven, and here, you know, we have the Raising of Lazarus in John chapter eleven. Right. So reading this the other day, now, don know how many times I've read this, and I just never saw this line here the Raising of Lazar. After the Raising of Lazarus, look at verse forty five. Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priest and the f Parreses gathered the council and said, what are we to do? For this man performs many signs. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Just like what we're reading about. Look at the next verse. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. If we don't stop this, the Romans will come because the Edict of Religion Elysitoe covers Judaism, but it won't cover Christianity. If this is just a Jewish sect, We're fine and the Romans will leave us alone. We'll stay in power, and Israel will be safe. But if these Christians are preaching Jesus Christ and him crucified and resurrected, that's a new religion. And if their confession, their profession of faith is Jesus is Lord, which is in direct confrontation and contradiction to Caesar is Lord. So Christianity is an affront to Rome. If they don't stamp it out, the Romans will and the Romans will not discriminate between those Jews who follow Jesus and those Jews who don't. They will merely come in and brutalize everyone, and there will be no more power to be had by the Sanhedrin. Understand the stakes, folks. They cannot be neutral, nor can our culture be neutral. Why because the religion of our day won't allow it. Christian Smith is the dean of the Sociology department at the University of Notre Dame. Before he was in that position, he was the dean of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While at UNC, he and many of his research students conducted a study called the National Study of Youth and Religion. It was a decade long, longitudinal study of the religious beliefs and practices of young people in the United States. Teenagers in the United States. They have followed this same group now for over a decade decade and a half, I think, and they're continuing to research and study this group longitudinallygue to see how they developed. One of the things that Smith and his research has found was that regardless of ware, and they went everything from Roman Catholics to mainline Protestants, Evangelicals, and even Mormons, they looked at the whole gamut and what they found was there was a common faith that ran through all of these different groups, and he called it moralistic therapeutic deism. The main tenets of this belief. Number one, they all believed that there was a God and that he was in charge of everything. Secondly, they believe that this God wants people to be good and nice to each other, as is taught in the Bible and other religious texts. There's where the wheels fall off. That's the moralistic part of it. God exists and what God wants is for people to be good. You can learn how to be good in the Bible, or you can learn how to be good in other texts. But they all basically teach you how to be good, how to do the right thing, and that's the wrong thing. Thirdly, God has not particularly involved in our lives, and it's only called upon when we need something. And finally, good people go to heaven when they die, and almost everyone is good. These are the beliefs is, these are the ideas. Regardless of where these young people grew up, they all held this common faith. Why because it's the common American faith, this is the faith of our culture. Do we believe that there is a God? Well, we sure, we believe that there's a God. You know, the man upstairs, you know, the man out there. Yeah, yeah, there's a God. He's there. You know. I loved it. I loved it. You saw this, You saw this in action, did you not? As Peyton Manning, the consummate professional, the guy who's been there so long that he knows exactly what to say and when to say it. This boy who grew up in the South, down in New Orleans, with the school in Tennessee, knows how to be the Southern gentleman. He knows that he's supposed to thank the Good Lord and then talk about how much Budweiser he's gonna drink. Anybody running for office knows. When you come south of the Mason Dixon line, you better get your Bible out and start talking about the Good Lord. If you want the people down there to vote for you, Amen, somebody. You don't have to believe it, but you better know how to talk about it when you go south. This is the religion of our culture. This is the religion of our day, the religion that has a foul mouthed thrice married strip club and casino owner as the front runner and the Republican Party saying that he's been audited multiple times because they know about his strong Christian faith. Lord, help us I rest out to get because they've known all along what a strong Christian I've been. Help him, Lord. But this is the religion of America. It's also the religion of relativism. There are no absolutes. That's true for you, it is not necessarily true for me. What's true today is not necessarily true tomorrow. What's true here is not necessarily true there. It's although the religion of pluralism, it's also the religion of inclusivism, the religion that says there are many ways to get to God. It says, though God were on the top of a mountain, and all of us am really climbing up different sides to get to the same place God wants us to be. Basically, God wants us to be good, and we're climbing up the mountain by being good. The Bible teaches you how to climb the mountain, but other religions teach you how to climb the mountain as well. You see, the reason that there could be no neutrality here is because of this serious vested interest and because of the fear of the Roman Empire. The reason there can be no neutrality with us is because Biblical Christianity is directly at odds with American evangelicalism. American evangelicalism holds to moralistic, therapeutic deism. American evangelicalism is not very Christian. This is why people have to use adjectives with Christians. You ever notice that you can't just be a Christian anymore, so and so is a Christian. No nobody says that anymore. Oh so and sol is a strong Christian. So and so is a Bible believing Christian as opposed to those non Bible believing Christians. So and so is a committed Christian. Right, so and so as a godly Christian man as opposed to those ungodly girl. Why don't we use these terms because the word Christian means nothing anymore in our culture. We have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. And it's because of this that there can be no neutrality with Christianity. Because if someone is not willing to agree that all religions are basically the same, and instead argues that there is one way, there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, he obliterates our accepted philosophy. So if our culture can't be neutral, what did our culture do? Let's look at it first, marginalization verse thirteen. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated common men, they were astonished, and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. Now these words uneducated and common men. You have to be really careful. This is this is this is where you have to be really careful when you get a lexicon or something, because if you get your lexicon, you may come away with the impression that they're being called illiterate. These are not illiterate men. That's that's not what's being said here. Uh, I know that for a fact. Well how do I know that? Because these are the guys who wrote first, second, third John, the Gospel of John first and second Peter. They were literate. Amen, somebody, Amen, they were literate. They could read and write. They wrote many New Testament books. Oh, Revelation. I'm sorry I left off Revelation. John wrote, you know, the Gospel of John first, second, third John in Revelation. He was a literate man. He was a well educated man. Peter wrote first and second Peter, and Peter was probably the main source for Mark's gospel, So we know he was literate. So what is being said here, what's being said here is that they weren't trained in the right places. They don't have the right credentials. See, you can be a brilliant man with an i Q off the charts, but if your belief system runs counter to moral moralistic therapeutic deism, you're a nut. What do you call a man who graduated from Harvard or Yale or Princeton and holds to moralistic therapeutic deism. A brilliant well educated man. What do you call a man who graduated from Harvard or Yale or Princeton and rejects moralistic, therapeutic deism in favor of biblical Christianity. You call him a nut. It was amazing. I mean, we've seen this George W. Bush and he's running against John Kerry. And again, George W. Bush is a picture of modern evangelicalism. I grant you that, but he's running. He's running as an evangelical right. What was the knock against w. The knock against W is that he wasn't very smart. Good old boy cowboy Carrie, the flaming Liberal was brilliant. They both went to Yale. Bush got better grades. What's the point here? The point here is when you don't play the game, you're marginalized. And the way that you're marginalized is not because you're not very smart, but you're marginalized when you don't hold to the tenants that are mandated by the culture. And this is why neutrality is not an option. This was true in a pre Christian culture. It's also true in a post Christian culture. You don't think correctly. It's not that you don't think you can be a great thinker, but you don't think correctly. You're a narrow minded bigot. Unless you're black, they don't call us nerimnded biggots. I love that membership has its privileges. You know, we are marginalized. How do you marginalize Christians? Well, there are a number of ways that you marginalize Christians. Here are a couple of them that are used in our day. One way that Christians are marginalized is you take ridiculous examples and you normalize them. So if you have a church of six or seven people who are all part of the same family, and they go to the funerals of fallen soldiers, hold up signs and say that the soldiers are going to Hell and God hates fags, what you is instead of looking at this as six or seven people who are part of a church where everybody's related to one another and you couldn't find the Gospel if your life depended on it. Instead of picturing it as that, you put this forward as this is what the Christian right looks like. That's marginalizing Christianity. Another way you marginalize Christianity is, you know, not so much anymore. There's been sort of a little bit of a waning of this. But for a while there, every Christmas in Eastern the major magazines, Newsweek and the like would always have articles from someone from the Jesus Seminar or some left wing organization that was undermining the veracity of the biblical account as related to the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus. Always and these people are always held up as scholars. Turn on the history channel, and they are these wonderful scholars. And the amazing thing about it is when you hear about these wonderful scholars and their credentials, they all come from the same places, and none of those places believe anything. That's how you marginalize Christianity. And this is what happened then, this is what's happening today. Christianity is being marginalized. Look at the next part of this verse fourteen. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, saying, what shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name. If you marginalize, you silence. Look, we noticed that they didn't say. They didn't say, make them stop healing, allow them to heal people, just don't let them use that name, allow them to exercise their faith, just make them be quiet about it. Allow them to do all the good they want to do, but just make sure that in doing the good, they don't confront our beliefs. We saw this during the inauguration a while back, did we not. There's a bit of an uproar around here around the Georgia area, around the Atlanta area, because Barack Hussein Obama was going to be inaugurated and he invited Louis Giglio to come and do the invocation. Louis Giglio has been ministering here for a long time down up at North Point. Now. The reason that he invited Louis Giglio's because the Passion movement has become one of the largest movements of young people in the world. They had just had a huge conference with tens of thousands of people in attendance, and they raised millions of dollars to end human trafficking. And it was thought, here's a man with a following of tens of thousands of young people, they have a record label where they produce Christian music, sell millions, and he's working to end human trafficking. Let's bring him in to do the invocation. Then it was discovered that back in the nineties he said something against homosexuality, and there was such an uproar that his name was withdrawn. In other words, do good because that's what religion is supposed to do, but don't speak things that contradict our narrative. This bothered me for a number of reasons. Number one because of the outplaying of this. Be silent, don't use that name. And number two because they had to go back to the nineties to find a statement. Somebody valedictorian, Congratulations, you've earned the honor of making a speech a graduation. However, you may not mention Jesus I can I quote Buddha? Absolutely, people will think that you're enlightened. How about the Maharishi Mahashyogi. Sure don't know who he is, but you know, can I quote Oprah, Yeah, don't think you're in touch with your spirit. In other words, you can make a religious statement, just not the one that is an affront to our accepted narrative. This is what's happening. This is what's happening. And there's a couple of responses to this. Here's one response. One response to this is a version of Christianity that measures on social issues and backs away from the gospel. A version of Christianity that is political, politically active, and socially active, but hides the Gospel so that it can continue to do good and not offend. And if not removing the gospel altogether, we tweak the gospel so that the gospel is no longer the gospel, so that now the gospel is, for example, the prosperity gospel, where you basically communicate to people that God exists to give you all the things you wanted anyway, and there is no sting, no offense of the cross. So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. Peter and John answered them and said, that's okay, we'll just witness with our lifestyle. Oh my bad, I thought that was I thought that was what Yeah, okay, no, that was the wrong that's the wrong version right there as the wrong version. But Peter and John answered and said, that's okay. The healings will be sufficient. To Peter and John answered them, well, then, I guess we'll be quiet because of that whole Romans thirteen thing. And you guys are the government. Peter and John answered them. Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard. Can I translate this for you, because when I read this, this is what I hear. Stop preaching Jesus. Nope. And the more sophisticated version of it is this. Look, you do what you must, and we will do what we must. They respected the right of the Sanhedrin to punish them. Whether it's right in the side of God to be men rather than God, you be the judge of that. You be the judge of that. You judge what you're supposed to judge. But we can't stop this. We won't stop this. We respect your authority and we will respectfully continue to do what God has commanded us to do because no man can forbid what God commands, or command what God forbids. So you exercise your authority under God the way you see fit, and we will obey God with fear and trembling. Later on, they're beaten because they won't stop preaching, and they rejoiced at the privilege of being considered worthy of being beaten for the sake of the gospel. This is where the similarity ends, because this is not our response. They say, you stop that, and we say, okay, we'll figure out some other way. My favorite part of the text is the next one. And when they had threatened, when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened. For the man on whom the sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old. When they had further threatened them, stop preaching in the name of Jesus, Nope, boss, they said, no, what do you want. We'll threat threat. Okay, if you don't stop, we'll take everything you own. Really, because we gave away our stuff in Act chapter two. In fact, the man asked us for money before we healed him, and we couldn't give him money because we ain't got none. So what do you you know? Stop preaching in the name of genius or we will kill you. I mean, like y'all kill him before he rose again. For us to live as Christ to die is game. It's almost as if Peter or John said, you know what, the last time we checked, the death rate was one per person. We're gonna die anyway. We're going home. You kill us, you just get to be our ride. How do you threaten a dead man problem with most of us? We're not dead yet. We have not died this self. We've not died to this world, and we are so desperate to be liked and accepted that we will compromise in order to achieve that, and will lie to ourselves and say that we're doing it for the sake of the Gospel. I get calls all the time from people, letters all the time from people. These things are going on in our culture. What are we going to do about these issues in our culture? How are we going to respond to same sex marriage? And I get this is what I always get. Can you give me a response to same sex marriage that doesn't rely on the Bible because people don't like the Bible and they don't believe the Bible. So if we're going to win this one, we're gonna have to win it without the Bible. Response to that, here's my response. You just lost why because their argument is not same sex marriage is acceptable. Their argument is same sex marriage is acceptable because the Bible is irrelevant. Your response, Okay, I'll agree with you that the Bible is irrelevant and then try to win the argument that I just gave up on. I'll prove the Bible's relevance by agreeing that the Bible is irrelevant. You just rolled off fools Hill. You can't get there from here. The word of God is all we have. We cannot speak of what we've seen and heard. And let me answer this before before we're done. We have to look at this because there are many who look here and basically what they hear from Peter and John is experientialism, This idea that what we argue is our experience. They can't argue with your experience. They may argue with this or that or the other, but they can't argue with your story. They can't argue with your experience. No, no, and no, Again, that's not the line here. We don't preach our experience. We preach Christ and him crucified. So if we go forward and we look at John, the first epistle of John, first John, beginning at verse one, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands. Concerning the Word of life, the life was made manifest, and we have seen it and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ. How do we have fellowship with the apostles by having a personal experience like theirs, No, by believing what they saw and they heard. They give us the gospel because they were present. They are the ones who bring this gospel to us. The gospel we preach is the Apostolic gospel. It is not the gospel of experience. It is the gospel of history. It is the gospel of fact. We preach who Christ was and what he did and who he is as the resurrected one. Not our experience. We don't preach ourselves. We don't preach our experience. It is the gospel that is the power of God on the salvation, not my story. It's Christ's story that has the power to say, not mine. I don't preach me, I don't preach my story. My testimony is not the be all to end all. It is Christ and Christ alone who saves. So don't hear them in Acts chapter four saying well, we've had an experience, and therefore because of our experience. No. No, because they have been entrusted with the gospel, and because the Apostolic gospel had to be preached and preserved and proclaimed. This is why they, as the apostles, had to preach what they had seen and heard, and what we have to preach is what they've seen and heard, not our own experience. Notice they also didn't say we have to heal. Did you notice that their argument is not that the healing is the answer. In fact, toward the end of the Apostolic age, you don't even see healing like this the way you did at the beginning of the Apostolic Age, it's just not there. We go from individuals being healed because Peter's shadow falls on them to Paul saying I left truffem as sick at Militis. Huh. So we don't even see healing the same way toward the end of the Apostolic Age like we saw at the beginning of the Apostolic Age, because it wasn't about the healing, it was about the gospel. Listen, folks. If this man who was healed outside the Gate Beautiful didn't hear the gospel, he died and went to Hell with a healed body. This is why these things matter. I hear people talking we need to step up and we need to take back our country and we need to do this, and we need to do that. Listen. We need to preach the gospel, but not so we can take back America. We need to preach the gospel because people need the Gospel. Amen. America can go to Hell in a handbasket and the Gospel still saves. Now, if you want to talk about freedoms being preserved so that the Gospel can continue to go forth like a beacon like it has, we can talk about that all day every day and twice on Sunday. But if you want to talk about somehow putting our hope here, that's not our answer. Christ is our hope. Notice that's what they also didn't say. They didn't say, Okay, we'll be silent, and then we'll go back and see if we can help get some godly men on the Sanhedra, and then when the Sanhedrin flips, we won't have to deal with this anymore because they'll be on our side. They did not turn it into a campaign to win the Sanhedrin. If you can't say, hey, man, you want to say out, they didn't. They couldn't care less who's on the Sanhedrin because they don't need the Sanhedrin. God doesn't need the Sanhedrin. God doesn't need Congress. God doesn't need the Senate. God doesn't need the White House. God doesn't need donkeys. God doesn't need elephants because He's got a lion. That's our hope. Does this mean that we don't care or we don't participate. Absolutely not. We care and we participate. But we do it because of the Gospel. We do it because of our love for our fellow man, because of our love for neighbor, that overflows because of what the Gospel has done for us. That's why we do this. I don't get involved in politics so that somebody in Washington can force my neighbor to do outwardly that which only the Gospel can accomplish. Inwardly, preach the Gospel to my neighbor, because I don't just want him moralistic, I want him saved. We can put somebody in offices that are gonna not prevent me from doing that with my neighbor. I want them, Amen, somebody's gonna not take my stuff? Yeah, I want them. I'll give my stuff, you don't get to take it. Do you see how different this is from what we're hearing all around us, this pragmatic therapeutic deism that most Christians are espousing right now, which is the absolute wrong answer. Supporting people because of electability in spite of godlessness. Yeah, I'm sure that's the way to bring revival. God help us. We must proclaim the truth of the Gospel because of verse twelve, there is no other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saying, that's why pray that God gives us a godly sanhedrin. Amen, And pray that even if he doesn't, we respond like this because our hope is in Christ and not in any man. Let's pray God, our heavenly Father, We thank you. We thank you for the kindness and mercy with which you have dealt with us. We thank you that you have not dealt with us as our sins deserve. We thank you that in spite of the fact that wet and said and done things on yesterday for which we should have been struck down dead, in spite of that, you allowed us to see another day. And today you've allowed us to hear your word, to be reminded of Christ, who is our hope, to be re minded, of the Gospel that is our hope, to be re minded. That You've dealt with sin through the man Christ Jesus, not through moralism, but through the death of your only begotten son, who died for sin, the just, for the unjust, in order that he might bring us back to God. Grant by your grace that we might embrace this truth and uphold it beyond all else. And Father, we do pray for our liberties. We pray for the protection and preservation of our liberties. And we ask Lord that even when they are not preserved and not protected, that we might respond, like our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the overwhelming majority of history who never saw the kind of freedom that we enjoy, our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the rest of the world today, none of whom enjoy the freedoms that we enjoy. Grant by your grace, that we never lose sight of them, and that we take advantage of the freedoms that we have not merely for the sake of being free, but for the sake of advancing the god spool and the cause of Christ, for the sake of for the sake of Your Kingdom, for the sake of our king. For we pray and ask all these things in His name, Amen.