Contending For The Faith Of America

I'm going to start off with prayer because it helps me.

You can pray if you want to, but, heavenly Father, I thank you for your Word.

Lord, thank you for giving me utterance.

I thank you that when words come out of my mouth, that they will go into those who will hear it and that it will help them, that it will encourage them and build them up and give them strength, that your words will not return void but they will accomplish everything that you intend for it.

And I thank you for the fruit that abounds in Jesus' name.

We're going to start off in the end, or close to the end, in Jude, in verse 3.

Jude 3, beloved while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

I had another direction to go when I was studying for today and I was intent on going that other direction.

And I couldn't go that other direction, just like right here James writes.

I wanted to tell you about one thing he said, but I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith.

There was an important thing I wanted to tell you.

But I have an urgency to tell you to contend earnestly for the faith, for certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turned the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord, jesus Christ.

I'll read it to you in the message Bible Dear friends, I have dropped everything to write to you about this life of salvation that we have in common.

I have to write, insisting, begging, that you fight with everything you have for this faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and to cherish, to fight with everything you have for this faith.

And so the message titled this morning is contending for the faith of America.

And on Revelation, chapter 2, there are seven churches listed there and all but two of these churches received some sort of rebuke.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

And Jesus is good to encourage.

He doesn't just tear down and destroy, but He'll let us know when something's not right and what we need to do to fix it and what the reward is if we'll fix it and carry on.

And so I'm going to skim through here in my notes and just hit some of these churches.

There was the church of Ephesus.

They were the loveless church and they did some good things.

They rejected evil, they persevered, they had patience.

But they got caught up in the orthodox routine of religion and they let their love of Christ their first love they let that wane.

And Jesus warned them to get back to their first love and he said to he that overcomes, you'll get to eat of the tree of life.

Sounds like a pretty good reward.

The church at Smyrna was the persecuted church and they gracefully bared and suffered in the middle of tribulation and Jesus encouraged them.

He said don't fear what the devil throws at you.

Be faithful even unto death, and I'll give you the crown of life.

The church at Pergamos was the compromising church.

They held fast to my name and did not deny my faith.

But he had a few things against them.

They tolerated immorality, idolatry and heresies and Jesus said repent or else.

He said I'm coming quickly and I'm going to come like you're not going to see me coming.

He says I'll come quickly and we'll fight against you with the sword in my mouth.

The word is the sword in His mouth and so we can be on the right side of God's word or the wrong side of God's word.

You're on the wrong side.

That word will come against you.

God is not against you, Jesus is not against you, but choose you this day, whom you will serve.

The choice is ours.

And he said to he that overcomes, I give hidden manna to eat and a white stone with a new name that only they would recognize.

Church at Thyatira was the corrupt church.

They had love, service, faith, patience that was even greater than when they first started.

But they tolerated some stuff.

They tolerated the cult of idolatry and the seductions of Jezebel, and he warned them to repent that judgment was coming.

But to those that keep the faith, and he said hold fast, keep on, and I'll give you power over nations.

Church at Sardis, the dead church, he said yeah, it's a dead church, but there's still a few that have faith.

And he said strengthen what remains.

He said I'm coming like a thief in the night.

He said to the few that remain faithful, he says I will not blot out your name.

Well, thank goodness.

What happens to the ones who aren't faithful?

He said I won't blot out the name of the faithful, but I'll give you a garment of white and I'm going to skip down to the last church that was named Laodicea, the lukewarm church.

We got no condemnation and in Revelation, this is 315, he says I know your works, that you're neither hot nor cold.

I wish that you were cold or hot.

So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold or hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.

Because you say I'm rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing.

I got everything I need and you do not know that you're wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

They don't even know when they're lukewarm.

That's a bad state to be in.

He said.

I counsel you to buy gold refined in fire, that you may be rich, white garments, that you may be clothed and the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed.

Anoint your eyes with eye-sab that you may see as many as I love.

I rebuke and chase and therefore be zealous and repent.

So even they had a chance to repent right there.

I can't prove it, but I heard somebody talking about the church at Laodicea and the Laodotians had just developed a form of hot and cold running water.

They had aqueducts, they found a way to heat it and they found a way to pipe cold water and warm water or hot water, and so each of those two.

You know, cold water has a purpose it's refreshing, it's cooling, it's soothing.

Hot water has a purpose it's cleansing.

And so each of those two have a purpose.

But when you're expecting to drink a hot cup of coffee or a cold glass of water, and it's just tepid and lukewarm, it's gross, it's disgusting.

And Jesus said I will spew you out of my mouth, I will vomit you out.

They were disgusting to Jesus.

What a terrible state.

But let's get back to the church at Philadelphia.

He said I know your works.

See, I've sat before you an open door and no one can shut it.

For you have a little strength.

You've kept my word and have not denied my name.

Indeed, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan say that they are Jews, who are not.

But they've lied.

He said I will make them worship before your feet and to know that I have loved you because you have kept my command and persevered, I will also keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth Because they were faithful.

This is the top notch church.

This is the one that got it right, that persevered, that was faithful in every aspect, that did not quit to the end, and he said I'm going to save you from the trial that the rest of the world is going to go through.

He said hold fast to what you have so that no one may take your crown.

They were still at risk of messing up.

Hold fast, he encouraged them.

And he who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go out no more.

And I'll write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and I will write on him my new name.

Each of these churches is represented in the world today.

There is a type of each one of these churches in the world.

In 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 3, it said but even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

2 Corinthians 4:3

The God of this world is working overtime to blind people's minds, to ensure that they don't see the light of Christ that they don't see the truth.

The God of this world pastor often times gives this definition of the God of this age.

The God of this world, it's all that floating mass of thoughts and speculations, opinions, maxims and hopes, impulses and aims, aspirations that are at any time current in the world.

The God of this world has existed since the fall of man, and he's always working against the knowledge of God and the knowledge of his son, jesus, and even more so as we approach the very end.

He knows his time is short, and so we see an increase of that effort to blind people, and so it's just those things that are at any time current in the world.

You know, you can look out there and see.

You can look in the schools and see what our kids are being taught.

You can hear from our governing officials and see what they're saying According to the news media, and you can pretty quickly recognize that it's humanism, it's liberalism.

You know, humanism is a religion and the priests of that religion are some people in government and media and in schools.

But you got humanism and liberalism.

Progressivism, you know, progressivism doesn't sound so bad when you're progressive.

We want to make progress, we want to keep moving ahead, advancing Well.

Progressivism is evil Because they call it one thing to disguise the evil that lies underneath.

The God of this age is Marxism.

It's all anti-Christ, and we've been progressing from one level of evil to another level, to another level, and it's getting worse and worse and worse.

In fact, I don't think we have a partisan divide anymore in this nation.

It is simply good versus evil, and you'll see people in both political parties taking a side on good versus evil.

They're taking a side, and some people in the Democrat Party have gone so far to the extreme, to the Marxist, to the evil side, that the more moderate Democrats are even shocked and appalled and pulling away from that.

And so that's why I say it's not.

It's in both parties.

It's not a partisan divide, it's God who has dropped a plumb line in this nation, and people are having to choose this day whom they will serve.

We're short on time.

I just got to know who's on what team, so I know how to play the game, and so that's where we're at.

But getting back to Jude, it says what has happened is that some people have infiltrated our ranks.

The Scriptures warned us this would happen.

You, beneath their pious skin are shameless scoundrels.

Their design is to replace the sheer grace of our God with sheer license, which means to do away with Jesus Christ.

They are working to do away with God and they have infiltrated our ranks.

They've infiltrated the ranks of the church.

I'll make the statement that America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles that came out of the Bible.

Our founding documents and letters that were written by our founders are full of biblical references and quotes.

They are inseparable from God's Word because they are based on God's Word.

The founding of this nation was based on revelation, knowledge of who God was and who we have and what we have in Christ.

You know the Mayflower Compact was.

The purpose of that was having undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.

And those men on the Mayflower signed their names to that.

That was their purpose from coming over here to establish and plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia.

Their purpose was all for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.

And now we've let evil slip in and infiltrate our ranks and infiltrate the church and infiltrate our nation that was founded on God and infiltrate our schools.

Did you know, the original purpose of our public school system was for three things.

It was to instill the love of God into our kids, to instill the love of country into our kids, to instill the love of family into our kids.

Three purposes.

And why is the love of country above the love of family?

Our founders knew that if you love your country, greater love hath no man that he lay down his life for his friend.

If we love our country, we're going to have a safe place for our family.

If we don't love our country, it will become the enemy of the family.

And people today don't love this country and this country has in so many ways become the enemy of the family.

And we heard from Raphael Cruz last week that the church is supposed to influence culture, not the other way around.

The church is not to be influenced.

We're not to wet our finger and stick it up and check the wind direction to find out what do people want?

Which way is the world going?

How should we alter our message?

What pages of this Bible should we tear out to accommodate what people want?

That is backwards.

God's word never changes.

He's the same yesterday, today and forever.

I'm the Lord, god.

I change not, he says, and so I guess it was a couple of weeks ago.

Two and a half weeks ago, I used this example on a Wednesday livestream.

I'm going to use it again today.

I want you to hear it.

Some of you may not have heard it.

You may have heard bits and pieces of it last weekend as we celebrated our nation's founding, but I want you to hear it again because it's important.

This helps you with your argument when you talk to others.

This helps you understand your position.

Back in the constitutional convention, when we were trying to come up with a constitution George Washington is moderating this, he's the president of the convention and all of our founders are there and they were trying to come up with, you know, the supreme law of this land that we have now.

But they were at a deadlock.

They couldn't settle down on any issue.

They argued every point and he said there were as many guesses as there were noses on these points and they had been at it four or five weeks.

And so Benjamin Franklin gets up and addresses the convention and he's about 80, I think he's 81 years old at this point, which was really old at that time because the life expectancy was, you know, somewhere in the 30s or maybe 40 at that time, and so he was the oldest guy in the room.

So when he spoke people respected him and they listened to him.

You know, and I want you to listen to what he's saying here, but he's called a deist.

When our kids learn about him, thomas Jefferson called a deist.

You've got two of the probably the most recognizable names of our founders, thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and our public school system just kind of dismisses them and says they're deists.

Did you know that more than half of the signers of our Declaration of Independence had divinity degrees?

They were pastors, they were preachers, they studied God's word, they ministered God's word, and they don't talk about that in public schools.

In fact, they minimize that.

They talk about the ones who were, in their minds, least godly and elevate them.

And so here is one of the least godly founders speaking to our then President, george Washington, the president of that convention, and he said the small progress we have made after four or five weeks.

We've argued on all these points as many yeses as knows.

They were about to give up and go home.

He said we've gone back in ancient history, we've looked at all kinds of models of government and we've looked at the modern states around Europe and found that none of their constitutions were suitable for our circumstances.

He says, in this situation of this assembly groping, as it were, in the dark to find political truth and scarce able to distinguish it when it is presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought to humbly apply to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understanding?

This deist was saying we've been at this four or five weeks now and we're trying to do this without God.

How is it that we didn't pray, that we didn't bring God in here?

And then he referred back to the writing of the Declaration of Independence.

And he said, in the beginning of this contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of the danger, they were about to sign their names to a document that would ensure their death warrants.

When we were sensible to the danger, we had daily prayer in this room for divine protection.

And our prayers, sir, were heard and they were graciously answered.

And yet today we're trying to write this Constitution and do it without God.

He said, sir, I've lived a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth that God governs the affairs of men and that if a sparrow can fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can fall to the ground without his notice?

Is it probable that an empire can be raised up without his aid?

He said I've been assured of the sacred writings that accept the Lord, build.

They labor in vain, that build it, and I firmly believe this that without his concurring, we shall be no better off than they were who built the Tower of Babel.

So this is the deist reminding him and exhorting them in the room.

We forgot to pray, we forgot to bring God into this process.

We're trying to do this under our own strength and it's impossible and we can't do this without God.

And so from that time forward, they had daily prayer in there that were led by clergy from that area, daily, and it wasn't just a check in the box.

You know, let's have a quick prayer, okay, we bow our heads and we're going to pray, all right, now we can get on to real business.

No, the real business was imploring God to be part of that process and because of that we have a nation and we have a free nation.

It was founded on God.

And it almost wasn't and it almost failed.

I'll remind you that a little more than a year ago, king Abbott and also Commandante Judge Lena Hildago, they issued their executive orders shutting down Harris County and Texas and declaring that only essential businesses could be open.

And then they went on to list some of those businesses and some of those services and they had to be essential, but they excluded the church from that.

And so, in doing so, they shut down churches and churches all over, just willingly complied and said we won't open again until you tell us it's safe to open.

If you're willing to trade your freedom for safety, you don't deserve either.

And so recall that a little more than a year ago, we declared we're not going to close up.

We're going to, by God, we're keeping our church doors open and we're praying for our president.

God reminded our pastor well, if you prayed for your president and he asked for 15 days, don't you think you ought to at least give him the 15 days?

And so, after pastor said we're not closing our doors, he had to say I got to give him 15 days, we prayed, I got to honor that, give God room to work, and so let's give him the 15 days.

So we shut the doors for 15 days, went on live stream only.

You know, by live stream you're one power outage away and one censorship away from being completely shut down and stifled.

That is a very dangerous position to be in, especially since our right to assemble here today and to worship God in a way that we see fit, according to our conscience, is guaranteed and protected under the Constitution, and so it's a dangerous place to be to not enforce those freedoms and use those freedoms.

And so we shut down for the 15 days.

Then we announced we're opening back up Palm Sunday, and then we had the news media here in the parking lot.

I didn't invite them.

They came and they were here both Sundays Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday and we got all kinds of bad reviews and terrible messages on our phone and terrible emails and people called us irresponsible super spreaders.

We're killing people.

We even got one death threat by mail and that's the God of this age trying to shut down the voice of the church.

And so since then you know this is a Barna survey They've surveyed churches that have closed down.

Of the churches that have closed down across this nation, the ones that have closed about 20% of those will never reopen.

That means you still got about 80% of them that are getting back online in some form or fashion.

Many of them are still just doing live stream where they have little incidents and you know somebody gets the snuffles and they close the doors again and they got to meet in the parking lot.

Did Jesus ever shut down his ministry when the leper approached?

I didn't think so.

I don't think it's a bad thing that 20% of those churches will never reopen because it doesn't sound like they had anything good to say in the first place.

In fact, it would probably be good if some of those others that are out there preaching a false doctrine in another Jesus that they close up as well.

How is it that the Southern Baptist Convention even has to debate whether or not they will support the abolition of abortion?

Why is that a debate in the church?

The Southern Baptist Convention did that.

I don't even understand that.

It's just in God's Word.

Life is precious to God, especially innocent life, and it's an abomination to shed innocent blood.

It's evil.

Why is it that pastors care more about their 501 C3 and what their attorney says about that than they do about preaching truth as it relates to issues that are considered political.

They care more about that nonprofit status, that letter from the IRS, than they do about speaking God's Word.

Well, brother, we can't talk about those things in church because they're political.

Did you know that the things that used to not be political are considered very political today?

And things that are not yet political today will become very political tomorrow.

And so if we follow that rule as a church, you're letting culture influence the message of the church and determine what you can and can't say.

We don't care what the IRS thinks.

A nonprofit status doesn't make us a church.

According to the letter that the IRS gives us, congress, by congressional statute, makes us a nonprofit.

The IRS has nothing to do that.

But God makes us a church.

Government doesn't make us a church and the IRS isn't going to allow us to say something or disallow us to say something.

We're going to preach and do what God called us to do, no matter what.

Why is it that some churches embrace the LGBTQ culture instead of speaking the truth in love?

Well, we just have to open our doors and accept everybody.

Well, heaven will accept everybody that accepts Jesus, but heaven's doors are closed to people that don't accept Jesus.

That's love.

We want to help people to know and do what's right.

And some churches are more concerned and scared about what are people going to think of us?

What if people don't come back?

What if they don't like the message?

We've got seven lighted exits around this room.

If you don't like the message, you're welcome to get up and walk out.

I hope you don't.

I hope you want to hear the truth.

I hope this resonates with your spirit.

Your spirit will bear witness when things are true and right.

But you don't have to hear it.

God is not forcing anyone to take what he has.

It's an invitation.

People are so scared of what the culture is going to think of them.

Thomas Jefferson wrote all tyranny needs to gain to a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Well, brother, we can't talk about those things in church because they're political.

We have to remain silent.

They're guilty of allowing evil men to come in and occupy places that we've been called to occupy.

Second Timothy 1.7 says for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.

Believing what God says is sound mindedness.

God made man and he made woman that they should be joined together and be made one.

Marriage is the union that God ordains between one man and one woman.

That's written in God's word.

We don't have to run from that.

There's a whole culture out there that calls us haters and bigots and evil and they're liars and we don't have to be afraid of that God's word and what he says is sound mindedness.

What they say is mental disorder and demonic.

We don't have to pretend like mental disorders are normal.

God has a remedy for people who have mental disorders and are oppressed and possessed by demonic powers.

God has a remedy for that.

They don't have to be that way.

They can get free.

That is love.

The spirit of God does not shrink back from danger.

It doesn't hide from the cancel culture.

The Spirit of God is a spirit that overcomes.

You know the Greek word for overcoming used in the New Testament means to subdue, to conquer, to prevail, to get the victory.

It's a military term.

It means that there's a fight and a battle and that we overcome by force.

That's what overcoming means that we destroy the enemy, that we beat the enemy.

It's not placating and talking nice with the enemy.

We don't have to be afraid of that enemy.

Ephesians 6, 10 through 18,.

Finally, brother, and be strong in the Lord and the power of his might, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand against the wiles of the devil.

That word wiles right.

There is another military term it's military strategies of the devil.

The devil knows he's at war and he's got military strategies.

A significant portion of the church today, the seven churches that are out there, a significant portion of them, don't know that they're at war.

They're just too busy hiding and trying not to be offensive to anyone.

And when the devil comes in and demands something, they just say oh, yes, yes, you can have it, you can have it, and they give up the ground.

That's a significant number of the churches that are out there today.

Remember those seven churches that are listed in Revelation.

Ephesians 6, 13 says take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day.

And having done all to stand.

Stand, therefore.

That means we don't quit, because we are wearing God's suit of protection.

We have His weapon in our hand, which is the Word of God.

We have the shield of faith whereby we can quench all the fiery darts, all the attacks of the wicked one, the shield of faith will prevent the attacks from landing on you, wearing His army.

Prevent the attacks from getting to your body, from getting to your mind, from getting to your spirit.

But we're at war.

Hebrews 13, 6 says the Lord is my helper, I will not fear.

What can man do to me?

The Lord is my helper, I will not fear.

What can man do to me Next time you feel a feeling of fear?

Fear is opposite of faith.

Faith is believing that what God said is true, that we can have what God says.

Fear is believing that what the devil says is going to happen, that that's the way it is.

And so when you have that feeling of fear, it's a sensation, it's an emotion.

You feel it in your body, you feel it in your mind.

Just know that that's not God, and you can respond to that by saying the Lord is my helper, I will not fear.

What can man do to me?

Someone confronts you about your Christian belief or your political position.

We need to look at things through the biblical worldview.

God has a view of this world and we need to take on His perspective of that, and we ought not be ashamed of God's perspective.

We ought to be able to speak that and do it in love.

We ought to be able to help people who will listen.

But to those who won't listen, we ought to be able to give them a solid throat punch and walk.

No, you speak His Word and you're not responsible for the results of it.

Thank God, we're not responsible for results.

He is eager, he's watching and to see are we going to do His Word or not?

And the moment we do it, he performs it and so you're not responsible for the result.

If you speak His Word and do it in love and they receive it, great, you won.

And if they reject it, then they're playing for the other team and I pray to God that their names are not blotted out of the book of life.

I pray to God that there's some laborer that comes in, that we can sow some seeds, that we can water and that they can be saved before the bitter end.

But if not, it's on them, not on you, because you did His Word, you spoke His Word and God performs it.

The Great Commission.

In Mark, chapter 16, beginning in verse 15, jesus is talking.

Mark 16 · chapter mention

He said to them.

He said go into all the world and preach the gospel.

Go into all the world and proclaim the truth.

Go into all the world and give people good news.

And to go into all the world is not the church building, it's not the third world nation, it's all the world.

It includes the church, it includes third world nations, it includes people who have not heard His gospel.

But it includes positions of authority in our government, it includes positions in your companies, in businesses.

It includes positions in schools.

It includes every aspect of our life.

We are charged to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel, speak the truth and declare what God says, and to not back away and to not be ashamed when people resist you.

Too many people just crater.

At the first sign of resistance.

You say something and it appears offensive and we're so conscious of not offending people.

Immediately we begin to apologize and back up and say I'm sorry, you don't have to do that.

Just speak the truth and do it in love and let God perform and let them decide and don't apologize for it.

I also said and these signs will follow them that believe.

How many believers do we have In my name?

They will cast out devils, they'll speak with new tongues, they'll take up serpents and if they eat or drink any deadly thing, it'll by no means harm them and they'll lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.

We're operating under the authority that Jesus gave us.

He said all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.

Go.

Therefore, sadly, the Democrats have done a much better job of the Great Commission than the church.

They have gone and occupied every level of society and they're working to cancel the church.

Had we been there and not given up that ground, we wouldn't be in the scenario that we see today.

Remember the seven churches All but two got a stiff rebuke, and one was definitely the church on top, the church at Philadelphia.

Are we gonna let them in, these, these men, these evil people that infiltrate our ranks?

Are we gonna let them in?

We've already let them in.

Are we gonna keep doing that?

If we keep doing what we've always done, we'll have what we've always had.

That means we have to rise up as a church.

We have to rise up as the body of Christ in every facet of society and occupy until he comes, and when we encounter resistance, we don't back up.

You don't move off the ground.

God's paid for this real estate.

We ought not have to pay for it twice.

Don't give up the ground.

A German Lutheran pastor.

Maybe you recognize the name, martin Neomuller.

He was arrested in 1937 because of his defiance against Hitler and he spent the last seven years of that era in of the Nazi rule.

He spent that last seven years of Nazi rule in a concentration camp because he resisted Hitler.

He was not a great moral person, he was a nationalist.

I don't believe he was one who loved the Jewish people.

I think he was just a German of that time and that culture.

But he suffered because he didn't believe in everything that Hitler demanded they believe in.

And so he resisted and spent some time in the concentration camps and he wrote first they came for the socialist and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

And then they came for the Unionist and I didn't speak out because I was not a trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak out because I was not a Jew.

And then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.

You're seeing that happen in America today.

There's a cancel culture out there that's coming after one group and another and another and another and they're working to cancel them out and to the degree that we throw our hands up and say, well, you know that's bad for them, but at least I'm not one of those people who's experiencing that right now.

It's not on my doorstep.

When it gets to your doorstep, it's too late.

We can't let it get on our doorstep.

We can't wait another day, another hour, another minute for it to encroach on our territory anymore.

We have got to push back.

We're contending for the faith of America.

Churches need to rise up, pastors need to rise up.

And it doesn't happen in here.

It happens when we walk out of these doors and go into all the world and occupy.

Like it or not, we are in a war and we're fighting for the soul of this nation and for the soul of our next generation.

I saw a quote from Matt Walsh.

He's a speaker, an author, a writer.

He's got a blog.

I think this is one of his recent tweets.

He said the only way to stop the cancel culture mob is to never apologize to it, to never give it anything, to not make any concessions and to offend it on purpose and laugh in its face.

That is the only solution.

There is no other.

If you're not offensive to the devil, we're not doing our job.

If you're not offending people who have the devil on the inside of them and are operating under those powers, we're not doing our job.

We need to be an offense.

We're to be stones of stumbling to people who don't believe.

The cancel culture is the anti-Christ spirit.

It is the God of this age and we've got to be willing to fight.

You know, david was willing to fight.

Joshua was willing to fight.

He said they're bread for us.

Let's go up right now.

Let's take him at once.

We can do it.

He eventually did.

But God had to put down the other ten who were cowards.

God will wait till we can thin the crowd, until we got no cowards left, and then he'll take a handful of people who trust him, who believe his word, who are unafraid and unashamed to speak his truth and to go into do, who love not their lives into the death.

He'll take that group of people and accomplish great things.

He doesn't need masses of people to do.

He needs a few who are wholly committed.

Abraham was willing to stand up and fight for his family.

Elijah was willing to kill 400 prophets of Baal.

Jesus fought, he disarmed principalities and powers.

He made a spectacle of them triumphing over them.

We sang triumph this morning.

We sang that word this morning.

I want you to get a picture of what triumph is.

The Roman triumph was when, after a war or a battle, the winning general, the winning leader, would take the loser, the losing army, and would march them into town.

He would strip them of their weapons.

They were chained together, they were beaten, they were naked, they weren't wearing anything and they had to march in shame into town with the winning general behind them.

They had music.

It was a celebration.

He triumphed over them.

It was a spectacle.

That is a picture of what Jesus has done to the devil and demonic powers.

When he defeated death, hell in the grave, he triumphed over them.

All things are under his feet.

That means the foot of Jesus was on the neck of Satan, pressing it down into the ground.

It was a spectacle, it was a show, it was a demonstration.

And we're called the triumph.

We're called to make a spectacle of the devil.

He's been defeated.

Why is it that he's occupying so much of our territory?

Again, go back to the seven churches.

Which one of the churches is responsible for that mess?

The church is not in its right position.

The church ought to be standing up strong, with its foot on the neck of the devil, on the neck of our enemy.

So I go back to Jude in the message Bible that says to fight with everything you have in you for this interest, for this faith entrusted to us as a gift, to guard and cherish what Jesus did for us, what God gave us, who he made us to be.

That is a gift that we are to guard and cherish and we're to fight with everything that we have to ensure that we don't give that up and that others around us don't give that up either and that this cancel culture doesn't make any more inroads into this nation.

What God gave us, this nation, is a gift and we are to fight with everything.

We have to guard and cherish it.

If we want to be the overcoming church at Philadelphia, we're gonna have to suit up and go and occupy some tough places, and we got to contend for the faith of America.

We got to contend for the faith that's missing in some of these churches.

There's an opportunity for them.

They've been rebuked and he said.

Jesus said, if you just do this, there's a reward for you.

You don't have to stay being a loser over here.

You can come over here to this side and be a winner.

I've got a reward for you.

There's a great reward.

I hope you're ready for it.

The Church of Philadelphia.

I know your works, I see.

See, I have set before you an open door and no one can shut it.

God will raise up the church that'll take their right position.

I set before you an open door and no one can shut it.

If there's an open door, if we're doing the right thing as a church, if we're in position and we're doing what we're supposed to, we're occupying seats of authority outside this building and we're pushing back and we're not giving into this canceled culture.

God said there's an open door and no one can shut it.

That means you don't have to be afraid of what they say and how they threaten you, because you've kept my command to persevere.

I will also keep you from the hour of trial.

He said to the Philadelphia Church I want to be that church.

I want this church to be that church.

Now, it's not just this church there's, it's any church that fits that category.

It's any church that doesn't quit, that doesn't give up ground.

That's the church at Philadelphia.

It's not just glorious white church, it's any church that fits that description.

Because you've kept my command.

I will also keep you from the hour of trial.

That means when there's bad things happening out there and you go and occupy and stand in those positions and do it on the authority that Jesus has given us.

You have nothing to fear.

Hold fast to what you have so that no one may take your crown.

There's a risk in doing this that you could give in, that you could still crater, you could back up, you could be ashamed in a moment.

Hold fast so that no one can take your crown.

He who overcomes.

I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go out, no more.

And I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down from heaven, from my God, and I will write on him my new name.

That's the promise for the overcoming church.

That's the promise for the church that rises up and goes to war and overcomes.

That's what's available to us and America's what's at stake, and I'm unwilling to give up on it.

And I know there's gonna be more opportunities coming up.

There are some right now I'm gonna tell you just a little bit about.

But there's opportunities for people in this church to do something and to do some great things.

And you might say, well, I've never done that before, I've never done anything like that before.

Well, I've got news for you.

We've never pasted a church in the end times before, and so we're all in uncharted territory.

But do you believe what God said?

Are you gonna follow faith or are we gonna follow fear?

The Lord is my helper.

I will not fear.

If the Lord is your helper and you've never done it before and you've got God, the God of all creation, his Holy Spirit dwelling on the inside of you, helping you, don't you think you're set up for success?

Can you think of someone else you would rather have helping you than he who spoke, and it was, than he who raised Jesus from the dead?

The Holy Ghost is on the inside of you.

The Lord is my helper.

I will not fear.

What can man do to me?

I've never done it before, it doesn't matter.

The Lord is my helper.

Those people are mean over there.

Do you know what they said about me?

Get behind me, satan.

There's an easy response to this stuff.

The Lord is my helper.

I will not fear.

I'm gonna give you a couple of opportunities and I don't want anyone to jump on this out of emotion.

But I want you to respond to the Holy Ghost.

I want to be able to say things like this under the anointing of the Holy Ghost and have it witnessed with your spirit.

You'll know when you're supposed to do something and not.

There is a place and a mission and a purpose for everyone in this room.

God has charged you to be in this world, to be an influence in this world, to influence the culture of this world.

He has charged every one of you to occupy a seat of authority somewhere and exercise your authority and to bear fruit for His kingdom, everyone.

It's called the Believer's Ministry.

That's what we're supposed to be doing here.

But there's an opportunity Syfair Independent School District School Board elections.

They're coming up November 2nd this year.

There's a filing deadline so you can file for to run for that office between July 17th and August 16th.

You have a little bit of time to think about it, to pray about it before you decide and rush out.

You don't have to have experience being on a school board to be a success in that position.

The Lord is my helper.

I will not fear.

What can man do to me?

But if we don't occupy those seats of authority on our school boards, we lose the soul of our children and we lose the soul of this nation.

I'm unwilling to do that.

If we don't occupy those positions and keep out the critical race theory, which is anti-God, anti-christ, anti Bible, it is pure evil.

If we don't keep that out of our schools and ensure that that our public school system is there to ensure that our kids have a love of God, have a love of country and to have a love of family that's missing.

You won't find that in public schools anymore, but it needs to get back in.

Did you know that the Bible was the original textbooks in our schools in this nation?

Where is that anymore?

We have gotten so far off of our intended purpose as a nation and specifically public schools.

But we can get back and there's a reward if we'll get back there, and so we need to occupy those positions.

If you're interested in doing that, I would like you to see me at the end of church and let me know that you're just interested.

Don't make a commitment to me, you can make a commitment to God and then I'll help you take the next steps.

I'll make sure that you're connected.

I want you to know that there's a budget, a campaign budget, out there for people who will run and occupy positions like that, and we're looking for godly men and women.

This is not a political battle.

This is one for the soul of this nation.

We're contending for the faith of American, contending for the faith of our kids, and it's got to happen in places like that.

I thank God for our school administrators and teachers that we have that get to minister to these kids on a regular basis, but I don't want their voices stifled.

I don't want them to feel like they can't do certain things in the classroom because of this perceived separation between the separation of church and state.

That's not in the Constitution.

The separate, the concept of the separation of church and state, is there to keep the government from dictating to the church what should be preached.

But this is a godly nation.

It is not meant to keep godly men and women out of office.

Our Texas legislature has started into the special session and they've got an agenda of items on there that are very important.

One of those is we need to keep boys from competing in women's sports.

Why do we even have to argue about that?

When you argue with an idiot, you look like one.

There's no argument.

We just have to steamroll that evil and make sure we don't let that in Texas.

Boys are not girls.

Girls are not boys.

God made them man and he made them woman.

We're different.

It's simply God's word and God's plan, and when people violate that it's evil, and so there's opportunities to testify on that.

In Revelation it says that we overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.

The blood of the Lamb made us who we are.

It made us without spot.

It made us perfect in God's sight.

It made us righteous.

It made us clean enough so that we can go before him and be in his presence.

The blood of Jesus gave us a family name and gave us access to God.

The accuser has been cast down.

Revelation, chapter 12, verse 11,.

Revelation 12:11

And they overcome Him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and they love not their lives unto the death.

In verse 10 it says then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven now salvation and strength in the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, which accused them before God day and night, has been cast down.

He no longer has access to God to accuse us to God anymore, because the blood of Jesus has covered that.

The blood of Jesus is there and testifies on our behalf and says they're innocent, and so the only one he has left to accuse anybody to is to you.

The accuser can accuse you to you, and that's it.

If you let Him Get behind me, satan, when he accuses you to you, I am washed in the blood of Jesus.

I overcome you by the blood of the Lamb and the word of my testimony.

We can overcome this evil with the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.

If you're willing to go and testify, if you're willing to stand up and go places and testify, god will put you in places of authority.

You'll testify before high positions.

You'll be an influence in those positions.

I got to go testify in Austin during the regular session a few times and it just occurred to me while I'm sitting there.

I was, my voice was one of about I don't know 40 people that testified that day, and I got to have a conversation with the legislators about what was wrong with the piece of legislation we were that was being considered in that committee, and the conversation back and forth kind of put it on a track for a different solution.

That would have been good.

And so my voice.

I got to testify on a piece of legislation.

My voice was one of about 40 people on a piece of legislation that affects 29 million in Texas.

Your voice is powerful if you'll use it and there's evil that's going to testify.

Well, we have good testify.

If you're willing and you wanna have opportunities like that, come see me after service.

I'm not gonna be the one to plan trips going to Austin.

I'm not gonna be able.

I've done, I've had people go to Austin.

I've showed some people around.

I've got some others who can help you with that.

But if you're willing to do that, I wanna pair you up with people who are going and people who are testifying.

You say I've never done that before.

I will not fear.

What can man do to me?

The Lord is my helper.

The Holy Ghost is on the inside of me.

When I speak his words he backs it up, and so if you've never done that before, there's a first time and a great time to start.

The time is now.

We're in a war right now.

We're in a war for this nation, for the soul of this nation and for the soul of our kids.

The other side knows we're at war.

Too much of the church doesn't know we're at war and they're not fighting.

And we can't overcome if we don't fight.

And so I challenge you today be a fighter, don't be afraid, don't be canceled.

Let's cancel the devil and let's overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.