Acts chapter 5, beginning in verse 24, Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and chief priest heard these things, they doubted of them whereunto this would grow. Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people. Then went the captain with the officers and brought them without violence, for they fear the people, lest they should be stoned. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest asked them, saying, Did not we straightly command you that you should not teach in this name? And behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. Peter and the other apostles. Amen? In verse 30, the God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom he slew and hanged on the tree. So there you've got the gospel right there. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a prince and a savior, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Heavenly Father, I give thee thanks, Lord, for the blessing of thy word. Lord, and I pray, Lord, for the youngster to preach it today, Lord. And I pray, Lord, help me to preach it with power, Lord, and may it speak to thy people. In Jesus' precious name I pray, amen. Now move over to Romans chapter 13. Romans 13, we're going to begin in verse 1. We're going to read the first seven verses. Right? What that is basically is, you know what, if I go out and commit murder, I want to spend some time in jail. That's what that is, right? I mean, technically it should be actually capital punishment, but here in Canada, we do not have capital punishment anymore. Verse three, for rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Will thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shall have praise of the same, for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the minister of God, a revenger, to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also, for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour. Amen. In other words, pay your taxes. Even if it's too much. And we are taxed to death nevertheless. Pay them. So there are three institutions that have been established by God. Yeah, the Word of God certainly declares there are three institutions that have been established by the Lord. The first is obviously the home. The home, Genesis chapter 2. God established the home before anything else. The second institution is government, civil government. Genesis 9. And lastly, the third institution is the church itself. Matthew 16 and verse 18. Three institutions. Now this section is the clearest and most specific New Testament teaching on us and our responsibility as saints to governmental authority. And the reason why I'm preaching this message today is, you know, we went through some things yesterday and I didn't share with the ladies in the group chat there. Yanafer, I'll share it with you today, but there was certainly some resistance yesterday. And there's no doubt that this year, last year, the civil authorities left us alone at these events. But it seems that either there's pressure from above, but there's a concerted effort to shut down the preaching. Shut down the preaching. or at least render it to the point where it's of none effect by having us preach with zero amplification in a corner in the middle of a windy day where you literally preach into the air and no one else can hear you or see your signs. That's basically it. Anyway, I will get to that a little bit later in this message. So we have a responsibility to governmental authority. Yes, we must subject ourselves or submit ourselves to their authority. But that submission never means blind obedience. Never. When that obedience causes you to obey the commands of God, the Word of God, you disobey. You disobey. Romans chapter 13 is effectively the blueprint of how we are to relate to civil authorities and how civil authorities ought to enforce that God-ordained authority within society. It's a blueprint for them. And sadly, our civil authorities at all levels are in complete violation of God's blueprint. They've overstepped their boundaries. We live in a socialist country, literally on the verge of communism. I mean, some who have grown up in communist countries. I was reading a little piece there by a man from Venezuela who's recognizing the same patterns in this country that occurred about 25 years ago, 30 years ago, when the communists took over, the same patterns. By the way, that's a big part of why they're having this mass immigration come in. Because these people are also coming, yes, they're receiving all these freebies. By the way, I know there's a lot of Canadians complaining about them receiving these freebies and all that they're getting, and it's unjust, but something is going to be required of those people coming into the country. It comes at a cost. You get nothing free unless they're trying to seduce you with something. Absolutely. In Romans 13 verses 1 and 2, Paul does not merely speak of God's decorative will, but rather God's preceptive will. Not decorative will, but preceptive will. Which if the magistrate refrains from executing just judgment against crimes, which is not happening in this country! You've got rapists! You've got pedophiles! Child abusers! literally being set free on bail and in Calgary they're locking up a preacher. who happened to confront a drag queen storytime event. Regardless of what he believes doctrinally, regardless of his lack of standards and that, the man confronted an event. Yes, he went right inside and he arrested him, and perhaps he was not wise in breaching some of his bail conditions, but now that man is spending time in jail. while we're letting pedophiles and rapists out in the street. Think about that, that's not justice. Yeah. Civil authorities' failure to carry out justice would be sinful. See, God appoints civil magistrates to execute His vengeance on evildoers. Think about that. God's vengeance on evildoers. Preaching the gospel is not evildoing. Now I want to show you something right now. I'm going to bring it out. Yesterday, the city of Whitby wrote me two tickets worth almost $600. I knew that I read the bylaw. See, when they held, by the way, they held it at the Hayden Shore Pavilion, right by the lakefront. That's where the Whitby Library hosted the Drag Queen Story event. It was cool yesterday, so the park was essentially empty. There are no residential houses in the vicinity, anywhere close to that. All right, I deliberate, by the way, one of the hosts of the event tried to trap us, if you will, or coax us into saying, we've designated this area, which was on park land, for protest, right? Knowing full well that you would need a permit on park land. I knew better. So I parked across the street. I looked at the boundaries of the park. While we were sitting there, I was looking at the boundaries of the park land, and I saw that we're on Whitby public property. not Parkland, which is also public property, but they have different bylaws. So I deliberately set up there so we could use our amplification. Plus, you know what? They're not determining where we set up. We're across the street. You know what? They have a permit for the park. We're across from the park. We can set up wherever we want. And we did that. So I got this ticket here. By the way, they spent about 25 minutes going through papers of papers through the bylaws. Right? So I told him I'm not turning it off and I'm not going away. I already have it a quarter of the volume. 25%, it was at 25% of the volume. I upped it to about 30%. So it was already pretty low. Any low, and by the way, we're not gonna, so I didn't wanna use our voices. to try and preach right across. It's not like you're preaching to a crowd. You're preaching to a specific group of people that are across the way, and you want them to hear. And I don't want the men, myself, to strain our voices. So this was the first one, I believe. It says, use of apparatus, mechanism, or device for amplification of human voice slash music sound without a permit. You don't need it. Contrary to public parks and park buildings bylaw 7419, we weren't in a public park or a public building. We were across from it. So that's gonna be, I'm gonna be sending that in to fight. I'm gonna put that over here so I don't lose them all. And then, this one, about, this happened about an hour later. Decided you know what, I'm gonna give him this one too. Cause permit nuisance in public place. causing a nuisance in the public place. Well, you know what? My wife sent me some things here, and I'm gonna actually go into my messenger here just to look at it. And I'm gonna read exactly what that is. Exactly what that is. Right down here, okay. So we have, Okay, this is it. Section 9 here, broadly prohibits any activity that constitutes a nuisance in the public place. The bylaw specifically mentions urinating, vomiting, or defecating in a public place without a reasonable excuse as examples of nuisance activities. Now, does preaching fall into that category? As far as I know, none of these men, including myself, defecated in public or urinated in public. We use the public washrooms if we need to do so. Says the purpose of the bylaw, the public nuisance bylaw aims to maintain public order and safety by controlling nuisance behavior within the town of Whippy. Violations of the bylaw may result in penalties as outlined in section 12 of the bylaw, which states that a person who contravenes a bylaw is guilty of an offense and is liable to a maximum penalty of $10,000 and a minimum penalty of $200. And I think they gave me something for that. $300, I can't remember what it was. It was like 320 or something like that. So basically, I've got a ticket for being a public nuisance. By the way, it's causing, like public nuisance is literally you have no cause. We have a cause. We're preaching the gospel. There's a specific event that I don't believe should ever be normalized, and I do believe they are becoming normalized in our, they are. Drag queen story time, story time events are becoming normalized. It's now a normal thing to bring your children to. Parents are not outraged by this. Even so-called conservative parents. I'm not even talking about Christians. And just because it's not your children, they're children. We see them walk out of these events. We see them with cotton candy and popcorn. That's what predators do. Predators, that's how they prey on children. They entice them, they seduce them with popcorn and candy. cotton candy, the same guy making the cotton candies there every year. What a filthy pervert. By the way, this year at the Youth Durham Pride, they seem to have louder speakers. We have a louder speaker. They seem to trump us there. Well, I don't know if they trumped us, but they had a loud speaker. We can't see them, by the way, because we're below the hill. We're off the municipal property there, which is public property. But in this country, they can actually trespass you on that. Believe it or not, they can. Even though it's taxpayer-funded property. Think about that. Belongs to the people. But yeah, even hearing, you can literally hear the drag queen's voice as he's performing and giving whatever he's given there. And it literally makes you sick. Luke and I were talking about it. I preach it, actually, it makes me wanna barf. If I had a brown paper bag, and not just like a small lunch bag, I'm talking about those Costco lawn bags. I literally would heave up all that I ate today and then what I ate yesterday. That's how it made me sick, absolutely. So that's all that. And so I will be fighting that, but you know, I decided I'm gonna pay the consequences, we're gonna preach on, give me a ticket. That's why I said, I didn't expect the second ticket an hour later, which is absolutely unfair. By the way, they were blasting their music and he said, well, they shut it off. No, they didn't, they turned it back on. So they're not impartial. They're under pressure to appease them. See, government needs to repent. I don't care if you're civil bylaw officers. How old are those civil bylaw officers? What, 21, 22? They look really young, little kids. So God appoints civil magistrates to execute his vengeance on evildoers. Romans 12, 19. Dear beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will replace thee at the Lord. Now government, according to the Apostle Paul, has a God-given role to promote good and to restrain evil. See, the Bible says that we're all sinners. All of sin comes short of the glory of God. Literally, the role of government is to restrain that. God's given them that duty to restrain that. This is why they legislate laws, certain laws. And by the way, I believe all laws should be in accordance with the Bible teaches. We're not talking about the law of Moses. But if the Bible prescribes a capital punishment for murder, then capital punishment it is. We ought not to have laws for bubble zones for certain groups. I don't believe in that. I don't believe in bubble zones. See, government needs to be small. That's the thing. We have forgotten. See, we live in a socialist country here. We've gotten used to being conditioned to believe that government hides behind this wall of bureaucracy. It's literally a wall, a fortress of bureaucracy, and that it is huge. That's not the role of government. Government ought to be as small as possible and do as minimal as possible, right? They're here basically to protect our persons, our property, and our prerogative. Right? Our prerogative is our free will, our individual soul liberty. That's a Baptist distinctive. So government, according to Paul, is the God-given role to promote good and restrain evil. That's verses 3 and 4. However, history is replete with examples of governments that do the opposite, promoting injustice and suppressing righteousness. Promoting injustice. You see this in Canada. We literally live in a lawless country. The justice system needs to be overhauled completely. And it actually needs to begin to punish evil and protect that which is good. Suppressing righteousness. I believe that was what was happening yesterday. They try to suppress righteousness. That's why I did not give in. It's not my intent to be belligerent with civil authorities. That's not my intent. I don't take pleasure in that. I take no pleasure in that. You had yesterday, literally, two four foot nothing female police officers. They were shorter than you. Right? My wife's not short, but they're shorter. They're probably 4'10 or 4'11, I think to that effect. Really short women. And, you know, they told me that they told us to turn it down or we're going to move it. I said, well, tell them to turn down their Judas priest and everything else that they're cranking in front of us. Right? So, well, I've already told them that they turned. Okay, so we'll turn it down. And she's being all like this with me, a little short woman and all that. And we turn it down. Otherwise, we're going to, you know, she was being very bossy. Otherwise, we'll move you somewhere else. Excuse me? And by the way, the way she approached me is, you know, she goes, you're almost on their property over there. Almost. I'm across the street. Almost is not being on their property. By the way, they received not one complaint. That's why she had to go door to door farming for complaints. She went door to door on that street there talking to people. You'll see their main concern should be what's happening in that library. The fact that you have a filthy pervert. A filthy, a grown man, a filthy pervert, that's what I'm gonna call him, a grown man wearing, or two of them, there's two of them, because he walked out, there's two of them. Two grown men, burly men too, wearing the attire of a harlot, not even a woman, a harlot, a whore, wearing that attire, and their faces painted, reading stories, reprobate stories to little children, right? And I understand their parents are gonna give an account for that. But there's an agenda here, and they're going over the door, seeing if we're causing a disturbance, right? They're suppressing righteousness. That's not their duty. They need to protect righteousness. They need to enforce, literally, they need to go in and arrest those two drag queens. What are two drag queens doing, seeking an audience of young children? You don't see drag queen story time hour in a retirement home. You don't see it. Reading stories and dancing half naked on a pole in front of 85-year-olds, you don't see it. But they're seeking an audience. Why? Because they cannot reproduce. They can't reproduce, so they need to recruit and groom. And I'll go on record as saying, they groom. They're groomers. And they go for the young children, the next generation. And they're going to pervert their minds and they're going to condition their minds to thinking that this whole wicked Sodom and Gomorrah lifestyle is actually normal and virtuous. So governments have a God-given role to promote good and restrain evil. However, history is replete with examples of governments that do the opposite, promoting injustice and suppressing righteousness. Now Paul understood, of course, he understood this, of course, when he wrote these words in this letter, when he was bound to arrive in Rome, where Caesar resided, rather. Hence, the apostles' directives concerning the role of civil authorities implicitly obligate ministers of the gospel, but also all Christians to teach our own families and our neighbors concerning our roles as citizens, and also to remind those who govern us. Now, I don't believe to be overly political, but I have no problem writing a politician concerning that which is evil. Absolutely, I have no problem with that. We need to remind those who govern us that God appointed them to their seats of governance. Do you realize no matter how evil Justin Trudeau was and Mark Carney is, and by the way, he's a whole lot worse than Justin Trudeau, you're going to wish that you had Justin Trudeau when you look at what's coming out in July. I might read something a little bit later concerning that, what's coming out in July or what they're planning. And by the way, Donald Trump is doing it from the other side. He's not any better. Don't think he is. He's just the other side of the New World Order. He's, quote unquote, what they would say, the conservative side, so-called, of the New World Order coin. We just happen to have a communist China sympathetic leader leading our country in a socialist country and bringing immigrants who embrace socialism and love it and will live off of it and will never seek the national identity of the country. I firmly believe in national identity because God ordained the boundaries. I actually, even though I'm married to a woman from another country, and I love my wife, and praise the Lord that God gave me her, generally I believe that we ought to marry within, from where we're from, and primarily someone who is saved, first and foremost. See, God sets the boundaries. Actually, let's go, where does it say there in, I know we have an Acts, I think Deuteronomy 30, is it 30 or 31? Maybe, anyone can leave me that scripture. I think it's 31, and I don't remember what verse it is. Just came to mind. Now I'm not preaching on that. By the way, I'm not against mixed marriages. I'm talking of whether you're from the Philippines and one's from Canada, in my case. I'm not against that. I just don't believe that was what God intended when he scattered the people at the Tower of Babel. After that... I don't know if it's... 30 verse 3 is it? No, it talks about set, no, no, it's setting the boundaries of the nations there. Yeah, that's it, that sounds familiar, that's it. Yeah, that sounds familiar. I'm gonna go there. I think you're right, yep. Yep, that's it. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. The bounds of the people. God ordained individual nations. This whole quote-unquote globalism and this melting pot of multiculturalism is not from God. In fact, Canada's evidence of that. You have a bunch of ghettos is what you have. You don't see Indian people move to Canada and assimilate or even attempt to learn the language. They come here and they speak Punjabi. In fact, now we're living in a country, literally, if you apply for even a meeting, like my children applied for a job at Tim Horton, some of them, that one of the requirements, do you speak You speak Punjabi? I'm not very good at it. I've got to learn my Indian accent again. Speak Punjabi? You do that? Very good? Very good Punjabi? Okay, I'm going to try. I'm going to work on that one. Yeah. I've watched, like literally, they will turn down applicants because they do not speak Punjabi. We speak in an English-speaking country. Any Punjabi speaker needs to learn to speak English. Absolutely. And I don't hate these people, because our government has a plan. They're beholden to a satanically inspired W.E.F. agenda, which comes right from Vatican, which comes right from the Jesuit order, which comes from Rome. It is that melting pot that you see in Revelation. It's like when John Lennon sang that song, Imagine, right? Imagine there's no nation, no countries. That's what it is. No countries. But God literally ordained countries here. By the way, amen, we're going to inherit a better country, praise the Lord, one day, amen? Yeah, so God... So we need to remind them that God appointed them to their seats of governance. That they are ministers of God for the well-being of those whom they govern. You hear that? That justice punishing evildoers and rewarding doers of good is their primary role. When government is in line, with what God intends them to do, then we wouldn't have any problem preaching the gospel. In fact, this is how it would be. We'd be allowed to go right up to that event there and preach right to their faces. And I could send men out there and pass out tracts. By the way, a couple of years ago, I went in to pass out tracts, and they threatened to arrest me for a hate crime. See, a lot of preachers don't see this because they're not in the fight, they're not in the middle of the battle. They don't walk right into that Antichrist world with the light, with the light shining, their light shining in darkness, and they realize how darkness responds to it. And they don't understand how darkness truly responds to it. Or they'll read about it in the newspaper, or in this case on the internet now, but you know what I mean, they'll read about it, but they don't experience it firsthand. Do you realize? since 2023, and I'm not bragging, this is just what's happened since the Lord brought more men into the church and our street ministry particularly, our open air evangelism ministry has really taken off, although I'd like to see the fruit of that in here, although we have with Jay, and I could say in a sense even Brad, because you had seen us, you'd seen me street preaching back in 2021 or something like that, right? That's providential when you think about it. You drove by, you actually saw me preaching. I think I was saying something like during the lockdowns, Doug Ford is not your God. I was basically preaching them that Jesus Christ is God. Don't put your faith in government. That was the whole theme of that. That's what I was preaching. And then you heard that and you're thinking, oh, amen. And then how many months later, I don't know, it was about a year or so later, And then you phone the wrong church, which happened to be the right church, and you end up talking for half an hour, and then you visit us that Sunday, and then you recognize me for being on the street. See, that's a fruit of street evangelism right there. Of course, God's working behind the scenes to bring this all about. government are also, we need to remind government or those in civil authority, those who govern us, that they are in positions of authority. By the way, I also include the police officer, the police forces, you know, the bylaw officers and all those, all those are in those positions of authority, that they do not serve themselves, but to serve those for whom they are entrusted with governing. By the way, I need to remind the police officers of this. That they're not only serving those on the other side, they're serving us. And you cannot be impartial. Or rather, you cannot show partiality. You need to be impartial. Now Paul's directives, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost of course, forbid us from engaging in activist writing. They forbid us from engaging in insurrection and disorder, which is not the case when you preach the gospel. Even over a loudspeaker, it's not disorderly conduct. But they do not keep us from peaceful protestation against injustice. In a sense, that's what we're doing. We're not given to protest. We're primarily there to preach, but in a sense, we are protesting that which is evil by standing for the righteousness of God, the holiness of God, So not to engage in activist rioting, right? Who was that? I think it was Chris Vanderweide. He was engaging in some of that stuff there. I don't know if he was engaging in rioting, but it was coming from the other side with the Black Lives Matter and Antifa during 2020 and 2021. but they do not keep us from peaceful protestations against injustice. Now this is from Rod Mattoon, the following here. It says this, The apostles' teaching restrains us from retreating from public life within a safe Christian cloister hermetically sealed from the wicked influences around us, including evil-doing elected officials, magistrates, and bureaucrats who become tyrants. Instead, the apostle obligates us Christians to confront evil governing officials with holy rebukes to remind them of their God-appointed calling, even removing them from their roles by recall or scheduled election. Of course, that applies to American politics, but you understand that we do have a role here. Yes, of course we're not kingdom now and we're not doing it with the mindset that we're going to usher in Christ's kingdom or usher in a Christian utopia here on earth. That's not going to happen. Things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better when the Lord Jesus Christ returns. And of course we will come back with him. We'll go up, he'll come for us and then we'll come back with him. We are to be subject to higher powers. These are delegated, God-given authorities over citizens who have power and resources to carry out their authority. Now the word ordained simply means appointed or assigned by God. That's what it means. So they're appointed by God. They're assigned by God. They have a duty. And they've abrogated that duty, certainly in the lawful sense. When you think about it, see when you analyze government in the light of God's Word, then you understand it completely. You understand it fully. They're out of order. I see no reason for the police to be at a drag queen event other than to keep the peace and be impartial. By the way, Another example here, yesterday when I was preaching, you had the fire, the Whitby Fire Department drive by, and they parked right in front of us, they honked their horns or whatever, so they did that deliberately, and then they come out of the fire truck and there's one bald fireman, and he comes out and he starts blowing kisses to me. Like this. Like that. Blowing kisses in full uniform. A fireman. A fireman, obviously a flaming sodomite, but he was a fireman, blowing kisses. Now you tell me, is that professional behavior? The professional behavior, beholden of a fireman, is it? Blowing, I was absolutely disgusted by that. He sat there blowing kisses, blowing kisses to me while I was preaching. A fireman in uniform. That man needs to be fired. He needs to be out of a job. That's not professional behavior. I should imagine there's a code of conduct. I ought to put in a complaint. I have it on camera. I mean, I suspect nothing will ever happen of it, but I think I need to start putting in some complaints. By the way, getting back, as I've kind of gone on rabbit trails here, getting back to those short little, two short female police officers over at the Pickering, when she was going door to door, and I forgot, I had not asked for their badge number, their badge numbers or names, so I went up and says, can I have your name and badge number? One of them says 3331. Okay, thank you. Can I have your name? 3331. I'm asking for your name. You're required, you're legally required to give me your name. 3331. 3331, I'm gonna put in a complaint for this. It's not right, that's not professional behavior. They're legally required to give their name and badge number. So I went up later and I talked to the sergeant, Sergeant Halleck, and he gave me attitude. Right? I want their name and badge number. Right here, it's on my badge. No, I can't see your badge from here. I want you to tell me what your name is. That's not being belligerent. See, they don't want us there. And it's not up to them to want us there. They're just peacekeepers. We're not doing anything other than preaching. We're not engaging with those people. We're not going up to them. We're preaching. No, it's kind of funny, because when I saw Archie, he was like, he had the group of, that group supporting that whole Drag Queen Storytime hour. And Archie's like, it's like you were walking with them, coming toward us. In the midst of saying, where's Archie? He joined himself to me. Oh, I believe that. I believe that. I believe that. But it was just funny. I believe that, brother. He joined, Archie's just got to qualify this. He joined himself to him. And I believe that, by the way, because they do that. By the way, what did he have, the skullet guy there? What was written on the sign today? He actually wrote out a sign. No, it was me. You said Jeff. Yeah, I said, yeah, sure. Did you buy them all? Oh, something like that, or was that like that? Oh, okay, yeah. They had two, but they had that one, I didn't see the one about Jay. I saw the one about, what was it, did you buy everyone shawarma? Who cares? They're really preoccupied. You actually have to go to Dollarama, get one of those, whatever you call it, those roll-up whiteboards, and then write down something on there. They're preoccupied. So the Scriptures are very clear that we must submit ourselves unto the higher authorities. But that submission does not mean unquestionable obedience, when that obedience requires us to disobey the will and commands of God. You must understand that. Having said that, when the civil authorities overstep their boundaries, we must always approach them in the spirit, or approach the matter in the spirit of meekness. We must keep in mind that government's God-ordained duty is to maintain civility and order in society. They do this, again, by punishing evildoers and protecting that which is good. And I must emphasize this point, because you don't see this in this society. when government oversteps that God-ordained authority, then it is our duty to correct them. This is why you need to know the law, particularly when it comes to things like doing open-air evangelism. I have, I don't know, pull, open up that book, that, this, this, right here. I might as well give it a, I'll pull it, yeah. So this is what I have here. We bring this everywhere we go. It takes up a lot of space. It's a binder here. I've got everything in here. So all the legal info, I open up with some scriptures. Right, Matthew 28, verses 18 to 20. And Jesus spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Right, and of course, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Isaiah 58, 1 and 2, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins. Right, of course, Romans 10. So you've got that. I've got the Charter of Rights over here. So I've got the full Constitution, the Constitution Act of 1982. You've got the Charter of Rights. Right? Charter 2A. So everyone has the following fundamental freedoms. A. Freedom of conscience and religion. B. Freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom of the press, and other media of communication. And freedom of peaceful assembly, and freedom of association. Right? I'm not going to go through everything here, throughout the whole charter. Plus I've got the Constitution, right? Not all of this we need, but I have it in here. And by the way, every police officer swears an oath to the Constitution, the Canadian Constitution. They swear an oath to it, which includes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I've got the Bill of Rights here, right? And our Bill of Rights preceded the Charter, This is what it says, it is hereby recognized and declared that in Canada there have existed and shall continue to exist without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, color, religion or sex, the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely, the right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person, and enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law. the right of the individual to equality before the law, and the protection of the law, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and association, and freedom of press. That's our Bill of Rights. Our Bill of Rights, 1960, right there. And of course, I've got other things here. The Criminal Code of Canada, preventing breach of peace. Arrest for breach of peace, section 70, section 31.1. And then of course, you've got causing disturbance, section 175.1. And we've got other things here. Obviously, I was arrested under section 176.2, disturbing religious worship at certain meetings, right? That's what they arrested me for at the Santa Claus parade. And of course, I've got all of these. They're all divided. Here, and then I've got ordinances, city ordinances, mainly Toronto. Noise ordinances. Right, the city of Toronto, so I know exactly, ambient sound level, right? Amplified sound. All of this is why we can use it. And by the way, the ambient sound level in downtown Toronto is a lot louder than what you think. With all the passing traffic and that, so that's why we crank up the speaker. Now today I cranked up the speaker in WIPI, and I don't particularly like to do so, because there are houses behind us. But we did it because we're pointing it the other direction. Sometimes you just have to do it and then let them tell you to turn it down. So again, when government oversteps that God-ordained authority, then it is our duty to correct them. That's why we need to know the law. By the way, they overstepped their God-ordained authority during COVID-19. Absolutely. Those were not laws, by the way, they were mandates. Mandates. They overstepped their authority, especially in the arena of religious gatherings. And you know what? As Baptists, we capitulated. We capitulated. But I understand a month in or whatever, I can understand maybe, you know, and it's even something, a decision that the church makes, right? I mean, if this is a really bad pandemic going around and people are dying left, right and center, then yeah, maybe we should do, take measures to maybe go online for a bit now, but that's a decision of the church itself, shouldn't be a decision of the government. Absolutely. I believe we dropped the ball here too. And although Dr. Lamour has been a great influence in my life, and I'll always speak highly of Dr. Lamour, I know that's one area that he was dead wrong on. And I'll tell you, and I'll give you an example here. My wife, for a period of time, because most of my family was affected other than me, and I don't know who else, my children came. But when we were only allowed 10 people to assemble, for about eight months, my wife was at home. And Dr. Lamour knew better. He knew his Baptist history. He knew the Baptist Bill of Rights. He knew the Baptist influence behind the American Constitution and all of that. He knew all of that. And I believe he dropped the ball. And the reason for it, and I'm going to tell you that, is that Dr. Lamour's life didn't change. In a sense, when you think about it, it didn't change. Still went to the school bus. Still the same patterns. For some of us, it changed. Some of us, it changed. And that's not a put-down. That's just an objective look at things. See, God holds the man of God behind the pulpit accountable, right? See, we're still commanded to assemble ourselves in person. You know, as one preacher said it, Jesus did not come as a pixelated image on the screen. And I believe with our previous pastors, I thought about it and I said, you know what? I think God held him more accountable because he was not ignorant. He knew. He knew. He knew. And that's not a put-down. Again, that's not a put-down of your pastor. That is a constructive criticism of how I see things, and I do believe that. It's objectively looking at things. And again, the previous pastor was a tremendous influence in my life and really probably had the most influence in terms of what I'm doing right now, the most influence. Although Pastor Schirner had a tremendous amount of influence, I believe Dr. Lamour took it to a level that, and that's just his background, it's understandable, had a level that was beyond even that. So regardless of how degenerate an antichrist civil authority may become, or may have become, we must still approach them with a godly fear and reverence for the authority given them. This is what I even want to instill in us, for you men as well, and myself. We must reverence them with a godly fear, not as individuals, but for their God-ordained authority. It is their authority we revere, not necessarily their actions or character. In fact, many of them have very little character. I dealt with police officers yesterday with little character. They should not be in the police force. By the way, I'll go on record, I even preached that, by the way, right at that drag queen event. I do not believe that women should be in the police force. I believe women, ultimately, I believe women should marry young, get married, and be keepers at home. And that we endeavor to train our daughter to be a keeper at home. I don't want her in the workforce. I don't want her in a place where she's submitting to authorities she doesn't necessarily need to. Or she's in a place where she needs now to work. I don't want her there, in that place. I want to train her up to be a keeper at home, to love her husband, to love her children, to be chaste and discreet, and to be a keeper at home. That's what you want to train these young ladies to be. By chance and by the grace of God, God brings young ladies in here, and we are praying for these men here to get married, and perhaps they've just recently gotten saved. I don't know who God's going to bring you. Or just any young ladies in here, or families with children, or young ladies, you want to train them. This is an emphasis I want on this ministry, to train them to be keepers at home, to be future godly wives if they're not married. Do you understand? To prepare them for that. And of course, we prepare the men to be husbands, and godly husbands. and that they fulfill that duty with reverence, a godly reverence. So we revere them, right? And it's their authority to revere, not their actions or their character. And quite often, their character or their actions and their actions are found lacking. So one way we do this is by praying for them. Let's turn to 1 Timothy 2, verses 1 and 2. The Scripture saith, I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, and accessions, and the giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. We really need to be fervently praying for all of those in civil authority. Absolutely. Can you tell me what the battery level is on that, Joe? That's why I wanted you to kind of be there, kind of oversee what's happening. Okay, well, we're getting pretty low there. I guess we're halfway. And I don't know if I'm halfway through my sermon yet. How long have I been preaching, approximately? Well, I might cut it a bit shorter. Anyway, we're gonna move forward. When Paul and Silas were imprisoned, and mistreated a Philippi, they did not respond with railing and hate. No, they responded with joyful singing and praise, which eventually led to them leading that Philippian jailer and his family to Jesus Christ. Acts 16.25, And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. Verses 30-31, And the Philippian jailer to Paul and Silas said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And what? Thou shalt be saved in thy house. The believer, the Christian, is to have an attitude of reverence in which he voluntarily places himself under God-given authority as an act of faith in God's sovereignty and His Word. Why? Because God has told us to trust Him, and we are to trust Him. Now again, this begs the question, is there a time when we should resist authority and disobey? Well, the obvious answer to this question is a resounding yes. There is a time for it and probably more so in the day that we're living in than ever before. See, again, we disobey man's laws when man's laws conflict with God's laws to the point that those laws require disobedience to God's Word. And again, I believe this to be the case. during COVID when man's mandates required churches to restrict their in-person attendance and thus causing either all or some to forsake the command of believers to forsake to corporately assemble together and I covered that already Hebrews 10 verses 24 and 25 and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. And you can't assemble in front of a computer screen or a tablet, an iPad or an iPhone or any phones. Smartphone, you cannot assemble. Our Lord and Savior did not come as a pixelated image on the screen. He did not minister as a pixelated image on the screen. He did not preach His sermon on the mount as a pixelated image on the screen. It was in person, in the flesh. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as you see the day approaching. See, friends, there comes a time when we ought to beg God rather than men. And we see examples of this in Scripture over and over again. For instance, in Acts chapter 4, verses 19 and 20. Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned. These are the Sanhedrin, the learned Jews, right? They saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men. They marveled, and it took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. And behold, the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it. But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves, saying, What shall we do to these men? For that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But it spread no further among the people. Let us straightly threaten them that they speak henceforth to no man in this name. By the way, they're doing this to us when we're on the streets. It may not be as direct. Oh, we believe in your charter to rights and freedom of speech. We just want you to turn that down. Maybe ease up on the language a little bit. They'll tell us kind of, you know, be careful of what you say or, you know, or the same things like that. And now they're infringing in the way we do it. Perhaps if you can go over there, maybe if you can talk in this tone, like this, this is more acceptable. And of course when Luke starts preaching with a whisper, even that's too much for them to handle. They've got to shut that down and threaten him with the rest. I know that's happened to you before, so I know that's happened. I don't remember which event now, but I know it's happened to you, where Luke is literally preaching at a whisper, and they're going to, that's not enough. I think I was over at the queer market there that time, if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, they speak henceforth to no man in this name, and they call them and command them to not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. But listen to verse 20 here. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. Amen. What about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Daniel chapter 3. Let's turn there. Daniel chapter 3 verse 10. You know, I can literally hear my amen. I guess the speaker's pointing toward me. I can hear my own amens hit me. Daniel chapter 3, verse 10. Thou, O King, hast made a degree that every man that shall hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image. This is no different than what will happen in Revelation 13, by the way. Verse 12. Small g. Which thou hast set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar, in his rage and fury, commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto him, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if ye be ready, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackcloth, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made. Well, but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fire furnace. And who is that God, uppercase G, that shall deliver you out of my hands? I know him. Amen. I know the fourth man in the fire. Amen. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. Amen. But if not be, but if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image with that was set up. Amen. By the way, that ought to be the attitude of every Christian in this room. And those of you listening online, that ought to be your attitude. We will not serve thy gods. I'm not gonna go see a Maple Leafs game, a baseball game, or any of that. Even if I was given free tickets, I'm not serving those gods. Small g, yeah, you have a Baptist pastor's son, of course, it's not the Baptist pastor's fault, and his wife going to see a Toronto Argonauts football game, a pride-themed football game. It wasn't just a football game. It had the pride through him because we were preaching there. And this Baptist pastor's son recognized my voice and saw us preaching, but he didn't come up and say, hi. Hi, Pastor Jeff. Wow. Moving forward in Daniel chapter six, there was a law passed forbidding prayer. But Daniel prayed anyway. Why? Because God commands it. All right, and this is a decree of Darius, the king. Daniel chapter six, verses seven through 13. All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counselors, and the captains have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree that whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for 30 days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree and signed the writing that it be not changed according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which altereth not. Wherefore King Darius signed the writing and the decree. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house And his windows being opened and his chamber toward Jerusalem, he knelt down upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did before time. Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God. Then they came near and spake before the king concerning the king's degree. Has thou not signed a decree that any man shall ask a petition of any god or man within thirty days, save of thee, O king, shall be cast in the den of lions? Then the king answered and said, The thing is true according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which altereth not. Then answered they and said before the king that Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day. where he's making his petition to the one and true God. Amen. You have Obadiah who refused to obey the royal order against the prophets of the Lord in 1 Kings 16. You have Amos who refused the order to stop preaching in Amos chapter 7. You have Jeremiah who did not obey the king's order to stop prophesying. And when the king cut up the prophecy, he wrote it again. Jeremiah 36. You have Ebed Melech, the Ethiopian, who refused to obey the princes who put Jeremiah in the pit. You have Peter and the apostles in Jerusalem, who refused to stop preaching the gospel, even though they were threatened by the authorities. Even during the seven-year tribulation, you have those who refused to obey the Antichrist and the false prophets' evil laws, in order to receive the mark of the beast and to worship the beast. and therefore they will be beheaded by Caesar itself. But in doing so, they'll be rewarded by God. Amen? Revelation 13 verses 15 through 17, And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image should be killed. And He caused it all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads, and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." By the way, Revelation 13, how you interpret Romans 13 will directly affect how you interpret Revelation 13. Absolutely. So when you have these corporate churches that bow down during COVID, these same churches will receive the mark of the beast. It's kind of crazy, think about it. Now you have to understand, I believe many of them will not say all these Baptist churches are not. But there's coming a time with these Baptist churches in Canada that are registered with the government as registered charities. There's going to come a time when they're going to have to make a decision. And that decision's going to be, you know what, we're either going to stand on the Word of God and risk losing our building, our assets, and starting from the ground. or we're gonna capitulate and give in to Caesar's demands. That day is coming. Do you understand why I made the decision to unregister this church? Is it apparently clear? Because there's a tie between this, the same spirit. And many churches teach that Romans 13 teaches blind submission of authority. In fact, I know Baptist churches who held vaccine clinics. in 2021 right on their property to inject 12 to 17 year olds with the mRNA. What's the church doing that for? Other than for political gain. And the same pastor of the church who now has since retired saying that we needed to comply with everything. No, no, no. When your compliance causes you to disobey God, you obey God rather than men. Amen? Revelation 14, 9 verses 9 through 12. without mixture into the cup of his indignation and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb and the smoke of their torment is set up forever and ever and they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast in his image and whosoever received the mark of his name Here is the patience of the saints. Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. By the way, that verse does not mean the faith works salvation. As the Rachmanites teach, it does not mean that. Your righteousness will never save you in any dispensation. I'm going to leave it at that because I'm not preaching that message today. Revelation 20 in verse 4, And I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them. And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Amen! When just laws are passed, there is a time to appeal to government leaders. Romans 13, to whosoever therefore resisted the power, resisted the ordinance of God. And they that resist shall receive to themselves greater damnation. Here we have rebellion. Right? Rebellion against God-ordained power? Or civil government is rebellion against God? I'm talking about unrighteous rebellion. Those who do so will receive damnation. In other words, judicial punishment. I can't go over and whip out a machete. I don't have a machete, but if I did, and just stab Archie to death and expect nothing to happen. Right? I will expect to receive damnation, if you will. Not eternal damnation in this case. Judicial punishment. Justly so. Now there were several goals for the punishment of rebels. First of which was that it was administered as a matter of justice, an eye for an eye. Civil authority administered the punishment, not the victims. Punishment was a crime deterrent. That's what it is. When we enforce the law justly, and I'm talking about just laws, it acts as a crime deterrent. By the way, you know what else acts as a crime deterrent? If all of you were able to legally carry a gun in your pocket, legally, that will deter a crime. Most people are not gonna whip that gun out and blow people away. Thirdly, the punishment was impartial. Wealth or social standing was not a factor in the discipline, but today partiality reigns supreme. Punishment was to be without delay, and that's a problem with every justicism in the world today. See, they would not wait 20 or 30 years. You wouldn't have someone guilty of murder waiting on death row for 15, 20 years. No. It would be executed speedily. Even my case should be executed speedily. It should have been thrown out a long time ago if that's the direction they wanted to go. Ecclesiastes 8.11, because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. The law provided for restitution. Once the penalty was paid, the person was to be accepted back into society. The two main scriptural purpose of government is to provide safety and to provide protection for society at large. It was not to provide health care or welfare or any of that. For this reason, abortion is an absolute atrocity in America and Canada for that matter. And other laws, by the way, Drag Queen Story Hour is an atrocity. Pride Month is an atrocity. The Pride March, we have grown men, literally, and I saw a video a few years ago, and I wish I hadn't. Right, it was a news clip, by the way. I think it was a pride march out in Seattle. It may have been, I can't remember exactly where. We had men literally wearing white underwear. I preach this today. I add a little bit to it, but I think I made Brad laugh, but wearing white underwear, twerking in front of five-year-olds. You have like an audience of a five-year-old, and they're literally like doing very suggestive, sexually, sexualized dancing, if you will, very sensual dancing, for the lack, really, to be quite decent there. It's an atrocity. The government's responsibility is to protect unborn babies, not allow them to be mutilated and murdered. Yeah? It's not protecting the women. This is eugenics, by the way. We harp a lot about government, but without the government, our cities and the rest of the world would be a more dangerous and oppressive place to live. We do need government. I've preached this on the streets too. I'm not an anarchist. I believe in civil authority. I don't believe in anarchy. You have absolute lawlessness. You need some restraint. But restraint needs to be executed justly. Without the state laws, enforcement, and mutual agreement to obey them, the wicked, selfish, strong man would be in power. We would not enjoy the freedom and safety we enjoy. That's, by the way, that's Rod Mattoon. Rulers are to be a terror to evil, not good. Government should instill fear into those who are evil. This is the meaning of the word terror. They should think twice before they commit a crime. They should think twice before they drive up into your driveway and they look to steal your car. And then you've got the police chief saying, you know what, just leave your fob right where they can take it so that they have easy access to your vehicle. That's not inciting terror. That's not instilling fear in the community. If you're doing that, which is good, then you should have nothing to worry about. Now I'm going to move on here. See, government is not a terror to evil when it does absolutely nothing about evil. It's not. And we see this in our country. Again, we live in a country now where violent criminals and perverts are allowed to roam the streets freely, but preachers are effectively told to shut up. It's happening. It's happening. See, government is not a terror to evil if it does nothing about evil. Now here's what David Cloud, this is what he says. when the government tells me to lie, cheat, steal, murder, stop preaching the gospel, stop having church, worship idols, practice false religion, acclaim and affirm homosexuality or anything else that is unlawful by the clear teaching of God's infallible word? I must obey the higher law and trust God to help me and be willing to pay whatever temporal consequences are required. I showed you these tickets. Right? That's the temporal consequences that are required. See, I disobeyed Caesar, but I submitted to the authority. Right? This is my submission to Caesar by accepting this. Now, of course, I will fight it, because I do believe I have a legal recourse. By the way, that's not a criminal offense. That's a bylaw, just to let you know. And of course, you saw how when I was arrested, spent a night in jail, and I spent, only reason why I spent a night in jail, because I did not agree to their unjust release conditions, which basically forbade me, I've got a little bit of wheezing right now, my asthma, which forbade me basically from entering most of Toronto, most of Toronto. That's unjust. All right, so we'll move forward now. So in closing, our Baptist forefathers, if you will, suffer persecution for disobeying the dictates of Caesar, when Caesar's dictates caused them to disobey the commands of God. We've forgotten that as Baptists, by the way, today. We've lost sight of that. We read about it, we study it, but we're not living it. And you can see it when we're taught to register our churches or incorporate our churches and thus making them creatures of the state, we have forgotten what it means to be a Baptist. Now my finds yesterday remind me of what John Clark Obadiah Holmes and John Crandall faced four centuries ago in New England. I didn't get any whipping, thank God. I'm going to read now from a portion here from J.A. Shackelford's book, Chapter 19, Persecutions in America. And I'm going to close with this, by the way. It says, Massachusetts was at the time under the rule of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the Congregationalists, or Puritans, as they were generally termed, were established by law. In the year 1664, an act was passed containing the following clause, quote, it is ordered and agreed that if any person or persons within this jurisdiction shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go about secretly to seduce others from the approbation or use thereof, or shall purposely depart the congregation administration of the ordinance after due time and means of conviction, every such person or persons shall be sentenced to banishment. This law was intended to operate directly against Baptists." In the year 1651, Obadiah Holmes, John Crandall, and John Clark, the pastor of the Newport Baptist Church, were sent by this church to Lynn to visit an infirm member, William Witter, who resided at that place. The journey was made, and the next day, being the Sabbath, it was decided to have worship where they were, and that Mr. Clark should preach in order, and that Mr. Witter might have an opportunity to hear his own pastor, whom he had not heard preach for a long time. Mr. Clark's text on the occasion is found in Revelation 3.10. before Mr. Clark had proceeded very far in his discourse, two constables entered and arrested Clark, Holmes, and Crandall under the following warrant. This was the warrant, quote, by virtue hereof, you are required to go to the house of William Witter and to search from house to house for certain erroneous persons being strangers and them to apprehend and in safe custody to keep tomorrow morning by eight o'clock to bring before me Robert Bridges. The three persons apprehended were all fined. Mr. Crandall was fined five pounds. Now, what was five pounds in 1660? I can't remember what it was, what year. What would that be now? That'd be a lot, wouldn't it? What would be the equivalent? Probably the... Yeah. Absolutely. Many hundreds. Probably in the thousands, I would think. Even beyond that, right? It could be even the tens of thousands. You don't know really what that... Right? Anyway, that doesn't really matter. Five pounds, Mr. Clark, 20 pounds, and Mr. Holmes, 30 pounds. The friends of Clark and Crandall paid their fines for them, but Mr. Holmes would not allow his fine to be paid, nor would he pay it himself, though he must either pay or be, quote, well whipped. So read the sentence. Quote, now move on, Now here's a copy of the sentence against Mr. Holmes. That's what it says. For as much as you, Obediah Holmes, being come into this jurisdiction about the 21st of the fifth month, did meet at one William Witter's house at Lynn, and did privately, and at other times, being an excommunicated person, did take upon you to preach and baptize upon the Lord's day, or other days, and being taken then by the constable, and coming afterward to the assembly at Lin, did, in disrespect to the ordinance of God and His worship, keep on your hat, the pastor being in prayer, insomuch as you would not give reverence, unveiling your hat, till it was forced off your head, to the disturbance of the congregation, and professing against the institution of the church as not being according to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that you, the said Obadiah Holmes, did upon the following day meet again at said William Witters, in contempt to authority, you being in the custody of the law, and did then receive the sacrament being excommunicated, and that you did baptize such as were baptized before, and thereby did necessarily deny the baptism before it ministered to be baptism, the churches, no churches, and also other ordinances and ministers, as if all was nullity, and did also deny the lawfulness of baptizing infants, and all this tends to the dishonor of God among us, the peace of the churches, the seducing the subjects of this commonwealth from the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and perverting the straight ways of the Lord. The court doth fine you thirty pounds to be paid, or sufficient sureties, that the sum shall be paid by the first day of the next court of assistance, or else to be well whipped. and that you shall remain in prison till it be paid or security given in for it by the court. Increase Norval." All right, moving forward now. It is asserted, he says here, in the sentence that Mr. Holmes, after coming to the assembly at Lynn, kept on his hat in the congregation, the pastor being in prayer. The facts are that the three men had been taken from Mr. Witter's house and carried to the Congregational Assembly against their will, while the Assembly was at worship. To show their dissent, the three prisoners kept their hats until they were rudely removed by the constable. It is also specified in the sentence against Mr. Holmes that he, while being in custody of the law, did receive the sacrament, being excommunicated, and did baptize such as were baptized before. Mr. Holmes had formerly belonged to the Congregationalists, but had abandoned their faith. Governor Endicott was present at the trial of these men and said, Mr. Clark, you have denied infant baptism or infant's baptism. You deserve death. I will not have such trash brought into my jurisdiction. The simple truth, he says here, is these men were Baptists and preach Baptist doctrines and had to suffer for it as Baptists have always suffered where other denominations have had the power. Do you understand that? The sentence was passed against Mr. Holmes in July, and he was kept a prisoner until September when he was taken out to be punished in Boston. Two magistrates, Nowell and Flint, were present to see it done severely. Mr. Holmes was stripped to the waist and whipped with a three-corded whip. He says in giving an account of his punishment, quote, I had such a spiritual manifestation of God's presence as I had never had before, and the outward pain was so removed from me that I could well bear it. Yea, and in a manner felt it not, although it was grievous. As a spectator said, the man striking with all his strength, spitting his hands three times with a three-quartered whip, giving me therewith 30 strokes. When he had loosed me from the post, having joyfulness in my heart and cheerfulness in my countenance, as the spectators observed, I told the magistrates, you have struck me as with roses, and said, moreover, although the Lord had made it easy to me, yet, I pray God, I pray God, it may not be laid to your charge. Wow. Mr. Holmes said, many came to him after his punishment, rejoicing to see the power of the Lord manifested in weak flesh. John Hazel, where are we at? Oh, it's okay, we're good. John Hazel and John Spear came and shook hands with Mr. Holmes, the former not speaking and the latter only exclaiming, quote, blessed be the Lord. Yet these two were sentenced to pay 40 shillings or be whipped. Though Mr. Holmes bore his punishment with great fortitude, it was not because the constable had any mercy, for when he reached the prison, his body was found to be terribly lacerated, so much so that in many days, if not some weeks, he could take no rest, but as he lay upon his knees and elbows, not being able to suffer any part of his body to touch the bed whereon he lay. Mr. Holmes says this, quote, when I was come to the prison, it pleased God to stir up the heart of an old acquaintance of mine who with much tenderness, like the good Samaritan, poured oil into my wounds and plastered my sores. But there was present information given of what was done. An inquiry made who was the surgeon, and it was commonly reported he should be sent for, but what was done I yet know not. Now, Mr. Benedict, quoting Bacchus, Isaac Bacchus says this, quote, And because the poor man gave it as his opinion that infant baptism was an anti-Christian ordinance, he was tied up and whipped. In 1638, a man was fined in Massachusetts for writing against the law, for the support of religion, and another man for reading what the other man had written. He closes here, note, "...the persecutions which the Baptists endured, as shown in the preceding chapter, have been recorded in no spirit of unkindness, but for the twofold purpose of showing the dangers attending a union of church and state, and the price which they have paid to secure for themselves and others both civil and religious liberty." goes on to say here, and he closes, let them and all others who would enjoy this boon guard against all such unholy alliances in the future. And watch with an anxious eye the insidious advances of Romanism, which is seeking the overthrow of our independence as a nation that's America, that our religious liberties may be brought to an end. That was written over, what, 130, 40 years ago. Think about it. Heavenly Father, we give Thee thanks, Lord, for the blessing of Thy Word, Lord, and I trust that this message was a blessing to Thy people. I pray, Lord, for our church. We pray, Lord, for Thy protection upon it, Lord. Lord, and no matter what laws are passed, Lord, we know that Thou art all-powerful, Lord, and that Thou art in control, Lord. Help us, Lord, to submit to the civil authorities as we ought to submit, Lord, but this submission does not, and to realize that this submission does not mean blind obedience, certainly when it comes to disobeying what Thou has commanded us to do, Lord. And that even includes meeting in person. Now, we don't have any restrictions right now to meet in person, and praise God for that. but it even includes that. I pray, Lord, that this message was a blessing to thy people. In Jesus' precious name I pray, amen. Amen.