So this morning, I began a series on the election. I entitled it, The Danger of Silence. The Danger of Silence. And with that, I'd ask you to take your Bible and turn to Jeremiah chapter 29. Jeremiah chapter 29. The context of this is, as you'll see, that the Jews had been sent into Babylon as punishment by God, but here they were, having been expelled from the holy city and sent to the most unholy place on earth at the time. And so this is what God says to them while they're in this ungodly, debauched place known as Babylon. Starting in verse 4, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses, live in them, plant gardens, eat their produce, meaning live a normal life. Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters and multiply there and do not decrease. Verse 7, seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf. For in its welfare, you will have welfare. So they are to seek the welfare of where they live, though it's an ungodly place. They are to pray for that. And in that, God says, that they will have will be somewhat perplexing or scary and even quite depressing. I would suggest listening to the series more than once. It will take us four weeks to finish this year's election message series. And yes, I am aware that we vote in three weeks. And therefore, I'll be preaching the election series one week after we cast our votes. But I believe the significance and consequence of this series reaches immeasurably beyond this election. And moreover, I seek to preach to you all that God has given me, even if it is not calendrically in sync. It is in sync with what God has given me to give to you. Hold fast to God's word through Jeremiah to the Jews living in the darkness of pagan Babylon. Do not fear having children in the evil days, nor be afraid of some of the things you see or that you may learn about in this election series. Learn to live so that God may use us as light the darkness to help decelerate and maybe even thwart the demonic avalanches of evil that have befallen America and the world, particularly the Western world and mindset. But if It is the hour in which God has promised to judge the world with his unstoppable wrath. He will not weaken his wrath, but we will in the end be victorious. By way of introduction, I want to think about this series biblically, historically, contemporarily, and globally. Biblical, I mean by that to think about the election biblically in the face of these three realities. One of them is historical, so that we can think about elections with understanding how things were in order that we may fully understand our place in this election. Contemporarily, understanding our right, privileges, and responsibility to vote in light of the way things actually are, as opposed to the way we wish they were now. Globally, to think about the elections in America within the reality of globalism, so as not to think about our election from too parochial or provincial of a perspective, or as though nationalism or patriotism is on the rise in the world, the global norm, if you will. I am not advocating globalism. Far from it. but global trends must be a part of our voting matrix of considerations. If not, our perspective on voting in this election will be dangerously and tragically simplistic. There are four parts to this series, The Danger of Silence, and I address part one this morning, and that is entitled, speak against the dangers of tomorrow today. Speak against the dangers of tomorrow today. Biblically, my pastoral responsibility in the election 2024. You may envy my position as pastor in that it permits me to communicate to you my thoughts on the election. But I assure you, it is not as much fun as you may think. Further, I do not see it as though my being pastor permits me to speak on the election, but it requires me to. and my responsibility to lead this flock of God's children to glorify him in all things, 1 Corinthians 10 31. That requires that I speak so his people can understand the times and speak truth to those times and the leaders of those times. Remember that biblical moral issues do not become off limits to pastors and Christians' call to do good and to stand for righteousness simply because they become political issues. Many pastors have spoken about elections and politics at great personal cost. And in light of that reality, many do not speak out because they fear they will suffer the same high personal cost. Just within recent weeks, Gina was in the Norman Republican headquarters, and the person working there told her that they did not know of any churches that were speaking out on the elections. In my heart, I have to believe there are some, but that's what they told her. Pastors' hearts are torn asunder with each person who leaves the church they pastor. That is especially true when those leave because of the pastor's attempt to preach truth. Pastors find healing from truth seekers in their fellowship and their steadfastness in the church. These desire truth and can love despite disagreements on sensitive and difficult issues that are non-absolute. But the great balm for pastors, fears and wounds, can only and ultimately be found in the presence of God and getting alone with Him in tears and determination. to preach truth in every area. Because when the choice is to offend God or man, to offend man is not even a close second. The apostles kept preaching when they were told not to, and the leaders said to them, said, and when they had brought them, they stood them, Before the council, the high priest questioned them, saying, we gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name, and yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men. My only option and that is to speak truth, guiding our actions as I biblically understand them. Pastors often discuss evil in political areas among themselves, but do not discuss it when their churches are gathered together, at least not with the same forthrightness that we talk among ourselves. I say that not condescendingly, but with great empathy for my brothers who fear and hurt and have been hurt. For I have had the same fears and the same hurts, yet I beseech them to speak. My election thoughts emanate from the concept of stewardship before God in light of the battle for religious liberty, Edenic-style human freedom, and the sanctity of all human life, all of which are unmistakably and gargantuanly prominent in this election. Although I cannot assess which election has been or is the most important, I do unabashedly believe we are facing a more quickly rising destructive dystopia with a virtually inescapable torrent of living in an international gulag in which we who love Christ and freedom will be consigned until our thoughts are in line with globalism. And globalism is communism. Make no mistake about it. Their solution is the destruction and the replacement of capitalism, including the value of human life, the rule of life, private enterprise, and our free speech society, and to replace it with a Marxian socialism, world state of such tenebrous, dark, gloomy horror. that it makes Stalinism and Leninism reappear with maniacally darker technological and more widespread totalitarianism, punishing those who disagree on a scale that is unknown in human history. Human worth and freedom will cease to exist. as we know it, because political freedom will be transformed into eugenic Marxian monofreedom, which is that we would have the freedom to do what the leaders understand is promoting communism. So this election, we are deciding whether to vote or not and for whom to vote. In light of that clear and present danger, do not forget it. That's the issue. We are told that preachers should not meddle in politics. Matthias Burnett was a pastor of First Baptist Church in Norfolk, Connecticut. And on May 12th, 1803, he gave his election sermon and he warned, consider well the important trust which God has put into your hands. To God and posterity, you are accountable for your rights and your rulers. Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights. and prostrating those institutions which your fathers delivered to you. Watch over your liberties and privileges, civil and religious, with a careful eye." James Parton, who was an author in the 1800s, He said, religion was an important element in the political strife of 1800. And of course, this is going to be dealing with the election of Thomas Jefferson. The American historian Mark Knoll says, the presidential election of 1800 was a major religious event. Charles F. O'Brien said, the traditionally sensitive relation between religion and politics in the United States has rarely been more evident than in the presidential campaign of 1800. Again, that was the election of Thomas Jefferson, and that is whom that the Baptists fought fearlessly to see elected. because he believed in religious freedom, and Baptists did not have it in America. They had suffered the beatings and the expulsions, and so they fought. The American Quarterly Register was a magazine. 1833, the magazine said, as a body of men, the clergy were preeminent in their attachment to liberty. and the pulpits of the land rang with notes of freedom. We preachers and Christians, we do not fight with swords of steel, guns that kill, and bombs that destroy, but we fight with truth and prayers and righteous stands and righteous words, because we know that righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. And so we do speak out by our votes, our words, and our actions. Although we are still free, not living under a dictator, we do reside in immoral Babylon. and it is among whom we live an evil and adulterous generation, which is what Jesus called the Jews in Matthew 12, 39. Jesus told the disciples what to do with the truth that he imparted to them. What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light. What you've heard whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops. like those in the church to whom Jesus declared, beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they are ravenous wolves. Then he said again, now you Pharisees, you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness. So I ask, then, when and why and how do we who are charged with exposing false prophets, false promises, all the enemies of truth, whether they're religious, philosophical, or political, how do we choose by our silence and fear of repercussions to provide a protective shield for them from the thundering, convicting word of God's truth, and I say we do not dare do that. Although I must, because time will not permit, speak generally regarding various issues and positions. which may or may not be true of a specific individual. I do not desire to paint with such a broad brush so as to condemn those who have fought valiantly in the halls of Congress, in the White House, in the courts, and other public forums. But it does seem to me that they have left us with a cesspool of morals, that they have legislated over the decades in which we must all swim. They have continued the seizing of our discretionary income through both obvious and heavily cloaked taxation, and the permitting of our children to no longer be lifted up by Christian morals and belief in God and patriotism in schools we pay for. Instead, our children are submerged in over a century of progressivism, which at its core, as unashamedly declared by the founders of progressivism, disdains Christianity. and wants and wanted to see its elimination. And they've come very close to being successful in 140 years. G. Stanley Hall was one of the founders of progressivism. He typifies them. He was the first American to earn a doctorate of psychology at Harvard University. He then went on to teach at John Hopkins University, where he taught John Dewey, who's known as the father of progressive education. In 1901, Hall addressed the National Education Association, and he said this to them. We must overcome the fetishism of the alphabet, of the multiplication table, of grammars, of scales, and of bibliolatry. Now you know why Johnny cannot read, and you know why Johnny doesn't believe in God. Add to this the political strengthening of the ungodly NEA, which ungodliness they shamelessly flaunt, pedestaled upon their unbridled contempt for Christianity. An ungodliness that crushes godly teachers, crushes godly administrators. Truth and children under the strong arm of profane principles and an embracement of communism under the guise of purported social justice and an existential threat of global warming, while they simultaneously portray themselves as the purveyors and guardians of equality, freedom, and America. So I speak because, agree with me or not in what I say, in which there surely is room for disagreement among Christians. And I will still love you exactly the same. I do not want to stand before my Lord, having remained silent in this hour of debauchery and flagrant mockery of God and his creation. coming from the orations and prerogatives of the president and his proxies with their demoniacal catering to Satan, nor having been reserved about the clear and present danger of the expansion of this malevolency, nor timid and silent for my own self-protection, or living life as though they're normalizing of evil is not our concern. But I wish for us to stand together before God as a people equipped in his word with Christ's holiness and wisdom, with the Apostle's message, with the faith of Mary and Joseph, and with the courage of John the Baptist, and undaunted will to follow God, even if that will is draped in this reign of darkness. I wish to equip you so we can know and act godly in this epoch of evil distress. Like the sons of Iskar, Men who understood the times, the Bible says, with knowledge of what Israel should do. Paul spoke of the purpose of government in Romans chapter 13, verse 1-8, how we should view it and implying in that, what are the responsibilities and what should we expect from government? Similar to Jesus, In that chapter, Paul called Christians to live lives of letting their light shine before the world, to live lives that expose debauchery, and that debauchery in which he mentions such things as adultery, murder, stealing, and covetousness. And all of what he called us to do can be summed up when he quoted Jesus. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Romans 13, 9 and Matthew 23, 39. Calling Christians to alertness in our decade and decadent milieu is similar to the state of the sons of Iscar. Because the day is spiritually dismal, dark, The day of salvation is fading and death and judgment are imminent and eternal. Paul said, the night is almost gone and the day is near. The night referring to the time before Christ, the time in which we live. Therefore, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave properly in the day, not carousing or drunkenness, nor in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus and make no provision of the flesh in regards to its lust." It's basically the call of the sons of Issachar. Jesus said it a little different. Same ultimate meaning. In John 9, 4, Jesus said, we must work the works of him who sent me as long as it is day. For the night is coming when no one will work. You have similar options as I do. The secularist, the perverted, the globalist, They seek to silence us. They seek to silence all of those who desire to follow Christ closer than the bread and fish Christians. And they say to us, do not bring your religion into politics and the public square. And yet that is exactly and precisely where we must bring them. And now about historically defeating rhetoric with historical truth. And we can do this a million times over. History has been totally distorted. And all of it is to present America, the West, the Western mind, and all these other Western countries are suffering the same battle we're in. It is a battle against America, but it is against the Western mindset. Make no mistake about that. But historically, defeating rhetoric, their rhetoric with historical truth, that's how we defeat it. You know that colonization is today pervasively spoken of as evil. And in that misleading rhetoric of the day, this almost exclusively applies to America and Great Britain. Because if you can bring them down, you can bring all of the Western mind down. It is to discredit and deconstruct the West, particularly America. Bruce Gilley is a professor of political science and director of the PhD program in public affairs and policy at Oregon State University. He explains how some countries and peoples actually chose and wanted to be colonized by Britain, given the options they had. Here are two examples, there are more. People who had to choose between the Islamic Sakato Caliphate, that would be the rule, in Nigeria, This was also known as the Fulani slave empire, and Fulani were a group of people in Africa, and they were mainly Islamic. But these Fulani, living under this Islamic slave empire, believed that they would be better off under British colonial empire and colonization, and they were. The Sokoto Islamic Empire was a Fulani slave empire. It was a feudal system ruled by elites. But Britain, if they colonized them, they offered a chance to be ruled by a more advanced, hospitable, superior country in which the Fulani would have some rights. They would have health care. They would have more kindness. and they would have access to modern technology. The Fulani compared what they had under the Islamic slave empire and what British colonization would bring, and they weren't forced, they chose British colonization. Another example is Britain went to Ghana, which is a country in West Africa. But when the Brits came to Ghana, they didn't really see anything in Ghana that interested them. So they turned and left. And subsequently, the Ghana leaders went to the Brits and asked them to come back and colonize them. We want you to colonize us. So they came back, they colonized Ghana, they signed a treaty in which colonization by Britain would give them security, among other benefits of colonization. Gilley says this, and if you want to have a glimpse at world history, this is it. If you want to know how the world's been throughout history, all over the world, in every time period. This is it. Gillies says, almost all places that were colonized were already under alien rule. But it was indigenous rule, not European. The world has always been organized by colonization of empires. spreading as far as they can, and when they weaken, they are subjugated by other empires. That's world history for you. Go anywhere you want, look at it. Within the countries, in America, you think all the tribes just got along with one another? That's because you've listened to the left. They didn't. They warred against. They took land. So they tried to subjugate weaker tribes. And then if they became weak, you know what someone did? Subjugated them. Within Africa, you know what this tribe did? If it became powerful, it subjugated this one, and this one, and this one. And if it became weak, it was conquered. So it was among nations, but it was among the people within the countries. It didn't have anything to do with race. It had to do with what? Who's in power now? Racism didn't cause slavery. Slavery caused racism. Because you see, everybody had slaves all over the world throughout time. But yet when the colonization or slavery is presented, it's though just America did it, evil America. Why? Because they're trying to destroy our love for America and our thanking God for where we live. Sure, it's not perfect. It never has been. But it was the West and even atheist historians telling, it was the Christian viewpoint that began the dismantling of slavery in England and America and it spread throughout Europe and all of the countries that had been colonized and Great Britain was a great leader in that. Why? Because they had ships like no one else. And they would go and make it the law of the land. I'm just trying to tell you I'm not talking about the right or wrongness of these things. I'm trying to put it in historical perspective. So they made a choice among the available options they had, which was better, to be under Islamic rule, where we have nothing, or under British rule, where we'll have protection and some health care and things like that and freedom. Given their choices, they chose colonization. As seen in Jeremiah 29.7, the Jews' time in the evil city was to be characterized by living and exemplifying God to a debauched nation of Babylon and its inhabitants. They were to live out in that situation. How many times have you heard people saying, and you've heard Christians say it, I don't know if I want to have children in this world. You know where that comes from? The devil. That's no trust of God and it's not fulfilling the mandate. God said, I want you to be fruitful and multiply there in Babylon. That command was originally given in the pristine Garden of Eden. And now they are to carry it out in the putrid wilderness of Babylon. We are not to live by fear." And then he said, if you seek the welfare of Babylon, do that because it'll be for your welfare. Why do we fight? Why do we stand? Why do we vote? Why do we speak? We'll go look in the nursery. If we're not concerned about ourselves, are we concerned about them? Morally, we have become a fourth world country, a Babylonian Sodom and Gomorrah, in which some of our leaders seek to normalize the murder of babies, and they cannot tell the difference in a man and a woman, and now they're parading men as women and women as men. This embraced demonic stupidity causes third-world countries to laugh at our bottomless pit of decadent, debauched, self-indulgent idiocy brought about by feckless leaders who excel in creating a dark, gloomy, tumultuous, cavernous state of affairs from which we must fight and stand to emerge. In elections, we are much like many third-world countries and countries historically where Christians had the opportunity to vote, but there were no optimal candidates. And the ones they would have wanted to vote for were not viable. They could not win. And like them, the ones that we have may not measure up to our standards. But those Christians voted, and we should vote for the one that brings the most biblical truths and principles to bear on law and policy. We have to get over childish things. We have to look at what matters, what we live under, what your children live under, and that is policy and law. Listen to them talk about that. If we have freedoms and the things we have now, though diminishing, it is something that any and all forms of globalism will intentionally and vehemently destroy and replace it with communism. Of this you can be sure. Global Marxism's progress in America and the West would have been incomprehensible to most leaders 75 years ago. But we can even come closer than that. Many of you were alive during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States on the brink of nuclear war all the time. In 1989 was the fall of the Berlin Wall, which signaled the destruction of communism in the Soviet Union. And that was made official in 1991 with the documents. And we looked at the world, we knew about China, but Soviet Union had been the greatest threat, and that communism has been destroyed. We need no longer to worry about it. And yet today, the West is crumbling under the burgeoning communism encroachment on America and the Western mind. And I've looked at many Western countries and keep up with what's going on. And they're all going through what we're going through. Because that's the goal, to destroy the West. Our mindset. They want to destroy America and the Western mind. And it's all cloaked in critical race theory. intersectionality, identity politics, social justice, and all of those are driven explicitly by the Marxist conflict theory of oppressor versus the oppressed. Everything is cast into that, and it leads you to ultimate destruction when you fall for it. The Marxist dynamic currently permeates politics, education, law, corporate restructuring, and churches, with the destined end to be devastating suppression of freedom, liberty, and personhood as we have understood them, thereby making the path for the free West to emerge from the grasp from their clutches appear to me to be humanly impossible. I see no way out. That's how deep it is. But all things are possible with God, and make no mistake about it, that's what it'll take. And it'll take God's people willing to suffer a little and be uncomfortable and speak and vote. Therefore, we must stand and speak and vote and trust God and be faithful followers of Christ in truth and righteousness. I pray God would help us. Let's pray. Father, Lord, we understand and we see a little bit, a glimpse of the desperate situation we find ourselves and our family. We see it ever growing and like a spider's web made of unlimited money, and the strongest steel, and deception over everything. Lord, it doesn't appear to me that there's any way out, and you know this is my heart, and I've said it to you so many times. And yet, God, we are not without hope, but our hope is singularity. It is singular. It is in you. and what you have told us and equipped us to do. And the greatest thing you've given us is salvation in Christ. And with that is the truth for time and eternity for all people. And may we share it through conversations, speaking out in whatever forum we have, to whomever will listen. And Lord, casting our vote. for not the perfect candidate, not even the optimal candidate, but of the ones that are viable, that would take us closer to policies and laws that would honor you. And we ask that we would do that for your glory, for your honor. And we would speak truth, but we would do it. with respect, gentleness, but we would not back off. In your holy name we pray.