The creeds of Christendom were crafted to ensure the kingdom's integrity and expansion. One of the results of these creeds was to safeguard against the tyrannical encroachment of man against the lawful majesty and rule of the Christ. A Role-Covering reading coming from Psalm 86. Psalm 86, beginning in verse 8 through verse 12. By the inspiration of God, David writes this in his prayer, Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord. Neither are there any works like unto thy works. All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify thy name. For thou art great and doest wondrous things. Thou art God alone. Teach me thy way, O Lord. I will walk in thy truth. Unite my heart to fear thy name. I will praise Thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify Thy name forevermore. Luke writing to us in the Acts of the Apostles, Acts chapter 17, the first nine verses, Acts chapter 17, one through nine, by the same spirit that moved the king of Israel, David, so does Luke write. Now when they had passed through Amphilipolis, and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them in three Sabbath days, reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead, and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. And some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas, and of the devout Greeks, a great multitude, and of the chief women, not a few, But the Jews, which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. When they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also, whom Jason hath received. And these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. And when they had taken security of Jason and the other, they let them go. Thus far as the reading of God's most holy and errant and fondly authoritative word, the grass withers, the flower thereof fades away, but the word of God stands forever. And by his holy word is the gospel presented unto us again this day with all of its instruction and all of its directions. Now while the Christian community believes that the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ was the most profound and wonderful occurrence to grace the known world, impacting history as it did, still many Christians are ignorant of the incarnation's total impact, especially as it addresses the issues of politics, law, and governance, even as we've seen just recently. As the scriptures dictate how we are to structure our economics, family life, personal life, marriage, worship, raising of children, even trade and business, international relationships, treaties, ecology, agriculture, science, education, and all of the instruments that make up the known world. The scripture speaks on every aspect and everything that Christ had written in his word. And so we should never narrow the scope of Christ's coming to just simply the salvation of men's souls. So we are to never to think that the incarnation was to be given to us in a narrow sense in terms of individual salvation whatsoever. Because if not for Christianity, Tyranny and totalitarianism would be the norm for most of the nations of the world. Freedom, which was promised by Christ's coming would be an impossibility, not only nationally, but also spiritually. The Westminster confession understood the totality of the ramifications of Christ's coming as it concerned politics, law, and government. When they wrote in the confession in chapter 13, sections one and two, where it states, God, the Supreme Lord and King of all the world has ordained civil magistrates to be under him over the people for his own glory and for the public good. And to this end has armed them with the power of the sword for the defense and encouragement of them that are good and for the punishment of evildoers. And it is his duty to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed. all corruptions and abuses in worship, and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administrated, and observed. And so we see that even the Incarnation itself has a ramification which impacts government, politics, and law. But the common misunderstanding of the Incarnation is that Jesus' only purpose, his supreme purpose, was to save a people for himself. This is a truncated view of Christ's incarnation purpose. It's too narrow. It's too truncated. It's too limiting. It limits the ramification, the totality of the incarnation's purpose. And while it is true, of course, it is true that Jesus came to save a people for himself, it is a gross misunderstanding to hold that he came for that purpose only or for that purpose primarily. The idea that the incarnation was simply to bestow eternal blessings on a sinful people and then to take them to heaven is actually a man-centered doctrine and not a Christ-centered reality. In fact, this notion borders on humanism and the idolatry that is associated with it. In other words, man then becomes the center of all things. In fact, they say that man is the center of the incarnation when the incarnation is a broad reality changing everything, not just man, but everything. Because the truth is the incarnation has total and a full orb meaning and purpose which is brought about and will bring about more than just the salvation of man's sinful soul. You see, salvation is a means to an end. The salvation of man's souls is a means to an end by the preaching of the Gospel to change the entire structure of the universe. So the Incarnation's primary purpose was to change the face of the world through the salvation of man's souls. Therefore, Gospel evangelicalism must be concerned with more than just the salvation of souls. Yes, granted, it starts there. It starts there. It begins there. It has to begin there. We have to change men in order to change the institutions of men. We have to change men and families and people in order to change the world around them. But it doesn't end with the salvation of souls. Therefore, it must be a salvation for a global kingdom purpose where the liberation of men's souls results in the liberation of men's lives, in the totality of men's lives. Now to be sure, the salvation of souls is the starting point of the Gospel Commission, but it is not the end of the Gospel Commission. This is why the Great Commission says discipling all nations. It doesn't say disciple people. It begins there. It doesn't say disciples families. It begins there. But the ultimate goal is nations. Consider the Incarnation as a declaration, as we've already seen the implication of the Incarnation on economics, consider today, the implication of this incarnation as a liberation of not only men's souls, but men's lives, and a declaration, therefore, against statism, its tyranny, and its authoritarian regulations. Now, according to Acts chapter 17, our New Covenant reading, it was the gospel declaration that there was another king and that was the declaration. Notice they didn't say, Jesus loves you, He has a wonderful plan for your life. It wasn't even repent. At that point, it wasn't even repent, which is one of the starting points of the gospel presentation. But in this situation, it was not so much that the disciples were saying to people, repent. They were saying something far more total. They were saying, there's another king. There's another king. And at that time in Rome, that king was a replacement of the Caesar who thought he was both God and king. So according to Acts chapter 17, it was the gospel declaration that there was another king who had taken the place of the Caesar. As the apostle declares, this Jesus, whom was to have a greater authority and power than the reigning emperor, was now king. And this was a direct assault upon Roman authority, its statist authoritarianism, and its belief that it had the right to regulate the lives of people. No state has the right to regulate the lives of people. Christianity at that time, not the Jewish state, By declaring that there was another king, one Jesus became a threat to the entire structure of the Roman Empire, which of course was based upon the divinity of the Caesar. And this assault was intolerable to the powers of Rome. They would not tolerate another king. The declaration that Jesus was the universal, liberating king agitated not only the Jews, but it agitated everyone. Because the Jews were angry that now this Jesus claiming to be the Messiah was king. And the Jews at that point were sold out to the tyranny of Caesar. And the Roman populace believed that Caesar was both divine and had actually that the Caesar also had the best interest of the people in his view. And yet we know from history that the Caesar did not have the best interest of his people in view. And because there's nothing new under the sun, we face this very same thing today with the idea that politics, as good as it could be, as governance, as good as they could be, but the idea that politics or a certain political leader can be the savior of a nation is misplaced. Trust. The state, and I don't, I don't care who is in the White House. I don't care who is in the Congress or the judiciary. The state still, in some ways, shapes and forms, believes that through its bloated, even America, through its bloated bureaucratic overseers, that they can have complete control to regulate the lives of the people. To have an unelected body of almost one million people, one million bureaucrats, unelected bureaucrats, in the government of the United States of America, Actually writing regulation and regulatory laws and then having them implemented on pain of economic ruin, fine, or sometimes even prison is not liberty. And so to declare to the Roman state, or any state for that matter, that there was another king, that statement in and of itself, without any action, without any rebellion, that statement itself was a treasonous threat. to the powers that were operating at that time. And the power that was in operation at that time of the incarnation was statism. Statism's tyranny and wicked despotism to the point where the Roman state was also regulating religion and the freedom thereof. And we saw that here even in the United States, the state trying to regulate the worship of God during the COVID debacle. And so during Rome's tyranny, any questioning, even the questioning of Rome's power was a capital offense, punishable by death. You were no longer patriotic. You were no longer a citizen in right standing with Rome. And so when a government seeks to regulate how you operate your business or educate your family, or what words are permissible in the academic arena of higher education, it is tyranny. I'll give you an example. As you know, we have a seminary and a college here. Well, every five years I need to reapply to the state for them to recognize us. Otherwise we're not recognized and we cannot operate unless we go underground. And every year they tell me I cannot use certain words. This year it's different than last section of the time of five years ago. Last year or last, the last season, the last season, they told me I was not allowed to use the word philosophy. because it was owned by the state. It was a secular term. So I had to be creative, and I used the word epistemology. They didn't know what that meant, so it worked. This year, they tell me that I'm not allowed to use the word applied, because we have degrees in applied theology. Because if theology is not applied, then it's just head-scratching. Well, they tell me this year, I'm not allowed to use the word applied. And I said, why is that? And they said, well, it's a secular term. And I'm like, wait a minute, Jesus is the word. He owns the words. You don't own any words, if not for the word of God. And of course, you know, they, they didn't want to hear any of that. Actually, the woman said, you know, pastor, I understand, but this is the rule. So I'm just curious next five years when I have to reapply what words they're going to take out of, of the, uh, the equation, because they'll be secular. So they're commandeering everything. And so when they seek to regulate words. In the academic arena of higher education, it is tyranny. And when a government tells its people that they must abide by an insane myriad of bureaucratic administrative safety laws, now I agree there should be some safety laws, but to overstate the fact and to make people jump through so many hoops in order to conduct business, that's tyranny itself. And when the government uses the bureaucrats of the IRS to infringe upon the people's right to create wealth and to protect their wealth and to safeguard their wealth lawfully, that lawfully gained wealth through godless taxation is tyranny. When a government violates his own constitution through executive decisions based upon the whim of a godless king, that is also tyranny. And when the government hypocritically agrees to abide by a bill of rights, which was the foundational principles of this nation's liberty, and yet refuses to acknowledge the second amendment, that doctrine is tyranny. You think about that. We have the bill of rights, but all of a sudden they're regulating the second. And so when a government entertains the idea of a bureau of misinformation to control the free exercise of speech, that's tyranny. And finally, with the most recent overreaches of the bureaucrats into the lives of the people when a government forces businesses to register their business with a full disclosure of their financial dealings, it's called the BIOA, the Bureau of Anti-Terrorism Task Force. This is, again, toward total control. These are just a few examples of the ways that soft tyranny works. But for the Roman Empire, that was not it. That was not all of it. The justifying reason behind such tyrannical control and empire regulation was an age-old idea that man could be God. The operating assumption during the time of the Incarnation was that it was possible for a man to also be a god. And so the Roman Caesar thought that he was a god-man. The Roman Empire was a statistic empire governed by the Caesars, considered not only by themselves but by the people as divine human god-men. They could function with impunity because they believed that they could do no wrong. In other words, their decree was law because their decree was divine. Their legislation was truth because they were God. Their justice was pure because they were purely righteous, because a God-man cannot be unrighteous. And throughout history, this idea of the God-man ruler remained the dominant political ideology in most every imperialistic empire, even to the days of the Puritans, when the divine right of kings took center stage. So within the state, Man believed that he could find salvation. In this mind, a total reliance upon the state would bring safety, comfort, and prosperity. Because if the state was ruled by a God-man, then the God-man state could bring salvation. It was the state, and particularly the Caesar, that would bring safety, comfort, prosperity, that would bring peace. But this was not the salvation of scripture because the status model always had tyranny built into it. And to the early Christian community, the first, the second, the third century of the Christian community, this was akin to blasphemy. Since only God could bring safety and comfort and prosperity and peace to the people. It was believed that within the state, man could also find hope for the future, hope for the future. The state was considered messianic. The Caesars considered God. And this was a self-conscious assertion. And you just have to think about this. What do modern politicians base their entire campaigns upon? Hope. We saw it in just a few administrations ago. Hope and change. Change for what? Change for the worst. So hope through statistic policies, it never works. Roman life was evaluated and given meaning solely in terms of the state. And this was the model for all tyrannical governments. In Egypt, for instance, the Egyptians had no actual word for the state. The state found its meaning and source in the Pharaoh, who also believed he was God. He was considered both the embodiment of the state and he was the sun god, S-U-N, the Ra, as they called him. He was both a man and a God, and it was through the Pharaoh that the Egyptian citizenry believed that they could find peace. The Egyptian man found his identity and purpose in the state. Without an intimate association with the state, man in the Egyptian mind had no meaning. He was nothing apart from the state. The state was everything. The state was his life. And every time I go to another political campaign, when I go to a mass meeting or a convention, I see this fleshed out in front of me. Not to say that we should not be involved in politics. We should be changing the atmosphere, but we cannot think that politics is salvation. Egyptian man not only identified with the divine state and its social order, he actually longed to be identified with it, either socially, politically, economically, militaristically, or intellectually. And it became an emotional thing. You go to some of these conventions today, it's very emotional. People will kill one another to get their guy in. Why? Because it's a religious idea. It's something that takes them over. And while the political structure of Egypt was statist, the religion of Egypt was also statist in that it was based upon the priesthood of the religious leaders called the magicians. And that's what Moses had to deal with. He had to deal with the magicians. And therefore salvation for the Egyptian was through the priestly messianic political system of the state. And like the Roman state and all statist systems Before and after Rome, the Egyptian state sought to declare their superiority over and over again through the takeover of other nations and through architecture. Architecture and military might, that was their imperialistic thrust. They believed that their way of living and the structure of their social order, which was primarily based on slavery, was the center and norm for the world. They wanted to be nation builders. During the Persian Empire, we find another extreme example of the messianic tyrannical state. The origin of their religion of Persia was that of Zoroastrianism, which means seed of the woman or seed of fire, which is very interesting. Zoroastrianism was also known as Zoroathura, which means the delivering seed, which is a clear reference back to Genesis chapter three in the promise of Christ. The Persian empire was also a religiously based political system, which believed that salvation could only be realized through the state as a result of its adoption of the religion of Zoroastrianism. And to make comparison to our American system is quite easy. In America, salvation in the form of safety, comfort, economic prosperity, and success can be obtained only if it adopts the religion of humanism, which is taught by the priesthood of the Department of Education. There's no place for another king in the Department of Education or in the status structure. In America, it's the religion of nationalism or the religion of humanistic education. Note how you hear, well, you need a good education from the government schools in order to get ahead, in order to make money, in order to be prosperous economically or professionally. Now note how the King of Babylon structured his political feast because his political feast was politically religious, purely religious. In Daniel chapter 5, verse 1, we read this and following, Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords and drank wine before the thousands. Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and the silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, that the king and his princes, his wives, and his concubines might drink therein. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God, which was at Jerusalem, and the king and his princes, his wives, and his concubines drank in them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, of brass and iron, of wood and of stone. This was a political celebration which was actually religious in nature. And since all politics are based upon religious presuppositions, we must conclude that all status systems worship some deity, either the god man ruling on the throne or some other unseen form that has conferred divine power to the ruling individual that's seated in the seat of power. We have a blend of religious ideologies that are actually idolatrous. How many people today tell you or think that the United States constitution is an inspired document? It's not. It's a good document. It's not inspired. It's not structured covenantally. And today it's become a wax nose. You can obey it or you don't have to. It doesn't matter. because there's no sanctions attached to it. If it was a covenant, there'd be sanctions. Don't obey this, God's going to do that. Now with the Greeks, government, like all other ancient kingdoms, was also religiously based. And they too held to a status salvation mentality. Their religion consisted of gods and goddesses, but their religion also was based on reason and logic, as well as rationale. But it was totally humanistic. It was a blend of religious ideology and idolatry, as well as humanistic reason and logic. For the Greeks, the highest form of self-expression was the political life of the city-state. Now the Roman state, like all the other statist systems too, was exceedingly religious, which means the Roman religion was also exceedingly statist. And this resulted in a warped nationalism being measured by what you were willing to sacrifice to the state. Thus, statist nationalistic imperialism was the guiding and driving force of the Roman world. Nationalism was their passion. It was a skewed love of country. They certainly should have loved their country, but it was skewed because if you were willing to be killed in battle for the honor of Rome, you were giving the ultimate sacrifice. And yet it's Christ who's the ultimate sacrifice. Even though the wars of Rome were godless and tyrannical, if you went and you died for Rome, you were a hero. Individuals in the Roman state were possessions of the state, and they could be called upon at any time to give all for the glory of the state. Rome's religious presupposition was that man's problem was not sin. The problem wasn't sin, it was political order. You want to get the world right? Fix politics. Thus only the divine messianic state can bring order to the world. Fix politics and you can fix the culture. Hasn't worked thus far. You have to fix man's heart, then culture is fixed. It was also believed that the Roman state was the answer to the ills of the world and through the centralization of power, culture as well as individual salvation could be accomplished. And it was into this world that Christ is born. It was into this political and social arena that the word is made flesh, born of a woman, made under the law to become the savior of the world. But not only the savior of the world, he was to be the king of nations. The Christians would then be loyal to the kingdom of God and the city of God. And they would not be loyal to the kingdom of man and the city of man because they wanted to change the city of man. They wanted to change the kingdom of man to succumb to the kingdom of the Christ. They understood that the kingdom of God encompassed the totality of the kingdoms of man. And their job was to make the kingdoms of this world to become the kingdoms of their Christ. Their job was to liberate those humanistic kingdoms from bureaucracy and the insane notion that politics can save and that man can be God by teaching them all things whatsoever the Lord had commanded. And that was the divine commission. Disciple the nations, teach them all things, whatever I've commanded you. And lo, I am with you even to the end of the age." And they were sent to those kingdoms. The disciples were sent to those kingdoms in order to disciple the nations with the law word of God. And once Christianity stood in stark opposition to the Roman status system, especially the God-man idea that Caesar could be God and man, people took notice. The Roman state officials took issue. And it's interesting to note that the first century Christians were simply declaring the kingly majesty of God and the emergence of a victorious kingdom. They weren't even doing anything yet. They weren't trying to change Rome yet. They were just declaring something. They were just saying it. And just by declaring it, that Jesus was Lord and King, the status system was threatened. Rome had promised a golden age of peace. It was the Pax Romana. A golden age of peace and prosperity through political policies and actions. but they couldn't deliver. And this is why Christianity was so hated, because Christianity stood in stark contrast to salvation by politics, and it therefore challenged the Roman idea and insulted the patriotism and the nationalism of the Roman people. It also took issue with their legal and judicial system, because it was unjust. And the political ramifications, therefore, of the Incarnation, because there were so many they were immediately felt. Herod was concerned that his rule and position of power was threatened, knowing that he was in control. He didn't want anyone to usurp his authority. And knowing what we know now about the Roman system, this was an obvious response. But what was so unnerving about what the scripture states, that not only was Herod concerned, not only was the Caesar concerned, and the Pharisees, but all of Jerusalem was also troubled. Did they not read the scripture? Did they not know that the Christ would come of a virgin? Did they not know when he performed his miracles that he truly was the Christ? But no, they were troubled because they were so connected to the Roman state that they didn't want to overturn the apple cart. And this is further indication that the Jews, God's people who should have known better, have been so incorporated into that statist mentality that they swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. And this is where many Christians are here today. They keep looking for a political savior and political salvation. Now, we need a better political structure. Granted, I'm all for it. We need a better system in our government. I'm with you on that. But it is not salvation. it still has issues and problems because it's not based upon Holy Scripture. We know that according to Luke chapter 2 that Caesar Augustus was the ruler of the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus' birth. And according to historian and theologian Eithbert Stouffer, Augustus was the very Caesar who claimed to be the world's savior who was to come. He actually said, according to this historian, that he was the promised Messiah that the prophets had prophesied about, Caesar Augustus. And as a result of this belief, he actually stated, salvation is to be found in none other save Augustus and there is none other name given to men in which they can be saved. And so when Peter publicly counted this blasphemous, humanistic, declaration, he used the very same words of the Caesar with a twist that would drive the man insane. In Acts chapter four, verse 11 and 12, and this is the stone, Peter says, which was set at nought of you builders, which has become the head of the corner. And then he says this, and you got to think about these men. They knew. After stating this, they could be hunted, they would be killed. If they were found, they were poking the bear. And that was quite a bear. Because that bear was so proud and so pious in his thinking that he was God, that he was not going to tolerate this statement that Peter says, when he says, "...neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we may be saved." And that name is Jesus Christ. A firestorm! The man set a firestorm ablaze. Did he care? He feared God. He would not fear men. And this declaration was so bold, especially because it was the challenging of the powers that be. But not only was this very dangerous to challenge the Caesar, he was challenging everything. He was challenging the whole structure. He was blowing up everything. R.J. Rushdune observes, he says this, Conflict between Christ and Caesar was thus inescapable. The incarnation and the doctrine of Jesus Christ as both God and man means that the triune God and Jesus Christ, who is the heir of all things, has all earthly and heavenly authority, bringing all things in subjection to him and him alone. Alone. And this is the principle by which Christians should act. Christ alone. a concrete thrust to the advancement of the Kingdom of God with Christ at the center. Not man, not humanism, not statism, but Christ as the center. And the concept of Rome's subordination to the Kingdom of God flew in the face of Rome. Rome's desire was to subordinate all things under it, not to be subordinated unto the Kingdom of God. And the belief that the state was the only vehicle of salvation and its ruler could be both man and divine continued in spite of the Incarnation until 451. In 451, when Christendom galvanized around the Council of Chalcedon to declare once and for all that the only deified man, the only one who could be both God and man, was the true and only God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. This was the beginning of Western civilization's understanding of who could be both God and man, and it could not be the state or the Caesar or the political leader. The Council of Chalcedon insisted that the two natures of Christ were unified and intact without any confusion, and that only He, only He, could be both God and man. Chalcedon also determined that Christ's union of the divine and human without distinction and without one swallowing the other was unique only to Christ. Again, that word only, only, unique, only to Christ. And therefore, because it was unique only to Christ, it could not be transferred to any governing official, any governing body, any governing institution, or any individual whatsoever. It was a declaration that only Christ could be both God and man. And this means that neither the Caesar, nor the State, nor the King, nor the President, nor the Congress, or the Judiciary, or any institution, or anyone at all for that matter, can be divine. Rush Dooney clarifies when he says, quote, if the two natures of Christ were confused, it meant that the door was open to the divinization of human nature. Man and the State were then potentially divine. If the human nature of Christ were reduced or denied, His role as man's incarnate savior was reduced or denied, and man's savior again became the state. If Christ's deity was reduced, then his saving power was nullified. If his humanity and deity were not in true union, the incarnation was then not real, and the distance between God and man remained as great as ever." And so the two natures of Christ as God and man were unified and intact. without any confusion whatsoever, and therefore, only He, once again, unique to Christ, only He can be both God and man, not the state, not the state's human ruler or its institutions." Again, Rushdie declares this, he says, quote, "'Chalcedon handed statism its major defeat in man's history. It prevented human institutions from professing to be incarnations of the deity and able to unite to the two worlds in their existence. The real Jesus of history is set forth in Scripture and defined by the Council of Chalcedon." There's one other important result of Chalcedon in the truth of the Incarnation of God. In the Foundations of Social Order, again, R.J. Rushdie writes this, he writes, quote, In antiquity, man had been bound to the state but freed from God. Orthodox Christianity freed man from the state by binding him to God. who is man's true ground of freedom and fulfillment. Man's self-realization is not in the state, but in God." Now our modern church, many in the modern church, has failed to understand the full ramifications of the Incarnation as a result of their own self-deification propensity. By reducing the Incarnation to a means only for salvation, to truncate it and limit it as only for an individual salvation, and divorcing it from its fullest intent is to accomplish what the state desires, a godlike position where man can be God. Once the church thinks in these terms that the state, its political leaders, or its bureaucratic apparatus can be a savior, statism is more readily accepted. And this is why we find so many professing Christians bound to the state and its policies of statistic imperialism and welfarism. Welfare is not part of Christ's institution other than from the church. But men love welfare. Men love statism. Men love imperialism. Western liberty began in earnest when the claim of the state to be man's salvation was denied by virtue of the Council of Chalcedon. But in modern times, this concept has almost been forgotten. How many of you know about the Council of Chalcedon? Many of you perhaps know a little bit about it, but ask any Christian what the ramifications of the Council of Chalcedon were, and they're clueless. Why is it important in the light of politics or in statism? Why does it mean anything? Does it mean anything, or is it just something that was written so long ago? So what we're witnessing today in the church is a neglect, sometimes a repudiation, an ignorance or simply a distaste for the creeds of Christendom. I hear so often, no creed but Christ. What does that even mean? First of all, it's a creed, but what does it mean? Oh, no law but love. That law of love comes from the law of God, Deuteronomy. You see, the creeds of Christendom are now antiquated in the minds of so many Christians. How does Chalcedon apply to our present day? And I believe this is one of the main reasons why the church has lost its moorings and given its power to the state, not thinking it's got to build the city of God, but rather investing in the city of man. Instead of changing the city of man to conform to the city of God, it continues to prop up the city of man and deny the city of God, thinking it's only about the salvation of the soul. So I believe that this is one of the main reasons why the church has lost its moorings and given its power elsewhere. And this is nothing more than the judgment of God upon those who take lightly the work that Christ has achieved through his church throughout the ages. Those creeds are important. And so between the Council of Chalcedon and even the statements of the Athanasian Creed, the Creed at Ephesus, Christianity set up an impressive bulwark against statism and its encroachment upon Christian liberty. If we could renew the thinking of these creeds, we might be able to move forward with the Kingdom of God. So let me leave you with this final consideration. In light of the impact of creeds and councils being the last line of defense against statism's tyranny, again, I have to ask, how should we view these documents? We can't ignore them anymore. What we ought to do is to preserve Western civilization's liberty by preserving these documents of liberty, often in, maybe not even today in the government schools. We have the rights of men during the colonial period taught. We have other rights and other documents. What about the Council of Chalcedon? That is a liberation document, not so much the others. So how should we view these documents? What are we to do to preserve Western civilization's liberty? Or perhaps maybe I should say, how should we restore it? And I think that if we can restore these creeds, and I've said this so many times before, so that we may once again see their impact. and see their impact upon the culture. I think that is one of the ways we can do this. That's a concrete way to do this. So we can do this if we just learn them, declare their importance once again, show how they relate to the modern age, republish them along with their meaning in our societal order. Put them on social media. Put them on TikTok. Everybody, from what I heard just recently, everybody's on TikTok. Everybody's on Instagram. Everybody is on this thing or that thing. So put them there. Put them for everyone to read and then expound what do they mean. Comment on what they mean. Explain what they mean. Show the connection on how they relate to your life. Comment on the full meaning of each document, how it relates to the issues involving politics, economics, religion, family, education. trade, immigration, this thing, that thing, and the other thing, and how the application of these truths can redirect our nation as the example for other nations into a liberated, as well as a liberating nation. So once again, what did Peter do by stating that? What did he do by stating there is no other name given among men whereby men may be saved in the name of Jesus Christ? What was he doing? He was stirring the pot. He wasn't just in his prayer closet. He wasn't just saying, gee, I just hope things get better. Maybe when I get involved in the Roman politics, things will get better. No, he was stirring the pot. He was getting people talking. Remember the simple declaration of these ideas. So troubled Rome and the Jews and all of the Jews, all of Israel was troubled. But people took notice. People took notice. It may be time to take these documents to the masses so that people once again take notice about the ramifications, the global, comprehensive, total ramifications of the incarnation of the Son of God. And in this way, by educating the masses, especially those in the Christian community, will the truth and the application of the liberating incarnation once again will be openly declared among the people and liberation, true liberation, will finally become a reality. rather than a slogan on a post-it note. And as we shall do, God helping us under the praise of the glory of His grace. Amen.