Come here. Well, first let me apologize for being out of uniform, but it just happened that way. Chuck West, pastor of Deer Creek Baptist Church. We're a fairly new New Testament Baptist Church. Some of you were at our organization meeting and we're tickled to death to be blessed with a good core of people and we're We have regularly attending members. We have some visitors, so we feel really good about where we are. I heard some really good preaching today, haven't I? Really, really good. I appreciate everyone didn't get up and leave when I got up. Of course, you may leave in the middle, but we hope that doesn't happen. You know, the title of the message here is A Lost Connection. And I believe we've lost a connection in this world today. And these brothers have been talking about it. And there are sermons before you here this morning. We are incredibly blessed as a people. to have the connection of fellowship. When we meet here, I don't know about you, but I am always uplifted anytime I'm in the company of God's people. And when I hear truly called men preach the word of God, because they preach the truth, they're not up here to editorialize, they're simply preaching the truth of God. And that's always uplifting. Brother Mark May used to say after every meeting, I feel like I'm on the mountaintop. And that's the way I feel today. I've really been blessed by these two men that have preached to us here today. So we're incredibly blessed. I hope all of you appreciate that. But, but God, But in this present evil world today, we've lost an invaluable connection. And perhaps it would be more accurate to say we've broken a wonderful connection. And that's a spiritual connection. You know, if you look right up here at the first commandment, It's going to say that God has told Israel, and by extension He's told us, to have no other gods before Him. Do you realize that He wouldn't have told us that if there weren't other gods? If there were not other spiritual influencers, He would never have told us that. He's warning us. Have no other gods before Me. Because other gods influence people. spiritually. Brother Chris talked about spiritual giants and how they can impede our path between us and God. This is the same kind of idea here that I'm talking about. When we look at 1 John chapter 4, John here, the Apostle John in his epistle, he's warning the early church. about these spiritual giants. He's warning the early church about these gods that God told us in Exodus chapter 20, you have no other gods before me. This leads to idol worship is what happens. And in 1 John chapter 4 he said, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of antichrist. Whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now, already is it in the world. So we see back in the early church days there were strong spiritual influences that belonged to these gods that we are not supposed to go after, that we're forbidden to go after. And so John was warning the church, now you stay away from those gods. You stay away from Baal. You stay away from Ishtar. You stay away from Molech. You stay away from all those gods. Because Jesus Christ is the true Son of God. the true and living God of Israel, His Son. And we have the Holy Spirit. You stay away from those gods. We have a connection to God through the indwelling Holy Spirit, through our Savior Jesus Christ, who is in us and we in Him. But in this present evil world, I'm afraid that many, many, many have broken that connection, have lost that connection very much. You know, America was a very blessed nation in its founding. And we had founding fathers. I don't care what CNN may tell you. Our founding fathers, many of them were Christians. I would never stand here and tell you that all our founding fathers were saved. I didn't know them all, but I know from reading quite a few, these were saved men. These were men that knew Jesus Christ. And I'm thankful for that because God is the one who enabled them. who rebirthed them. If you go read James chapter 1 there, verse 17, I think it is, we're begat by His will. And that word begat means to be birthed, to be born, to be born again. And I believe we had many, many born-again Christians that were enabled by God. to be the founders of this nation. Now I'm going to read you a quote by President John Quincy Adams. He said, we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passion unbridled by morality or religion. Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. Now, if you go, you can find John Quincy Adams quotes all over the place still that are real, that are true. And he mentions Christ by name, and he declared in a July 4th, 1832 speech that this nation was founded to actually propel the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I'm very thankful that that happened and that we have been that country, but we are now living in a time where we have rejected Jesus Christ and we've turned away from him. And when, uh, Brother Steve was up here reading from Ephesians chapter 2, I realized that Ephesians chapter 2 verse 2 is what we've gone back to today. Where it says, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. What we have now We have the children of disobedience. I know you've probably heard me say, I still work a secular job, and I'm a construction supervisor. I'm really just a glorified bookkeeper now, and I'm very happy with that. But I still see the guys come and go, these young men, and very few have a lot of common sense. Very few have a stick-to-itiveness, a work consistency, a good work ethic. It's hard to find them that are really reliable, they'll show up to work on time, they'll work hard when they get there, take an interest in their work, you know, all the things that, frankly, I used to take for granted, you know, and that in my generation, you learn to work hard. And most of us, I think, really enjoyed it because we learned to enjoy the benefits of hard work. and diligent work. And that's been lost today. And I think one of the reasons it's been lost is because young people have not been taught and grown up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They just have not. And so we've lost a connection to those Christian principles. Turn with me, if you would, to Judges. I'm going to look at Judges chapter 2. Judges chapter 2 and verse 10. Let's read this verse for a minute. And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers. And there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel. Now I can take that verse right there, and in that verse, I can see the generation of our founding fathers several generations after that. I was reminded of this last week. We had in our little town there up in Ohio, New Holland, just a little old village. We have a big cemetery. We have Revolutionary War veterans in there, Civil War, all the way up to the present time. And every year, there's a veteran's wreath-laying ceremony there at the cemetery. And I thought about this, and I'm a veteran. I think Brother Chris is. I think there's a... No? Okay. Well, I don't know who here is a veteran, but I know some that were right there. And I know that when you really have a real connection to people who have gone in the service, taken an oath to lay down their life, if called upon, and they've taken that oath seriously, and many have had to answer that call and laid down their lives. When you know people like that, and you have known them, you've known families of those type of men and women, you really come to have a real appreciation for what they go through. And today I see some young men that I really do like, and they're struggling because they've come from these endless wars and they've come home all torn up, physically and psychologically. And they're really struggling. It's difficult to watch, and all I can say is everyone should really take seriously the fact that freedom is not free. It's like there's no remission of sin without the shedding of blood. There's no freedom unless someone pays the price. When God set Israel up, he set them up to be free. He set them up to give them land. They had to work for it. You have to work for freedom? Israel had to work for their land. And what happened here in Judges, we read verse 10 there, we can parallel that to what's happened in America today. Because we had a generation that did the things they were supposed to do. They did the things that God commanded them to do. They grew up with Christian principles. They instilled their children with Christian principles. And now what's happened to us in America, we have generations here, two or three generations, that are now coming of age, entering the workforce, and they don't know anything. They haven't been raised to know the Lord. They haven't been raised with that work ethic. They've not been, or they don't, listen, you don't work, you don't eat. That's what the Bible says. Okay? And they don't understand that. They've grown up with this entitlement mentality. That somebody owes them something. Or they get a college degree and think that entitles them to a big paycheck and they don't have to do anything but show up and get that paycheck. Well, the world doesn't work that way and neither does the Lord. So, what's happened is We in America have become like ancient Israel here. So let's look here in Judges chapter 2, verse 11. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Balaam. And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them. and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtoreth. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of the spoilers, that spoiled them. And He sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies. People, I hate to say it, but that's about where we are today. We have people today and not just young people. We have people, we have, Congress is full of people that are doing evil in the sight of the Lord. And we have millions of people today, I'm afraid, certainly many, many multitudes of people, I'll just put it that way, that are serving Balaam. What's Balaam? Balaam is the plural of Baal. Many Baals. Baal was the god of Canaan. Baal, when you do any study on Baal, you're going to find out that he is a possessor. He's a master. He's a lord. He's all of those things that will control your life if you let him. And that's why I call those gods we're supposed to stay away from spiritual influencers. I liken them to today's social influencers. You know, they're all over social media. That's the way these old gods were, these ancient gods. And that's why God told us, now, I forbid you to go after them. Because when you go after them, you become immersed in their personalities. In other words, you're being influenced by the things that they have dominion over. Like pride. Like greed for money. Like power. And so now we have a Congress full of people that have gone over to that, and we have a couple of generations coming on that don't know the Lord at all, and they've grown up with these gods, these foreign, ancient gods. And in America, we have let people come into this country and just assimilate, we no longer even ask they learn our language. And we all of a sudden, this really hit me hard at 9-11, we worship the same God. Well, no, we don't. And our founders made it very clear that America was founded by Christians and for Christians, and the only continuing successful government in our nation would be that of Christians. Now, when Keith Ellison came along and was sworn into Congress, he was sworn in on the Koran. You don't need to go any further than that. You can tell right there we've got a problem. And so that's where we're at today. And I want you to look, too, not only that they serve, the ancient Israelites here, they serve Baal and Ashtoreth. Ashtoreth is known by many names, just like Baal. She was also Artemis, Ishtar, Aphrodite. And this is a god. I might even have some notes on that. This is a god that's a very powerful god. All of these old ancient gods are very possessive gods. She is associated, this is a goddess, and this is the goddess that's associated, and she's talked about in the Bible. You know how you read about the Queen of Heaven? This is the Queen of Heaven. Okay, this is one of those gods that God has warned us about. Now you stay away from her. She's a complex personality. She's the goddess of love, war, fertility. She's associated with beauty, sex, divine law, political power. Well, you can see how that kind of influence has corrupted our youth and our Congress. I have no idea what to believe about Jeffrey Epstein or any of this. I don't know what to believe, you know, but I know what I don't believe. if you don't want to meet. And if a politician is talking to me, I just assume they're lying anymore. Let God be true. Okay? God be true. And every man a liar. I don't know how else to look at it. But if you're born again, you have spiritual discernment. Okay? And I'd be very careful listening to or believing what any of these people tell us anymore. But I want you to look if you would, that the Lord gave Joshua real commandments, and he told them, listen, I'm giving you this land, but you've got to drive out these people that are there. But if you look back in Judges chapter 1, we'll just pick a few of these, Verse 27, neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Bethshean and her towns. So here you go. They did drive them out like they were supposed to. So what did they do? Verse 28, it came to pass when Israel was strong that they put the Canaanites to tribute and did not utterly drive them out. Well, that's what they were supposed to do. They had a lack of belief. They were guilty of unbelief. They didn't think the Lord could do it. They were worried about the giants. Forget about the giants. Forget about that. Neither did Ephraim. Drive out the Canaanites, the Twelfth and Gezer. That's verse 29. So we read all down through here that they didn't do, the Israelites did not do what they were supposed to do. What happened? Look at verse 34. Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain, for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley. " When we give in to these gods, when we give in to perversions, when we give in to sin, it controls us. It subdues us. It oppresses us. And that's where we are at in America today. We need godly leaders. We need to pray diligently for this country. I love our veterans, and I love this country. But we are in trouble. And we are just as ancient Israel was here. Why? Because we didn't do what our founders, who were blessed by God, told us to do. And that is to govern ourselves by Christians. and to keep us pure as a Christian nation. That's how we were set up. God set us up that way. Now let's come down to chapter 2 here and let's read a couple of verses. And an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Balchim and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt. and have brought you unto the land which I swear unto your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land. Ye shall throw down their altars, but ye have not obeyed my voice. Why have ye done this? Wherefore, I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. " Now, we have not done as we should have done in America. We have not driven out these false gods. We have not stood firm for our faith and said, Mohammedans, Islamists, you're welcome to come here and live, but you're going to live under our laws as a Christian nation. We have not done that. Consequently, we've not thrown down their altars as we should have. Now we have young people going to the altars of Baal and Ishtar and Molech. Oh my goodness. The blood that's been shed, the innocent blood in our land is shameful. Absolutely shameful. We're paying that price. These ancient gods that our God, Jehovah, has warned us about, they've become thorns in our side. They're a snare to us. But there's good news and both these brothers before me brought you that good news. And I'm thankful for that. What's the good news? Well, let me read this quote also from John Quincy Adams. I use a lot of his quotes. The highest glory of the American Revolution was that it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. That was the connection. That's the connection the American Revolution won for us. to the truth. And the truth will set you free. Jesus Christ. That's the one indissoluble bond. Now when you have that as a Christian, nothing can take it away from you. But when you let it go as a nation, it's going to cost you. That's the connection. We have it as individuals. We've broken it as a nation. Jesus Christ is The connection. He is the connection. Jesus Christ is the most important connection. Not only in anyone's life. But for every nation. Absolutely every nation. Neither is a salvation any other. For there is none. Other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. So I want to leave you with this, back to 1 John, chapter 4, again. We read the first three verses. Let's read the fourth, because this is the key for us and for every born-again Christian and for everyone who's unsaved. You need this comfort. You need this assurance. You need this promise. You need this knowledge. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. No one's greater than God. We serve an awesome God. And brother, that's all I have. And I thank you for the opportunity and the time.