I love two things. Actually, I love a lot more than that. Two things in this world that I love. I love my country. And for some people, that's a sin. It's one that I don't understand. I love my people. I love Americans. Amen. I've been to other countries and I love them. Been to Kenya, met some wonderful, wonderful people there. Some good saints of God that love the Lord and love the Bible. And I love ministering to them. I love looking forward to, we're planning on going back and having some conferences out there. And I love, I'm looking forward to it. but I remember sitting in the airport in Chicago after we got done being in Kenya after we'd eaten our Big Macs and I was looking at the people walking to and fro in Chicago airport and I'm going, these are my people I'm not a racist that's not racism to love your own God's built that into us you can love other people But we love people that are our own kind, our own kindred, have at least some of the same values that we have, talk the same language, eat the same food, have pretty much the same customs that we're familiar with, the same way of talking. And I know there's a lot of things in America that are not right. But I'm not going to turn my back on my country simply because there's some things that are not right. The people who still know how things should be, we're the ones who are supposed to be a salt and a light to the rest of the people. I'm not going to turn my back on America. Amen? Not going to do it until God gets ready to turn this whole thing over to the devil. I'm going to keep loving my country. And I love God's people too. I love the church. I love Christianity. I've looked at some other religions. I love Christianity. There's a lot of things wrong with a lot of people who claim to be Christian. I'm not going to turn my back on them either. I'm here to teach. I'm here to preach. I'm here to encourage people. Come back to this Bible. Come back and worship at the feet of the cross where we're all going to be. And that's really where my heart is. And I've brought the two flags up this morning. I'm gonna use them as an example. And I'd like for you to take your Bible, if you would, turn to the book of Numbers, chapter one, and we'll prepare to get into the Lord's service. By the way, I had mentioned, I had tweeted this last week at the end of the service. My wife and my daughter, Boy, they're listening. They listen to what I say, my wife especially, and she has helped me so much. I made a big mistake last Sunday morning, a grievous error. I was preaching, and I had mentioned Micah chapter 5, with our Bethlehem Ephrata, talking about the coming of Jesus. whose goings forth have been from old, from everlasting." That's what the King James Bible says. And that tells you that Christ always was, is, and always will be. And my mouth runs ahead of my thoughts sometimes. Okay? And I actually ended up quoting the NIV and I said, whose goings forth have been from old, from ancient times. The reason why I know that verse so well is I preach against it just about every place I go. Because the NIV says that he was from ancient times, which basically means he had a beginning. His origins are from ancient times. That means Christ had a beginning. Christ did not have a beginning. He always was and is and always shall be. And that's what I believe. But I made a mistake in quoting the wrong verse, got mixed up in my mind. So to settle it with everybody, and I've been saying this for years, I make mistakes. I make stupid ones. Oh Sterling, All the time, yeah, amen. Every wife whose husband runs her mouth and makes mistakes, you can say amen, raise your hand, testify. Okay? A guy that all I do is run my mouth. That's all I do. I do that seven times a week on most weeks, and I'm capable of saying things that are stupid, wrong, weird. People go, where did that come from? Okay? I'll own up to practically all of them if I'm aware of them. So, but what I truly believe is what the King James Bible says, who's going forth, and see, I'm trying to sort it out in my mind now to make sure I get it right. Who's going forth have been from old, and I keep wanting to say from ancient times, but who's going forth have been from old, Yeah, yeah, I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it so I don't mess up again. And so anyway, Micah chapter 5, where is that? Read that out loud, Andrea. Or Brian, read that out loud, Brian. From everlasting So don't ever forget that. All right All right Let's go to the Word of God numbers chapter 1. Are you there say amen? I'll get there too numbers chapter 1 There's some things that I believe in Some things that I stand firmly in, feel strongly about. I would not make a good politician. I would not make a good politician right now because in order to get anything done in this country, you've got to compromise just about everything you believe in and settle with people that you are diametrically opposed to. And I'm just not one that likes to settle on things that I don't agree with. so i would not make a good politician uh... i think preachers are to know what they believe, are to believe what they believe, are to stand on what they believe, and not waver unless God shows them from His Word that they are wrong. God has shown me several times on some things that I've been wrong in, and for that I have to stand up and own up to it and say I was wrong in that, and this is what the Word of God says, and I stand corrected. And by the way, that is the purpose of all Scripture. It is inspired by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, and for correction and instruction in righteousness. That way, if we think something and we say something, and God's Word proves us to be wrong, and I mean God's Word. I don't mean what your version of God's Word is. I mean God's Word. If it says that we're wrong, then we're wrong and we ought to be corrected. I want my mind in line with the Word of God, and that is, and I'm going to start using this word now, that is my standard. That is what I base my life upon. That is my rallying point. That is what I'm looking to. This is how I'm going to be for the rest of my life. I was sitting out in the parking lot one day. Lisa was in getting her hair done. And I just don't normally like to go and sit in beauty shops. Okay? Smells weird in there. So I stay out of them. So I was sitting in the van and just kind of reading the scripture and kind of looked up a word and God kind of gave me a message and I want to try to preach it this morning. You pray for me this morning and pray that God will open up our eyes and our hearts and God will challenge us and God will gather us together under his word. Numbers chapter 1 verse 52, here's what the Bible says. The children of Israel shall pitch their tents Every man by, I want you to look at it, his own camp. And every man by his own what? Throughout their hopes. Let's go to the Word of God and pray and ask for help and guidance this morning and pray that I don't say anything stupid today. Amen? or anything else stupid today. Let's pray that God's word will be clear in our minds and our hearts. Heavenly Father, I love you. I thank you, dear God, for this Bible. Lord, I firmly believe, God, I really believe this, God, that every now and then, Lord, you'll allow me to mess up. You'll allow me, dear God, to say something wrong, or stupid, or inconsiderate, or rude, or crude, or things like that. God, you'll allow that to happen. Just so that I'll know, just so that my family knows, and the people of this church, and anybody listening and watching, just so that they'll know, God, that the Bible's true. Let God be true in every man a liar. Lord, I'm like Isaiah. who stood before a thrice holy God and said, woe is me for I'm unclean. I'm a man of unclean lips. Lord father, there is no good thing in my heart. I understand that. Lord, this is why God, we need your word to be solid. We need it to be right 100% of the time. Because Mike Hoggard's gonna be wrong. Brady Crum's gonna be wrong. The men of this church, God, we're gonna be wrong in some things that we say or some things that we think. Lord God, we need a solid, sure standard to live by, to test one another by, to hold one another to. God, we need this in our life. Lord, the preacher needs it. The pastor of this church needs it. The leader of this people needs it. I need a standard, dear God, whereby to operate, whereby to run to, dear God, to a true measure. Lord, that if I'm wrong, I can go back to the standard and be right once again. Lord, give us this thought and this idea in our minds and in our hearts, God. Firmly plant it in our hearts, Lord, what it is that I believe, Lord, you're wanting to teach us today. Use this message, God, for your glory. May your word be sanctified and honored and blessed in the hearts and the ears of these people this morning. We love you, God, and we're counting on you, Lord. I'm counting on you, Lord, to be the preacher today. We love you in Jesus' name. And all of God's people said, Amen. Now I want you to look at this verse again very quickly. And it says, And the children of Israel shall pitch their tents, every man by his own camp, and every man by his own standard throughout their host. I want you to look just down just a couple verses now into Numbers chapter 2 and look at verse 2. The Bible says every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard with the ensign or ensign of the people. Oh no, I messed up again. And every man by his own... Here it is, "...with the ensign of their father's house far off about the tabernacle of the congregation shall they pitch..." Now I want you to notice the words here. He talks about, by his own standard, "...with the ensign of their father's house far off about the tabernacle of the congregation Shall they pitch now in case you're not understanding this or need a little background. I'm gonna give you a little background here And I don't know exactly and I don't I'm not sure that we that anybody really knows exactly What was what was displayed on these things, but you know, maybe the scriptures that might give us a little light on it But here's the thing When the Israelites when they were camping out in the wilderness and they were on the way to the promised land God gave them God put them in tribes. Each man was born one Let's say was born in the tribe of Judah this family over here was born of Naphtali or Gad or Reuben or Simeon or Dan or Levi or? Whatever any of those twelve tribes every man had his own family that he lived in now I will tell you that in most cases to this day. This is still true. We still grouped together by family or familial organizations. We are still named by, I am of the Hoggard tribe, the Hoggard clan, and I love my kinfolk, I care about my family, Even if my family isn't right on everything, and even if there's some issues in my own family that I'm not in agreement with, they are still my blood kin, my blood relatives, and I believe in family. Can I hear you say amen? Maybe your family's messed up. Doesn't matter. I believe in having family. Amen. Listen, and don't turn your back on your family. Turn your face toward your family and shine the light to them. Amen. There's people out there that just that they they get this thing in the Bible And they think that they got to be ignorant to everybody and reject everybody in the whole world I don't think that's right. I don't think it's biblical by the way church is family Amen. Church is family. When you get settled and come to church here long enough, and then you go to church somewhere else and say you're out of town, you're visiting, it ain't the same, is it? It is not the same. Well, we don't do it that way at our church. Well, that's kind of strange to me, but I don't like that. Amen, Jimmy. Okay? And when we come back to Bethlehem, we go, ah, this is home. God designed us to be that way. We like to be around familiar For the word family comes from Familiar places familiar ideas things and and and ideas that all of us are rallying around and all of us Come to an agreement in now I know that in this church that we don't we don't all see eye to eye on several things and so every now and then just as family does we kind of rub each other the wrong way and Kind of I may show up one day and hateful and and you say what's wrong with pastor? But you don't say, you know what? I ain't going back that church ever again. You just pray for me and come back and maybe I'll be in a better mood that next Sunday. Amen? You'll be one in the foul mood. Okay? And I'm not going to say, Gary, show them the front door. Get them out of here. I wouldn't do that. Gary might be the one that's in a foul mood. I have to say, Gary, get out. But we're family here. When you have family, blood relatives, like a brother. She told me I can talk about him today. She's got a brother that's a no good, rotten, filthy, lousy, dirty sinner. Imagine that. Did you know that Mary and Martha had a brother that was dead? His name was Lazarus. His name was Lazarus. And when Jesus wanted to take that stone away from that sarcophagus he was in, that cave he was in, they went to him and said, oh Jesus, don't. Surely he stinketh. He's been in there four days. And can I tell you something? That probably everybody in this room has got some family member that we don't talk about, that we are kind of embarrassed of. that we maybe they maybe they don't act right maybe they we just kind of we kind of leave off leave them off to the side want things covered up we don't want to talk about because it stinks too bad and I want to tell you something there's nobody in your family that's too lost to be saved and nobody in your family that's too dead to be saved can I hear you say amen Lazarus was not too dead for Christ to resurrect there are however some of us that are too good to be saved amen And so anyway, that's family and she's got a brother that every time she would talk about her brother, she'd start tearing up. Now, and she is just two opposite worlds from her brother. And so far, he'd been up in the hospital now for about seven weeks, he said. He's got a tube running in his throat. He can't even hardly talk. They got him strapped down because he'll lose consciousness and go crazy and start pulling tubes out. They've got him tied down. They got a tube running in his throat and they're not really sure if he's ever gonna make it out of the hospital alive. And they asked me, her and Jim asked me, will you go up and see my brother? Yes, I will. And I went up to the room and I could tell Lori, she was kind of, you were kind of nervous about it. And because apparently he'd not had good interaction with preachers before. Okay. So I just sat down with him. She walked out and I just looked at him. I did exactly what I did with your dad. I said, I'm going to shoot gun barrel straight with you. From what I hear, you may not make it out of this hospital alive, which means that shortly you're probably going to be standing before the judge of your life. And you're either going to spend eternity in hell or heaven. You have to decide which is, and I just gave him verses and gave him Bible verses and everything like that. Well, lo and behold, I said, I'm going to leave it up to you, and I'm not a salesman. But I'm going to tell you what you should do. And I said, you're conscious right now. I said, I wasn't even going to come up here if you weren't. Because I wasn't going to witness to somebody that's not awake. And I said, you're conscious right now. And I said, from what I hear, you lose consciousness pretty regularly. And I said, if I were you, while you were conscious and while you were thinking of it today, I'd get my life right with God. I'd say, God have mercy on me, a sinner, and have God forgive my sins. That's what I would do if I were you right now. And I didn't go in there slapping him around and say, you know what's wrong with you? I mean, I didn't do that. I just told him what the Bible said. And I said, let's pray. And I prayed, and I prayed for him, prayed that he would be praying. And when I looked up, I said, did you ask God to forgive your sins? And he went, I said, you know what the Bible says? The Bible says they're forgiven. And when I walked out, I said to him, I said, I'm either gonna see you walk out of this hospital, or I said, I would like to think I'd see you in heaven. And he said, Don't turn your back on your family. Okay? They're not too dead for the giver of life to raise back from the dead. Amen. Alright. So that's family. This church is family. I believe our country, we are a family of people that have been brought, just like this church, we've all been brought in from different places. We got different ways of doing things, different ways of seeing things, different backgrounds, some good, some bad, okay? We've got people in this church that were former Catholics, former Mormons, former Jehovah's Witness, former infidels, former drunks, amen, we got former, all kinds of formers in here. And if you think about America, that's really what America is. It's a grouping together of people from European backgrounds, from African backgrounds, from Oriental backgrounds, and every now and then we even let the Canadians down in here. Amen, okay? And that's what America is, and I'm not ready to turn my back on my people. I'm not ready to turn my back away from the standard that groups us all together because God put us here and as long as I'm here and as long as I believe this Bible, I'm going to try to go to my own people and try to share the light and the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ to them and with them. How many of you believe that's a worthy cause? Say amen. Because it just might be your uncle that gets saved. Amen. It might be your congressman and your judge that gets saved. And so I want to just kind of lay that in your mind and your heart. We, I have been accused of in this church of being overly patriotic. And I have also been accused, Gary now takes these phone calls and I don't know where they get this. Brady, I think the Jehovah's Witness may have thought this, that the American flag is an idol. Okay, and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna preach. I got a lot of things to preach on. I don't know if I'll get time today to get it all, but I just wanna, I want us to focus on the standard. Focus on a standard. Let me, so let me explain. Let me go back to Israel. When they were in the wilderness, they would camp according to families. And Judah was always, I think Judah was on the east, and when they left, Judah always got to be first, which I always thought was interesting, because Christ came from the line of Judah. Dan was always last. It's like the tale of the serpent, alright? And the Bible says, Dan shall be a serpent by the way, which I always thought was interesting. But if you were the family of Dan, you had to camp with the Danites. If you were the family of Gad, you had to camp with the Gadites. And if you were a family of Judah or whatever, you had to camp with your own family. You had to be with your own family. And when they would set the tabernacle down and put the fence around it and get it all set, then the elders would take literally a flag, would take a flag, an ensign or an ensign, a standard, And I like this, okay? The word standard, I looked up the etymology of it. It comes from stand hard. And they would take, you know, you take a flag, and you know flags, they kind of made a cloth and things like that. Well, what happens when the wind blows? Okay? And if you don't have the pole of that standard, if you don't have the pole of that flag in good, hard, solid ground, it'll blow over. It'll drop. And there's even traditions in our country, which I respect, concerning this flag and how to handle this flag. And I was always taught if the flag falls on the ground, You're to dispose of it. Am I saying that right? I've always been taught that and I still believe in it. By the way, I don't believe you ought to burn this flag. Listen, you make me mad. I'm an American. I got an uncle that was in Okinawa or Iwo Jima, one of the two, and he watched his fellow soldiers with their guts splattered all over that battleground. He saw what the price that our country paid for the freedom that we had, and I've got relatives that have been in the military and this and that and the other, and I want to tell you something. They stood and fought for this flag, and they saluted coffins when they come back with this flag draped over the top of that. I still believe in that. I still honor that. And Westboro Baptist Church can not, if they don't like it, they can go sit on a tack for all I care about. Amen? Amen, listen, I don't like those people. They're not Christians. They're not born again They do not have the Spirit of God in them And I don't care what they say about themselves and I don't care what they say about us now I don't care what anybody else says about us either. This is my flag This is the standard of my country This is and and I've even had people you pass my why do you have that idol in your church? Listen, I don't pray to this thing But it is a representation of what I stand for in the beliefs. I'll tell you what it is. It's a representation of the law of our land, the Constitution. And I stand for the Constitution. I stand for most of the laws of this country. But here's what's happening. We're turning away from the laws that we had established in this land. And I saw on the news, it was last night or this morning, sweetie pie, that some other state now, they're marrying queers. They're marrying sodomites in some state somewhere. That is an abomination to this flag and to what it represents. It is an abomination. But anyway, they would make sure that it was standing hard. is this idea of where the word standard comes from. It was the flag of the tribe of Judah that, you know, maybe, maybe because Jacob said Judah was a lion's whelp and the Bible talks about the lion of the tribe of Judah, maybe on the standard of Judah there was an emblem of a lion somehow. I don't know that to be true. As some say it is, and I don't know, I don't see that in the Bible. I just know that when the elder of Judah drove that pole in the ground with that flag standing way up there, that everybody in Judah knew their flag. They knew their sign. They knew that that represented them and what they stood for and their family and their family line. And they went and they met around that flag and then started camping out around that flag. Same way with those of Gad. Same way with those of Naphtali. They encamped and they gravitated and they brought themselves. And I just like how it says, every man by his own camp, every man by his own standard throughout their host. And then Numbers chapter 2, it said every Israel shall pitch by his own standard with the ensign of their father's house. Now I'm already thinking spiritually now about our father's house and what the standard is of our father's house. But let me just kind of say this to you today and just kind of let you know where I'm going to. Number one, I love talking about my country and I know that there's a lot of things wrong in my country. This is not my idol. This is not what I worship. This is not what I pray to. And it is not an idol. If it was, then the Israelites were guilty because God had told them to set up an idol. God didn't tell them to set up an idol. He told them to set up a flag. a standard that represented their family and their father's house. My forefathers knew what this stood for. They went and fought and died for what this stood for, and they were willing to shed their blood and give up their life for what this flag stood for, and so do I. And listen, it's not the government of my country that I'm all for, but it's the principles upon which we were founded, and it's the people who still live in this land who still want to be free. Can somebody say amen? And I don't know, I've just heard all kinds of stuff about this saying, and I'm tired of, and I'm not apologizing for it. In fact, I brought it to the forefront here so that I believe that this church should honor what this flag represents. Y'all with me? Say Amen. Now let's go over here. This is what we call the Christian flag. Now, I don't see in the Bible the design for a Christian flag. Let me tell you what we have always been taught that this represents. The white represents the purity of Christ, the sinlessness of Christ, and though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. The purple up here represents, it's a color for royalty. And it represents Christ being king. And then we see the red cross. Red is the color of the blood, the crimson blood that flowed from Jesus' body that washes our sins away. And I will tell you what, I will not apologize for having a cross in our church. And there's people out there that are saying, we've got an idol up here on the wall, and that we have a cross up there. Fooey on that. By the way, I don't have a dead Jesus on any of my crosses. Amen? Amen. Because He's not dead anymore. He's alive. But I want to tell you something. I think if there's anything that should be a rallying point for God's people, and that is the cross. The cross is our standard. It is our rallying point. It is what you and I hold to, and aside from everything else, aside from having disagreements among one another, aside from not getting along from time to time with one another, everybody in this church, we all bow before the same cross and come to the same place. We know that Jesus died for our sins, and that is our rallying point. Somebody say amen. And I'm not apologizing to anybody for running around the cross, running around a standard that displays what it is that you and I believe in this church. And by the way, this is an American church. And I'm not apologizing for that. I will still fight for America. And when I say America, I'm going to tell you what America is, in my opinion, the first three words of the Constitution. We the people. That's the America that I stand for and the America that I believe in and the America that I will fight for. Because I'm not going to lay down and let anybody else take away my or your freedom and your liberty to worship God as we see fit. And I want to tell you something. the ultimate goal of tyranny. This has happened in every country. The ultimate goal of political tyranny is to remove the gospel away from the people. That's the goal of it. What was it that the communists did when they first moved into Russia? Shut down all the churches. They became a humanist, atheistic state, and for the most part, and they had made a secret deal with the Russian Orthodox Church just to keep them going. But if you were a born-again Bible-believing Christian outside of the Russian Orthodox Church, you were a criminal, and Bible preaching was not allowed in that country. The ultimate goal of political tyranny is to shut down the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if you think that they're going to keep taking our freedoms away in this country and let us still preach this Bible? You're crazy. They're already going after people like me who say sodomite marriages are an abomination before God. That's where they're going to start. They're going to start shutting us down over that issue right there, and then we will not be able to preach the gospel according to this book. You get where I'm going with this? I'm going to rally around the standard of what I believe that this represents, a united country standing for the principles that our fathers and our forefathers believed in, and that is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ to all mankind. Can I hear an amen out of somebody? And so I believe in a standard. I believe in gathering around that standard. I believe in abiding by that standard. Now I want you to take your Bible and turn to Isaiah chapter 11. Yeah, Isaiah chapter 11. In fact, I'm going to turn there, and I've got marked in my Bible one verse, but I'm just going to kind of work my way down, all right? Isaiah chapter 11. And the standard that you and I believe in, of course, is Jesus Christ and the Word of God. And I want you to look at this. Isaiah chapter 11. Are you there? Say Amen. There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse. Think of a rod. Think of a standard. Think of a pole. Think of something that is standing up. There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And I want you to look at verse 2, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. These are the seven Spirits of God. In case you've never, you've always seen that in the book of Revelation, the seven Spirits of God, here they are right here. Number one, the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. By the way, his name is Lord. Amen? His name is Lord. That's what my Bible says. Capital L-O-R-D. That's what his name is. His name is Lord. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. Number two, the spirit of wisdom. Number three, understanding. Number four, the spirit of counsel. Number five, of might. That means that when the Holy Ghost is in you, you're not weak and you're not afraid of what could happen. You're not afraid of standing. You're not afraid of opening your mouth when it's time to open your mouth. When people around you are cursing God and cursing this Bible and saying all kinds of things. Something, I guarantee you, a spirit just gets in me every now and then to where I gotta say something. I'm not going to back down and whether you like me or not from this day forward is irrelevant to me. If God, and God has to put it in you. You can't just run off in your flesh because then you are just an idiot. Amen. And there are people sitting in churches who are just, they're just not nice people. But when the Spirit of God is in you, He gives you a spirit of might and that might will cause you to open your mouth and say, this is thus saith the Lord God, this is what He said. I had a little thing like that last night. and uh... i just decided i would go back down the spirit of knowledge And of the fear of the Lord those are the seven you might just want to make a note in your Bible These are the seven spirits of God right here Jesus Christ came in those spirits and to all who are truly born again he puts this spirit inside of you as Evidence and testimony that you are a child of the Living God and that heaven will be your inheritance now look down in verse 10 of the same chapter and And in that day, there shall be a root of Jesse. Well, that's what he was talking about up here in verse 1. There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall go out of his roots. And in verse 10, in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall do what? Stand. It will stand. This is why, and I want you to get this image, because this is a big, big deal. I've never fought in a battle. Never been in a forward position. Never had a gun in my hand aimed at the enemy. Unless you count deer season as being a war. Okay? I've never done that. But I've read stories. I've watched movies. Movies based upon the reality of battle and battles that have been fought. And I understand a little bit about a flag bearer. A flag bearer in an army or in a squadron of soldiers or whatever in a war, the flag bearer probably was the most important person in the army. And I don't have time to preach this. I'm going to get into this probably next week of what happens when the standard bearer falls. What happens when the standard bearer falls? That's probably going to be next week. But I want you to understand that the soldiers who are fighting in a war were rallied around the banner, the standard, the sign, the flag. The most important man was the flag bearer. and we still have that concept we still have this idea especially you get into the south and when you get into the southern states what flag are you going to see in a very predominant manner? the rebel flag okay they still fly it over several states and people are going I don't like that I don't like that and everybody else is going too bad why don't you move to New York amen okay And I'm not, listen, I'm not for slavery. I think we did the right thing in getting slavery out of our country because God wanted all men to be free. Amen? Okay? But this idea of a flag, it still means something to us. And the army centers around the standard, the flag. And as long as that flag bearer was standing, and as long as the army could see that flag moving forward and waving, they had courage. They said, there's our flag. Let's go do this. Let's go fight this battle. Let's go fight this war. Because we believe in that flag. We don't want to see somebody else's flag flying over our house. Now you get this. And so, but what happens is every now and then the standard-bearer would fall. And now we have a fallen flag. And when that happened, the soldiers who couldn't quite see what was going on ahead of them, when they saw the standard-bearer fall, they knew that probably the battle was over. They had lost. And they retreated in defeat. The shame of it. But God here, who gives us this symbolism and this idea, says in that day there shall be a root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign or ensign of the people and to it shall who seek the Gentiles and his rest shall be glorious and so the Bible is telling you and I'm going to just kind of leave you with this today the Bible is telling you that in our lives in our church Let's make it in our families, and let's try to... I think the banner of Jesus Christ is wavering in this country. One of the most prolific images that we still have in our mind is the battle of Iwo Jima. And that one photograph, Roy, that one picture that is forever burned in our mind, of those Marines raising the American flag over the island of Iwo Jima. And the American forces had paid for that flag raising with hundreds of thousands of dead, not hundreds of thousands, but hundreds and thousands of dead soldiers all over that island is what it took to raise that flag. And once that flag was raised, you know what that meant? This is ours. We won. We got it. And I want you to understand this concept that as Christians, We rally around the cross of Jesus Christ, Jesus himself being raised up and stood up for an ensign to the Gentiles. To us who were not of the seed of Abraham. To us who were not children of Abraham, children of Israel. To us who were sinners, who were the sinners of the Gentiles, Paul said. To us who were far away from the Word of God. God raised up a standard so that you and I would see the standard. We would rally around that and say, you know what? That's mine. That's mine. That's how I think. That's who I am. That's how I believe. That's how I was raised. And baby, if you weren't raised this way, you're tired of the old life, and you adopt a new standard now for your life, and that is Jesus Christ, His cross, and His Word. and it still stands today. And it may falter in this country, but those who still believe will still stand as long as the flag stands. Somebody say amen. That's what this is all about. And then let me read this to you, and then I'm going to close. This is Jeremiah chapter 50 verse 2. Declare ye among the nations and publish and set up a standard. Oh, I like this. I'll read this again. Declare ye among the nations and publish and set up a standard. A standard is a rule. It is a guide. It is what we all agree upon and what we all follow. There are standards. Who in here is in the health industry? You're a nurse, doctor, something like that. Okay? Are there standards for a needle? Standards for a needle. Right? Standards For a needle. How many cc's of a drug can go in somebody? There's rules and guidelines and even... What does cc stand for? Huh? Cubic centimeter. Why is my daughter so smart? Cubic centimeter. And if the cubic centimeter is different in Missouri than it is in New York, Then Kay cannot do what she does here because she might kill somebody. Because it's a different standard. Do you remember all the time they told us in school, David, how we were going to have to learn the metric system because at some point we would be using it? And we all said, nah. Okay. We still measure in feet and inches and acres and yards and pounds and Fahrenheit degrees and miles. We still do it. That's our standard. We know there's other standards. They might be actually better than ours, but this is ours and we're going to stick with it. Amen. It's our way. It's, and I'm not, listen, I'm not saying you're saved by whether you say feet or meter. But what I'm saying to you is this, God established a standard in Christianity. And we all abide by the same rule and same guide and same standard. And when anybody comes along to try to change or alter the standard, when the enemy comes to try to lower our flag, That's when we're going to rise up and say, no, you don't. This is ours. And we may be all dead laying on the ground before you change this flag, but that's what it's going to take. And I'm talking spiritual talk here. Don't let the devil take your standard away. And I'll tell you why he wants it. I do want you to turn to Jeremiah 50 verse 2, and I'm going to show you this, okay? And then I'm going to let you go. I'm going to tell you why the devil wants your standard. I'm going to tell you why he wants this flag, wants it brought down. Haters hate it. They want to burn it. I wish we would have had some stout politicians who had it in their power, still do, to make a constitutional amendment that says burning a flag is a crime. You say, Pastor Mike, you're so American in this. I'm just telling you that the rule still applies. If you're from Great Britain, Yeah, rule Britannia. Okay, go for it. If you're Canadian, go for it, A. Okay? Because when the devil attacks, he's going to go after nations. He's going to go after governments. that's what he's going to go after standards that all the nations have had so far there's going to be a changeover take place real soon and probably at some point we all know we're headed toward this they're going to take down the canadian flag in the american flag in the british flag then australian flag and every other flag and they're going to raise up that united nations flag over and say you let us be in charge You see where we're going with this? And so the same thing is happening, D, in the church. They say, take down your Baptist flag, and your Pentecostal flag, and your Nazarene flag. Take all of that, take all the standards that your denominations... By the way, the denominations, you know what they were? People who were rallying around a standard of doctrine. And there was a time when the denominations, they were just like the tribes of Israel. God was using all of them because they all had this in the middle of it. This one Bible. God was blessing. Did you know some of the greatest revivals in this country were Methodist revivals? Okay? Methodist missionaries going out all over the world. But here's what's happening now. They're getting everybody to lower their flag. All the churches to lower their standard and lower their ideas. And they say, we don't need to be separated anymore. We need to all come together under one common flag. I don't believe in that. If that flag is not this Bible, I'm not joining and I'm not going along. But anyway, let me tell you why the devil hates this flag. In Jeremiah chapter 50 verse 2, "...declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard." So the standard to us is what's published. It's the published written Word of God. "...publish and conceal not, and say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces, her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces." And I want to tell you something, there's power in that standard, in the standard of the Word of God. There's power in this book. And the devil hates this book. And who in here has not had a little Babylon try to overtake you, maybe this month, or this week, or maybe even this day? A little bit of spirit of harlotry, a little bit of spirit of rebellion, a little bit of spirit of witchcraft, a little bit of spirit of sinfulness and turning away from God and turning your back on God. Who in here has not had to deal with that at least one time this month or this week or maybe even already today? And the devil knows that whenever the standard is raised and standing in place, it breaks the power of his kingdom to pieces and it has no power over you whatsoever. That's what that verse says. Publish the standard set it up as an end sign raise it up and tell everybody that because of this the devil's kingdom is No more and his power is gone and that and again the power of the Bible and the standard of the Bible is the same as the standard of the cross because when you read this Bible you see the cross and You see it in the Old Testament. You see Samson hanging. You see Samson's sacrifice as a picture of Christ on the cross. You see Adam, a picture of Christ on the cross. You see Moses, you see a picture of Christ. When you see all of these men in the Bible, you see a picture of Christ on the cross. And the cross is our standard. And if you're having problems, go to the standard. Go to the cross. Rally around the cross. Somebody say Amen. But here's what we do. We've been talked into going to somebody else's family. Going to somebody else's camp. Going to somebody else's standard. Adopting a new idea, or a new this, or a new paradigm, or this, that, and the other. And you're actually guilty of leaving your own standard in your own way. You're actually guilty of leaving the way of life. Don't do it. It's not worth it. I was going to, long time ago. I was going to walk away from the standard that I had been taught so well in this church. I was going to walk away from it. And God pulled me back and said, Mike, it's not worth it. And I believed him. And for the years that I've been in this, I've been standing and rallying around my end sign, my standard. And I want to encourage you, if this is who you are, Let's all come around the flag together. Can I hear you say amen? Let's stand to our feet. Next week, what happens when the standard-bearer falls? Now I want you to think a little bit about the standard-bearer, alright? Number one, a pastor is a standard-bearer. A husband and a father in the home should be the standard-bearer. I want you to think about that. The president should be a standard-bearer. He's setting the wrong standard, people. So what happens when the standard-bearer falls? I want you to pray about that, all right? I love you. If you want to come down to one of these altars, one of these mourners' benches, Visit with God for a while. I want to invite you to do that. But I want us to bow our heads and I want to ask God to help us this morning. Now, I just want to simply encourage you. I've been pretty honest about the time in my life when I was ready and willing to walk away from the standard that God had given me in my childhood. It's tempting. It really is. Or it was to me back then. Maybe you're here today in this place and you're thinking about it. And I'm going to just tell you just kindly, I've been down that road a little bit. I got scared and I came back. And I'm here to tell you this morning, it's not worth it. There's nothing down there. What you're holding on to and what you believe now, That's where it is. Stay by that standard. Stay by that flag. And it'll always stand. Heavenly Father, I love you. And I thank you, dear God, for the cross. The cross is everything. It is the finished work. It is the standard that I believe that everybody in this church stands by. There is no other place for us, God. We've been there, we've tried other things. This is the only way. And Lord, we need that standard in our lives. And we're not gonna be ashamed of it. And we're not gonna apologize to anybody for it. Because we know what it means and we know the power that the cross has. Lord, likewise your word. I love people. I want to be accepted by a lot of people. But if it means walking away from this Bible, I won't do it. And I know, God, Lord, that according to your word that I will not have to stand alone. But even if I have to stand with the smaller crowd, that's where I'm going to stand. And I pray, dear God, Lord, that you would put in our hearts a love for the standard. Lord, I'm not going to apologize for being an American. I'm not going to apologize for what we stand for and what we live by. I'm not going to apologize to any ruler or any country for the freedom that we have. I'm not going to do that. Lord, I'm not going to apologize for the cross, and I'm not going to apologize and back down from the Bible. And Father, I know, God, that you will rally your people around your standard. You will do that, God, because that's who you are. Lord, Father, help us to be proud of who we are and what we believe. Proud in a humble way, but proud nonetheless and never wanting or never willing to back down. Thank you, dear God, for Jesus Christ and for this Bible and for this cross and for this country. and help us, dear God, to keep standing, though others may fall. Lord, bless this church. Bless this message. Bless Your Word in the hearts of these people. Bless those who hear. We love You and we trust You, in Jesus' name, and all of God's people said, Amen. Come back, be with us tonight at six o'clock tonight. Study God's Word, hearing some good preaching. And join with us tonight, even if it's by online. And we will again gather Wednesday night at seven o'clock. No bad weather's gonna hold us back. Amen. And now I understand if you can't be here, I understand that. It looks like we're gonna get some pretty rough weather in the next couple days. but uh... will be here wednesday nonetheless all right god bless you you're dismissed Hello, folks. Pastor Mike here. And sometimes you'll hear me talk about during a sermon or a teaching about being saved or salvation, and some people just don't know what that is. And I just want to share with you from the Bible what it means to be saved. The Bible tells us in Romans 3-23 that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I'm not here as a pastor or here as part of this church because I'm better than anybody. I'm here because I'm a sinner. I have done things that have violated the laws of God and uh... i need to be sorry for those the bible says in romans six twenty three for the wages of sin is death we all have what's coming to us as a result of our sinfulness and as a result of us breaking god's law and some people say well you know it says death yeah we're all gonna die but that doesn't necessarily mean held the bible also says the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God. See the Bible teaches and we teach here in a literal place called hell. We believe in a literal place of joy and peace and eternal life that is in heaven that God gives to those that are saved. But we also believe in an eternal hell, a place of everlasting torment to those who reject God's gift of salvation. So we know that we have sinned. We know that the wages of that sin is death. but the bible says in the same verse from a six twenty three but the gift of god is eternal life through jesus christ our lord john three sixteen says for god so love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever including me including you would believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life for god said not his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved being saved means being born again and being saved from the wrath of god's judgment upon us what we deserve what we have coming as a result of our sinfulness so the bible says in first john one nine that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And I don't know about you, but one of the greatest things, in fact, the greatest thing that has ever happened to Mike Hoggard is the fact that I confessed my sins to God. and God forgave and still does forgive every one of my sins. Romans 10 says it this way. It says, if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. What it means to be saved is that God has cornered you with the result and the things the effects of your sin in your life the Holy Spirit is bearing down on your soul right now and you feel the guilt of Almighty God upon you and God is trying to make you so that you just like our parents used to do God used to is trying to make you sorry for your sins we confess those sins to God we repent of them which means that we don't want sin to be a part of our life any longer and we simply ask god god you take over the reins in my life and you be the lord of my life and you give me the promise of your holy spirit in me so that i know that when i die i'm going to heaven now and i want you to understand that god offer salvation to you today if you will accept his free gift trust in the lord repent of your sins the bible says whosoever shall call on the name of the lord shall be saved If you watch any of our videos or at some point and God is just dealing with you, you bow your head and you call upon the name of the Lord and ask God to forgive you and ask God to save you. And God promised in his word and God has never broken his word. God promised in his word that he would forgive you and that he would save you and heaven would be your eternal home. I hope and pray that one of these days I see you in heaven and you get to see me in heaven. God bless you. Bye bye.