He makes them. He equips them. And God's got us for this hour, this day. Now, I've always said this. You've heard me say this. I wish I had been born at another time if it was up to me. Because, you know, all these luxuries, I appreciate them, but I'm talking about in the days of God's great, great movement. Any preacher would probably tell you that. But they had their difficulties, too. It's like we got ours. But God give us responsibility of man of the post now. here. So that's what God wants, so I'm satisfied with it. And I appreciate all the Lord's done. Now, Roger Williams is so important because he had such a definite influence on the formation of the American government and the liberty that we enjoy. And I've said this, and I know you believe this, America could have never been the great nation that it has been without religious liberty. That's what's made us great. We've had liberty. you could have never you get that these all these churches can ever been built all this uh... migration out west could never happen had you not had to the gospel being preached and a society that was built on morality and uh... this is what was and me and so respected the bible that the one of the first acts of the continent the continental congress was to make sure bibles were supplied to the american citizens because they couldn't get them from England because England cut us off and that they could be published and sent here. And a lot of things they did had to be done on the black market, but they knew the importance of the people having the word of God. And when America first got started in the school rooms in public, They were taught out of the Bible, the word of God, taught English, pronunciation, all of the great laws, the great parts of speech, all that's involved in the English language. They learn it from that. And so this whole thing was built on that with a fear of God in the hearts of people. And America never really, I mean, it was really, really evangelical, you might say, till the great Catholic migration. There was a time in America you could not hold public office if you was a Catholic because they fled that. They feared it. They feared the persecution of the Catholic Church. So they come to this country never intending to let them have a foothold in this country. And the Catholic Church has never got a foothold in North Carolina, never. It's one state they could never get a foothold in. Now they're big time in Louisiana. That's probably where they're the biggest in the South. And then they're big time up North. That's where all the Irish come. The Irish Catholics come. You got a lot of Protestant Irishmen, then you got a lot of Catholic Irishmen. And so they come over here and what used to be the real breadbasket of the gospel up North became the Catholic, just a, I mean, a mainstay of the Catholic church. And almost all Northerners, a lot of them are, Not all of them, a lot of them's not, but some of them are. But anyhow, so another thing that happened up north was the movement of Unitarianism, which is the belief Christ died for all, even the devil will be saved. I couldn't serve a God but put the devil in heaven. Christ didn't die for fallen angels. And that's just a God with no hell and Christ with no deity. That's Unitarians. So they watered the whole thing down. So after the Civil War, the Unitarians took over where the Catholics had not. And then you come along with the Northern Baptist Convention, American Baptists, and they just made, you talk about heresy, they've been in it a long time. And man, I'm telling you, if you think Baptist churches down here is bad, them Northern Baptists are terrible. And then you have the spread of the Bible churches. I'm getting, this ain't got nothing to do with this, but you got the spread of the Bible churches. And then you've got the spread of all those Sword of the Lord churches up North. That's produced all those lost converts, all that easy believism, baptized in thousands a year, and the church never grew. just deceiving people left and right. Listen, I call it out because it's my enemy. That stuff's my enemy. Anything that attacks real salvation's my enemy, and I will get on it. Amen. I don't want nothing to do with jackals or none of that crap. They're the enemies of the gospel. Now, that'll make me lose friends saying that, but so be it. I know what they have done. Everywhere they go, all them big mega churches, now are down to nothing or they've been sold. There's no remaining fruit. And they're using the same old, same old. Going out and just, I mean, selling Christ like you're selling vacuum cleaners. Except they do it in about 30 seconds to a minute, no more than two or three minutes. You got everybody praying these prayers. I abhor that stuff. I abhor it. And it needs to be called out for what they've done. I was talking last week about the awful condition of the churches up there and that mentality and what it's left behind. Well, if I get on that, I won't never get on this. But in Daniel six, we're saying, Forerunner Roger Williams, how Daniel was treated. Roger Williams was such a threat to the devil in his program because he so believed in religious liberty and freedom. So if America's gonna be great, if America is gonna be the beachhead of the gospel and send missionaries around the world, it's gotta have religious liberty. It's gotta be founded right. God meticulously, slowly, but deliberately set this thing up. And I stand in total amazement how Roger Williams, born around 1600, the pilgrims came to America in 1620, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony was established in 1627. And then right after that, Roger Williams came to America because of the persecution that there was in England. And that's why all those Puritans came. That's why the pilgrims came. They came for religious liberty. Now the pilgrims were separatist. That meaning they didn't believe in state church. But the Puritans were state church people. And they wanted to control everything. I don't have time to get in how they misinterpreted the nation of Israel and all that stuff. But that's where it come from. Trying to establish a nation of Israel in America with a covenant with God that God never give us. God never made a covenant with America. God made a covenant with Israel. And the reason God did that was for redemption. Hey man, old David wanna build God a temple. He said, Lord, I got the materials, I'm getting them all together. And I wanna build a temple. And he told Nathan about it, and they said, hallelujah. Boy, ain't that good. God told Nathan that night, go tell David he can't do it. I'm glad it's in his heart. Oh, so glad. God said, David, it's good it's in your heart. But you ain't the man to do it. David said, but God, I wanna build you a house. God said, no, David, I'm gonna build you a house. And he did. The house of David. In England, it's the house of Windsor, Buckingham Palace. But in the Bible, it's the house of David. Christ was born the son of David. Amen. And of course, that's his kin people back there on his mama's side. And so they had all that desire in his heart. And these people come to America and they have the right motive. They just had the wrong interpretation of scripture. A lot of people's that way. They got the right motive, but they don't have the right method. And God cares how you do things. You can't do the right thing the wrong way with God. Oh no, David tried that with the Ark of the Covenant, it didn't work. So here in Daniel six, Darius said over the kingdom of 120 princes, this should be over the whole kingdom. Now I'm not gonna read all this for sake of time, and he sets up three presidents over sections of 120 provinces, and it made these men like presidents. This man Darius, he is going with the same set up that Nebuchadnezzar had, Belchazzar had, and that's making Daniel prime minister. Over these three presidents, all this power, Daniel is number two, and the rest of them get jealous. How'd you like to be in the kingdom, the world empire, is what it was. World empire of the media Persians. And a Hebrew slave is second in power. Boy, he wasn't gonna stand for that. And they rebelled against him. So they sent out spies to spy out Daniel and learn his ways. because somehow they've got to catch him in some kind of conspiracy or some kind of a moral corruption so they can get him kicked out of the position that he had. Well, they're not gonna get him messing with some woman. They're not gonna get him in bed for money. They tried all that. They couldn't find nothing wrong with him. He's blameless. He is above reproach. So what they've got to do, they've got to use his religion against him. The only thing they could use against him was his love for God, isn't that something? So they go to the king and they trick the king and they appeal to his vanity and his pride. And they say, king, you're such a great man that for 30 days, everybody in the kingdom ought to pray to you, your deity. They were seen as deities, those kings, like Nebuchadnezzar, they're seen as deity. And so we want to make a law that no man can mention any God, worship any God, pray to any God for 30 days. And man, they pilled his vanity and his pride. And old Darius signed the decree. Well, if you're God, you can't make a mistake. If you're God, you can't admit you're wrong. And it was against the law of the immediate Persians. Once a decree was made, it could not be reversed, even by the king himself. So that's the dilemma. They got Daniel in this, I mean, in this trap, and so they know what he'll do, so they're observing him. Boy, the decrees made, and they go down to Daniel's house. He's not doing anything he hadn't been doing. He's not trying to put on some religious show. He's not trying to use sensationalism. He loves God. Three times a day, he opens up his window and prays toward Jerusalem. like what's commanded in the Word of God. And so he just did what he always did. Well, they go back to the king, and boy, they're being real clever about it. King, did you not make a decree? Did not you decree that anybody that prayed to any other God, worshiped any other God, mentioned any other God for 30 days would be killed? And he hung his head and said, yes, I did. He knew now where they was going. Said, we caught you, number two man, breaking the law. Now what you gonna do about it? We done told everybody what he's been doing. You're gonna lose all credibility if you don't keep your word. That's why Potiphar put Joseph in prison. Not because he thought he was guilty, he'd had him killed if he thought he was guilty. Why you ain't gonna violate a man's wife and that kind of power and not kill him. He knew he wasn't guilty. but his wife put him on the spot, and he had to save face. So old Darius, he is now forced to do what he never would have done. You know why? Because God's favor's on Daniel, and old Darius loves Daniel like his brother or his son. Daniel's getting to be probably midlife here. I mean, he's got the heart of that king, and thank God, when God puts favor on you, you can't bless what God's cursed, and you can't curse what God's blessed. on Daniel was the spirit of God, the wisdom of God, the holiness of God, the favor and the blessing of God. So God had given Daniel such favor with Darius that now he's about to lose the favor of God, he's afraid of what he's decreed, and now he's gotta do what he said. They have been starving these lions for a long time. Oh yeah, they've been preparing these lies to tear him limb from limb. And I'll prove it to you in a minute. Boy, they have wisely, they have, I mean deliberately, and they have facetiously planned this conspiracy. Why? To get out God's man. The devil always fights God's anointing. And you wonder people, why do you think people hate you? Because they hate God. And you remind them of God. This world's not gonna love you. He didn't love Christ, he said they hated me, they're gonna hate you. Now I don't like hearing that no more than you do, but it's just so. Don't get too upset when people don't know God, because that just means you probably living right. So Daniel's God. Oh, the king said, Daniel, before he put him in there, your God will deliver you. Man, ain't that something to say? I don't know how he's gonna do it, but God will deliver you. So Daniel's God did deliver him. So we see that when the king can't sleep all night, man, I'm telling you, God wore him out. And so he goes down to check in the lion's den, the den of lions the next day. And they said, Daniel, how you doing? Was like God able to deliver thee? I'll tell you praise God. He's probably sleeping on the main one of them lions. See what you talking about? He said, the best sleep last night I've ever had in my life. Hey man, I'm telling you the king so out enraged at what these men did. He had every one of the conspirators brought family by family. one by one. How'd you like to be in the next family waiting to be thrown to these hungry lions? Boy, then the king throws in these families, men, women, boys, and girls, mamas, and daddies, and children. Threw them all in at the same time, and before they hit the bottom of the pit, they were torn apart, limb from limb and bone from bone. And then they starved these lions for a long time. and the very ones that starved the lions are being eaten by the lions. Hey, my, how the tables have turned. Amen, a quote from the Bible and home alone. Oh, I tell you, praise God. Aren't you glad that the God can turn the weapons of the devil on him? Amen. Oh, that goes to show us not only were these lions starving, it goes to show you how many of them there was. Boy, if they're ripping every family member ever, think about that. How in the world do you rip mamas and daddies and children limb from limb before they even hit the ground? They gotta be a hundred of them in there. There gotta be a bunch of men there. They're all falling on them lines and they're ripping them limb from limb. All that screaming and crying going on, that's exactly what they wanted in the case of Daniel here in the Bible. What a parallel to what they did to Daniel in the Bible and what they attempted to do to Roger Williams. You can't kill somebody invincible. God's people can't die. till it's time to die. There's not enough bombs in this world to kill God's people if God don't want them to die. And if they do die, it'll be the best day of their life. And the last breath here's the best breath you'll ever take in your life when you exhale here and then inhale there. Amen. Praise God. You inhale there because you ain't inhale. Amen. But like Christ, Roger Williams had power with a common man. That's why he's such a threat. I tell you, God knows how to bring people to his man. God, hey, one person that really loves God really loves the truth and stands by the man of God's word more than a hundred of this fly-by-night crowd as you gang out on. Oh, Pilate said, what must I do with Jesus, which is called the Christ? What did all these Puritans say about Roger Williams? What must we do with Roger Williams? Because he's tearing up our playhouse. He's preaching things that's against us. He's calling us out. They didn't really say he's not biblical. They're just saying he's breaking our laws. Is that not why the Pharisees killed Christ? Because he's breaking their traditions? He's messing with their money. He's tearing up their popularity. And Christ made sense to the common man. And if he stays around, he's gonna pull all those followers of the Pharisees and Sadducees unto himself. And once they get to Jesus, they ain't coming back. Boy, they get over there hearing Roger Williams. Boy, they're not gonna come back. So really, what they're doing is self-preservation here. Boy, listen, if your arguments don't persuade people, you need to change arguments or go on down the road. If you got the wrong argument or people ain't gonna hear you. But Roger Williams had the right arguments. I'll tell you what some of them were in a minute. The Boston Puritans were authorized to be, think about this, the enforcement arm of the Puritan church, especially the clergy. That's what the local magistrate and what we will call the law enforcement was to carry out church discipline. of the congregational church of these Puritans. These people were forced to take an oath of loyalty to the authority of the civil and ecclesiastical powers. Not an oath of loyalty to God, not to the Bible, but to them. Hey, we bow to no man but King Jesus. Amen. Roger Williams had preached so firmly that the sword of the state was not to be used to coerce a man's conscience. Boy, I believe that's wrong. See, that's what makes Baptists, historical Baptists different from all these other denominations for the most part. Yes, we don't believe in that. We don't believe taking a sword and making a man believe anything. You preach by persuasion. You preach the sword of the spirit, the word of God, not a literal sword to force a man to confess something his heart's not in. What good is it to get a man to confess something that he don't even believe? Roger Williams said that makes a man a hypocrite. That's what he's preaching. He said to make people believe and worship God the way that they believed a person should or be banished or cast out is tyranny in the name of God. Boy, we agree with that. We believe in soul liberty. If you don't wanna believe in God, you got the liberty to not believe in God. That's right. What am I gonna do, force you to believe in God? I can't do that. You can't make a man believe right if he's hard-hearted and won't believe in God. You ain't gonna make him believe in God. And you don't need to have the power of the state to try to force somebody to believe something they don't believe in their heart. Roger Williams contended with all his heart, mind, body and soul and spirit for the same injustice that had happened in England. He could not believe when he got to America, he thought over here, boy, everybody's gonna love liberty. Everybody's gonna be free to worship God and free to preach whatever you want to. And you ain't got the government knocking down your door. You ain't got people thought police and making up hate crimes. which is crimes against a man's thoughts. If a man wants to be prejudiced, let him be prejudiced. You say you shouldn't say that. Why shouldn't I say that? If a man wants to be wrong, he can be wrong. You say, well, the man hates the color of your skin, he's got the liberty to. He's gonna face God with them, that's him. We can't go around arresting everybody that don't believe like us. That ain't the American way or the God way. Boy, they had the very catalyst that had literally drove the Puritans, the pilgrims to start with. They were separatists. Here's what the pilgrims believed. Separatists, they believed in being totally separated from the Church of England. The Puritans believed they could clean it up. Which one was right? Pilgrims were right. You can't clean up a sewer. The Church of England was a sewer. You can't clean up man's religion. You gotta have God's sanction on something. Boy, they knew it's too far gone. Hey, the king runs the church. In England, the king's one and the queen run the church. They appoint the archbishop of Canterbury. I mean, God ain't in none of that mess. And those pilgrims and Puritans, how they knew that if anything drives a religion to kill and persecute, burn at the stake anybody, God ain't a million miles of that stuff. So this persecution had been the very catalyst that drove all these people to America. The people rose up and defended Williams and agreed with his position. See, that's where the danger come in. They knew the edict, the oath of loyalty was designed to destroy Roger Williams. just like the king found out the conspiracy was to kill one man. This whole oath of loyalty was to send Roger Williams back to England where he'd be killed. So the pressure of the people caused them to rescind the eating. Boy, they were so, hey, listen, they got so embarrassed. How dare you question our authority? Well, you always question the authority of a tyrant. That's what they became. They became tyrants in what they believed. And the people said, that can't be right. That's why they'd done us 3,000 miles across the great pond. It ain't right to do it here. So they defended Roger Williams. And they said, we're not taking that oath of loyalty no more. So all the people rose up against him and they had to resend it. Boy, they did so with great shame and great embarrassment because their pride and their consuming desire to control the people had been broken. So they stopped administering the oath. The argument of Williams was this, it is wrong to have the unconverted to swear in a court of law in the name of God. Hey, if you want to put your hand on a Bible and swear to tell the truth, that's all right. But if you don't want to, you shouldn't be made. They don't do that no more, should have never done that. You don't make an unbeliever swear on a Bible. He don't even believe on that Bible. He don't even believe in God. You can't make a man convert to doing something you don't even believe in. Hey, just swearing God's name wouldn't make him a hypocrite. So Williams contended, only God-fearing man could take the oath and it should not be enforced on anybody. He said, if you wanna take that oath, let it be God-fearing men, but it's got to be voluntary. If you wanna take the oath, take the oath, but don't put a sword in my back and make me take it. That's what he's saying. Another thing Williams was against, that the reason was no man should be forced to take an oath that the boss and magistrates get to control all religious disputes by the sword of the state. If a man don't wanna go to church, let him stay home. What's he gonna do? What, did Christ make anybody go to the synagogue? Did Christ make anybody go to the temple? Did Christ make anybody do anything? No. That ain't God's way. One day God's gonna force man to do what he wants, but not now. This is the age of grace. This is not the age of Christ ruling with a rod of iron. He's gonna do that, and that's gonna prove to be insufficient for the depravity of man, because even at the end of the millennial kingdom, man's gonna turn on God when Christ is sitting on the throne in Jerusalem, and turn against God. If you don't change a man's heart, What does it matter what he says? You can't change a man's heart. He might change his opinion, but you can't change his heart. So they wanted to kill Williams because of his thoughts. Number three, Williams then attacked, forced the men to tithe to the church. He had amounted to a church tax. You come up there, you come up north, up there in that congregational area, Boston, Massachusetts, you were forced to tithe. Oh yeah. You're forced to tithe. Man, there's some churches, now if you remember that church, they'll dung you for your tithes. What kind of an outfit's that? God keeps his church going. And he does it from people that love God, love the cause, believe in the cause, and promote the cause. Taxing people to support ministers. Here's what Williams believed. He said the people give out of what the people give. You support the minister, but you don't make people give the preachers they don't even believe in. Number four, Williams argued that nobody should be bound to maintain a worship against their own consent. Amen. You don't force people to worship anything. He preached that the state should concern itself with matters of common law and the violation of common law. Amen. That's why God established government for the government to take care of law breakers against the civil authority, not against loving God, not against not going to the right church, not against not reading enough chapters a day. Well, you can't make a man worship God. You can't make a man love God. You got no power to do that. He said you should only discipline acts of persons against persons, not against God. Said if a man steals from somebody, that's where the government comes in. That's where the magistrate comes in. If somebody attacks viciously and violates a woman, that's where the government comes in. They are sent by God to punish the offender. It is called man sinning against man. Only God can hold you accountable for you sinning against him. Not the government. He said it was profane for the church to concern itself with the first table of the law. The first four commandments are about worshiping God. They're about the relationship of a man and his God. The second table of the law deals with the violation of God's law concerning man's treatment of man. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. What's he saying? You can't enforce faith with the sword. You can't make people believe anything. Boy, don't we believe that, buddy, I do. I do. Boy, I believe some stuff most people don't believe about this thing of liberty. You don't force people to pray. You don't force people to pray a prayer in public school or anywhere. Who's gonna make the prayer? Who's gonna lead the prayer? Watch the denominations gonna come up with the prayer. Boy, you can choose to send them to a Christian school and pray all day. Boy, you better hear what I'm saying. America didn't go to hell and they took prayer out of the schoolhouse. It went to hell and they took it out of the home. That's why they take it out of the schoolhouse. There's a time in America where there's such a fear of God. The average population of this country would never dare think of such a thing as outlawing the Bible and prayer. That's when America's a Christian nation, but when it becomes pagan, they use our laws against us. You say, why don't they put prayer back in the school? Why don't they put it back in the church? People fussing and cussing about something they don't even do themselves. So here's what I'm trying to say. I don't want no religion endorsed by the government. That's the First Amendment. If you believe the First Amendment, you believe what I just said. Is it gonna be the Mormons? What about the Jehovah's Witnesses? Neither one of them believe Christ is God. They don't believe in hell. Come up with a prayer. What about the Moslems? Dearborn, Michigan, there's about a million to two million Moslems live up there. You want them making your children pray a prayer to Allah? They believe that's conversion. Who's gonna set the laws? You don't force nobody to pray. Amen. You don't force them to pledge allegiance to the flag either. I ain't not gonna make half y'all man. What are you doing? I'd have a hard time pledging allegiance to America right now. Huh? Pledge allegiance to that crack pot in the White House. According to what America you're talking about, I pledge allegiance to. But not to that bunch of mess going on in Washington, D.C. or our Justice Department. I don't pledge my life for them bunch of crooks and devils. No, sir. You want to pledge allegiance to the flag, do it. You shouldn't be forced. Amen. That's what Roger Williams is talking about. You don't coerce people to do things. You give them the right. If they don't want to do it, they don't do it. Are we going to pledge allegiance to the flag? Well, amen. Well, if I don't want to, I don't have to. Amen. What if you're a Jehovah witness? You got a Christmas party at school. They don't even believe in Christmas. Do you want the government to violate your conscience? Do you want the government pricelighting your children? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Folks, you gotta think these things through before we get on some soapbox damning everything. Hey, thank God we still got the Liberty Home School, our children, send them to a Christian school, amen, and I thank God for that. William said it is profane for the state to attempt to enforce the first table of the law. On these issues, Williams found acceptance in the Salem church. In the Salem church, they loved Williams. Church at Salem, because they believed like him. Now remember, Roger Williams is the greatest preacher, the greatest preacher in America. He's poor but dear. Nobody could touch him. He had a delivery. He had an intellectual power and he had power with God. Nobody could touch him. Boy, they loved him. So he comes over here and the magicians in Boston, Newton and Williams kept gaining a following. Their power would be eroded. Power and money always corrupts. No, just about always. That is, if it's in the hands of the wrong people. Williams was attacking the religious hierarchy. The religious tyranny of Boston forbid the Church of Salem to accept Williams as pastor. Well, what they got? A right to say anything about what's going on in Salem. I thought that's an autonomous congregation. They wanna force the Church of Salem, not to institute Roger Williams as their pastor. In spite of their orders, they made him their pastor. When these magistrates and ministers gave their ruling, they expected the people to blindly fall down and kiss the ring and obey and fall in line. So despite the pressure and the efforts of the magistrates, the people ruled against them. Five weeks after the ruling of the authorities, the majority of the church made Roger Williams their minister. The magistrates were defied, shame and embarrassing him. You don't shame a man got power when he's full of pride. He coming after you. He's gonna get his pound of flesh. So back in Boston, these men are fuming with anger. How dare anybody disobey us? Well, what about God? We ain't talking about God, we're talking about us. The power at Boston are dealing with another dissenter. That's what they were in England. They were all dissenters. Amen. So John Endicott was the man who cut the cross out of the flag because he said it represented Rome. Did you know you couldn't put a cross in a Puritan church? They didn't even have a Baptist church when I was little. That's a no-no. Having this cross up here, our forefathers would have never done that because they hated a Catholic church so bad. They thought it was Catholicism. So John Endicott cut out the cross out of the flag. Now they're bringing Endicott to punish him for doing it. Endicott gives in. He had invited Roger Williams to be their pastor. He was the first governor, listen to this. When John Winthrop came to Salem, he moved the main headquarters to the colony of Boston and from Salem. Endicott stayed in Salem. Like Williams, the Salem church was separatist. They believed to separate from the church of England. So as much as Endicott was in support of Roger Williams, down the road, he made a turn. Why? Power. To be popular. To go along with the crowd. He lost his conviction. He knew Williams was right. Anybody in any sense knows Williams right. Everything I just mentioned about him makes him a hero to me. I love the way this man thought. And God had meticulously prepared him and how he was influenced in what he believed to come to America to destroy the state church, amen. How could a man be such a bag of contradiction that's into God? 50 years later, Cotton Mather called Williams the first rebel against the divine church order, establishing the wilderness. What's he talking about, the divine church order? We got by God's word, not the orders of men. Amen. If it ain't from the Bible, we shouldn't believe it. All church piety is to be done from God's word. So the Puritans are still trying to force men to worship God according to their directives. Williams was called to the church at Salem. When he was, none of the clergy at Boston would attend the ceremony. They're gonna boycott him. They're gonna put him in as pastor, and these good brethren are gonna boycott him. Hooker wouldn't go, Mather wouldn't go, no other minister would go. So in Colin Williams, to be their minister of the church at Salem, they defied the magistrates again. But they're boiling over. They've been defied now three times. So the magistrates got to conceive a plan. Do you see the connection with Daniel? They're conceiving a plan. I'm talking about men that preach the gospel of Christ. I'm talking about men that stand for the word of God, that can be so corrupted by the lust for power and controlling people that they do these horrendous, horrendous decisions. So they got a conspiracy to get rid of Roger Williams. They took it upon themselves to judge against him. My God in heaven, this man right here is unbelievable. You wait till I get into some of this, you're gonna admire him. They said you got six weeks to leave. We're giving you, listen, you got a wife and a little old baby. Got little children, you got six weeks to leave. You're banished from our society. The problem was they know where to go. It's snowing. They snow everywhere. Where's he going? They don't care. That's where they want him to go. Cause they want him dead, dead, dead. To show the cruelty of these men, as winter's approaching, Williams fell sick that the doctors concluded he's too sick to travel. It was a miracle he even survived. He was so sick that he couldn't even talk. Boy, if you're too sick to talk, you are sick. So in their good grace, oh Lord, in their good grace, we're gonna give you to the spring to live. Well, as he started to recover from his sickness, all the people began to gather around his house. There he goes preaching again. Oh Lord, there he goes preaching that word of God again. You ain't got permission to preach God's word. We ain't give you no permission to do that. They don't let anybody saved by God's grace, not a hat bunch of the agents of the devil to shut down God's word. Because we want to tell them what to preach. Boy's house began to fill up. There ain't no preacher like Roger Williams. But he preached what they was wanting to hear. Boy, there's a thirst in a man's heart for truth. When a man hears truth, if he's saved, he knows he heard truth. He appreciates truth. A regenerated man loves truth, loves Christ, and loves liberty. Word got back to Boston at the gathering at William's house. Now, he's contradicting the ministers, and they said if we banish him to the wilderness, some people will follow him there. Oh God, we'd send him out in the wilderness now in spring, but if we send him out there then, or when it becomes spring, then they're gonna follow him. Boy, they can't wait till spring to banish him. They gotta take care of him. Boy, we got to get rid of him. They won't follow him out there in all that snow because it's certain death. We'll send him out there in the middle of the winter and certainly he will die. Boy, what they did, they were planning to kidnap him. They said banishment ain't good enough. What if God lets him live? Well, if he somehow survives, what we gonna do then? So they come up with another conspiracy. And that was to put him on board a ship in the harbor. They done got it ready. In the harbor is a ship to send him back to England. In England. Archbishop Loud, William Loud, he's the biggest hater of Christians and he's over the Church of England. He's already killed a bunch of dissenters and they send Williams back. He'll put him in the Tower of London and they'll torture him and persecute him and even execute him and burn him at the stake. That's what they wanted. We'll wash our hands of this matter and put him on that ship. Boy, it look like he's doomed now. What's he gonna do now? They send 14 men to arrest Roger Williams. Ain't that something? That sound like some of the FBI. Send a SWAT teams of 30 men to take in some old 70 year old man and his wife out there in their pajamas. What kind of a country are we now? God help us. All this tyranny. But again, you can't beat God. God's gonna take care of his invincible man. And again, providence intervenes. As soon as the men that were ready to take Williams down to the ship on the way to go to arrest him, there's such a massive storm, snow storm hit the area that they had to stop. John Winthrop felt so guilty for what they'd done to his former friend, Williams, Roger Williams, that he sent a secret note to Williams warning him of the arrest and his banishment to England in days. So Williams is still sick. Now he can talk. He's not bedridden as bad as he was, but he's still real sick. But he got up and left and escaped this lynch mob, this kidnapping crowd to send him back to Archbishop William Loud. The storm lasted three days. When it subsided, the men went to William's house, but he's already gone. Just as God intervened in sending an angel to shut the mouths of the lions against Daniel in the book of Daniel. Thank God God intervened again. Thank God you can't kill who God won't kill. Who God won't let die. Well, ain't this stuff good? God, I love it when God wins, because he always does. We don't always see him winning, but we know he does. Boy, this time, William's lion's den was banishment. Instead of putting Roger Williams in a lion's den, they tried to put him on a ship to the Tower of London. Then they tried to make banishment of the lion's den. He'd be forced out while he was sick and his family, or from his family to the freezing wilderness. But God's prepared him for this. Man, this blows my mind. The winter Williams was cast out was described by Winthrop as the winter of a very bad season. The cold was so severe that your breath would freeze your face. The cold froze Narragansett Bay, but the cold saved the life of Roger Williams. How's that? Cause when it gets so cold, the snow doesn't fall like sleet. It falls like soft powder. Anything else, he would have died. It was slow moving step by step with the weight of the snow, but the cold froze the rivers and the streams. I mean, it got so cold, the coldest winter on record of that day. And normally he would have had to ford Those streams, that means cross them in the water. Sure death. But it got so cold that it froze even the streams, and it froze the rivers. The violence of the cold and desperation of his flight, the depth of the snow left a mark on him, though 35 years later, he would refer to that cold as that winter snow, which I feel yet what a blow. This must have been to Williams emotionally, mentally, spiritually, when everything he loved in the door was taken from him. Now don't think a man like him don't get depressed. Don't think a man like him ain't going through mind battles. It would have been bad if France had done this to him. Or the English. But his own friends done it to him. Being so cold and so mean. Ain't nobody as mean as a mean religionist. He said he's driven from his house, his land, his wife and his children. When Williams was driven from his home, his wife had a newborn baby. How cruel can you be? He was forced to flee sick and leave them behind and be banished to the woods of New England. And one of the worst Williams, historians record, The early to mid 1600s as a mini ice age. That's how bad it was. Brutal cold. It seems to Williams as if he lived, if he lived he'd never see his family again. How'd you like the devil whispering in your ear? All you've done served God. Why didn't you roll over and play dead? Why didn't you compromise and keep your mouth shut? Why didn't you go along to get along? Roger Williams said, I can't do that. I'd rather die than compromise the truth of God. Everybody ain't for sale. Boy, this left a deep scar on him, he never got over. That the men of God turned on him. God helped men like that. William said, here, here's what he told him, he said, you mean, if I don't agree with you, we can't even breathe the same air? Where's God in that? Chapter and verse for that. Where's your mercy? Where's your grace? You mean because I don't see things just like you? We can't breathe the same air. We can't eat food from the same ground. We can't raise our children in the same area. And boy, they were so callous. In the name of Jesus, he said, you would have me to die in the snowy forest, leaving my wife without a husband, my children without a father, all in the name of Jesus. That's a scar. He never got over that. What did Jesus say? I was wounded in the house of my friends. And you better watch the devil. He can make you cruel. You can be saved and be cruel. I don't let the pastors I've heard of be gone on vacation and the church votes them out while they're gone. Oh, I've heard of them coming back, have all of their clothes and their belongings thrown out in the yard of the pastorian with a cop showing up and then making them to leave, giving them 24 hours to leave. Yeah, cruel, good, badness, deacons. Huh? Huh? They ain't all dead, that same crowd's around. If it ain't my way, it's a highway, I'm gonna run this thing or run her in the ground. That same attitude persists. Amen. Oh, because you interpret the scripture different? Well, y'all voted me in 100%. How bad did I get that quick? I know a young man, God bless him. He's so humble about it, I thank God for him. I heard about this today. I talked to Brother Heath Williams, Iron 10 minutes down the phone. So he's telling me this story. He goes in there, and man, they get to remodeling the church, and they get to doing things to beautify God's house. And now they got, they got, man, 35,000. Here, I'm gonna identify what I'm talking about. They got 35,000 more in the bank now than when they done all that work. They started doing something, people got to giving. So the milk chin, chin and deacon, you know, milk chin and deacons, you know, milk of that chin brought him in. Said, you're moving too fast. You're moving too fast. He said, I'll tell you guys something. Let me tell you something. I'm a young man, and I refuse to waste my time with a church in the wilderness if you won't follow God's man. And he pulled out Joshua. You said, if I ain't God's man, why'd you vote me in? Go find you another pastor. Oh no, no, no, no. He said, I've been here nine months and God's been a blessing, why don't you trust me a little bit? Because I'm gonna do what God says or you go get you somebody else. Thank God for somebody that ain't for sale and their tongue ain't tied to a paycheck and a parsonage or a pastore. Amen, amen, amen. God help the mentality of people of our day. Boy, that bunch at Boston, they living, they still alive. They've been alive ever since. I can tell you horror stories about this stuff. But this unchristlikeness, Williams never got over. Let me tell you how God prepared him to survive the wilderness and we're gonna quit. How the Lord prepared Roger Williams to survive in this lion's den. He had physical strength and stamina, a gift from God. When Williams was at Salem years before, he was banished. Williams traveled through the southern New England. In those days, there were few horses, so he had to travel by ship or by foot. Williams got about by canoe. confronting breaking surf, strong wind, strong currents, and extremely dangerous and hard work for a man by himself to do all the rowing. Therefore, Ham on a canoe took great strength and dogged determination. He would use a canoe for 50 years. Even when he could use a sail, it was useless in the surfs and the marshes and the streams. When wind was not sufficient, covering miles a day meant digging a paddle into the water stroke by stroke by stroke. When Williams first came to America, he was a missionary to the Indians, learning their languages, defending their causes, even negotiating treaties between them and the English. Ain't God smart? God's got him coming over here to be a missionary to the Indians. Where he loved them and they loved him. And he learned their languages. And learned even a conducted treaties negotiating them between them and the English people. And they saw he one of us. He got in deep trouble with Boston authorities by preaching the land belonged to the Indians and it ain't right to take their land if you don't pay them a fair price for it. Amen. Oh, so all this travel built him up physically. He's a strong physical man. When he got to the marshes, he had to drag a canoe with muck up to his waist to get to a stream back when he was doing Indian ministry. In the summer, the air was thick with humility. He was exposed to the scorching sun hours at a time. In wintertime, the freezing cold sent stabs of pain like knives through his lungs. The spray from the sea froze his hair. All this would have given Williams a strong, tough, body and metabolism. His stamina would have been incredible. I mean, this guy being trained like a Navy SEAL. So Williams would later write, I know what it is to study the priest to be pastor and to be applauded. And yet I know what it is to tug at the oar, to dig with a spade and a plow, to labor and travel day and night against among the English and the Indians. All this, God's preparing him to survive his lion's den. All God's doing in your life is to survive the trap of Satan. So you can come out, praise God in victory. In early spring when we was banished, the Indians helped him along and he finally found a spot to build a home. This is unbelievable. Once he has a home and crops in the ground, and a little stability. He can now fetch his wife and children, and in the next year they can be reunited. So he goes and he finds a piece of land, he buys this land from the Indians, and he prepares, he builds him a house, a little house for his wife and children, and then he puts crops in the ground in early spring. After he got the crops in the ground, a handful of men from Salem came to where he was because the word got out and they asked Williams if they could join him. God always draws people to his man. Always. and his time. God will bring a people to a man so that man can lead them, guide them, and direct them. He'll give him men that will help him, William that'll help him, William rather, and that believe in him. One of them was William Harris, who came to America on the same ship as Roger Williams. William Harris would later, or Roger Williams would later say he allowed Harris to stay out of pity. For now a tiny community began to take shape. While living in temporary shelters, the men cleared the land. They planted crops by hand. Then they began to build permanent houses. So they built something to get them by so they can build permanent houses. That was our back breaking work from sunup to sundown. These are men like Williams, who had left their families in Salem, seeking a place to worship God. But you gotta love God. You gotta love God's word to do this kind of stuff. I mean, you go out in that barren wilderness, or that wilderness, and you're putting up a house, you're breaking your back, sun up, sun down, just to worship God? Just to have a place to worship God? I ain't worthy to shine their shoes. Great men. but they're near Plymouth. Me and my wife's down there near Plymouth, North Carolina, going through there. Amen, not Dodge, Plymouth. Not Chrysler, Plymouth. So the Massachusetts Bay Colony is applying pressure on Plymouth to expel them. Why don't they leave these guys alone? Why don't they just leave them alone? They ain't harming nobody. They're out there near Plymouth, they ain't bothering nobody. They just wanna believe. I mean, they don't really believe the same thing. Roger Williams, and when it comes to the gospel, the resurrection, the blood atonement, the redemption, they don't believe the same thing. But how dare you resist our authority? Oh, what about God's authority? We don't have God's authority, cause he give it to us. Are you listening? So, they come to Williams. Man, they got the pressure on them. I mean, they're threatening these men at Plymouth. And they come to Williams after he planted his crops, built temporary houses, and now building permanent houses, homes with these other men. They were told, you live too close to us. Boy, it's a good time to leave me loose ale. You picked a good time to leave me loose ale. Why didn't you tell me that six months ago? because we didn't care that you were here. But they're putting so much pressure on up there, the mob. Yeah, the syndicate. You gotta go. We need you to go to the other side of the bay. Williams couldn't resist them. There wasn't enough time to get a new spot to clear land and plant crops. Boy, ain't this Christian love. So Williams had to leave it all behind again. He left his crops to go into another winter without any home crops or comforts. They're doing it to him again. And yet God gave him grace to survive. You ain't gonna whoop God. If God's gonna send bread out of heaven, you ain't gonna shut down God. Remember, William survived even though he refused money from state tax. He wouldn't take our money. He said, if a congregation wants to give me an offering good, I ain't taking state tax money. I'm not taking money from people that don't want to give it. Boy, that's character, ain't it? He had to do fiscal labor to provide for his family. Don't you know these real Christians, the real ones that love God, love God's truth, that's how he survived. He did manual labor, but they helped him. God's people always help God's real man. They always got a heart to give. In God's providence, Williams was prepared physically. He was prepared by Christian love, kindness, and charity towards the Indians. What goes around comes around. Cast thy bread upon the water, for you'll find it after many days. Amen. And that's what's gonna happen in this story. He's gonna find all that love and all that compassion, all that gentleness he's shown toward the Indians, is now gonna come back to him, give, and it shall be given unto you, pressed down, amen. So here's Williams. He's finding friendship from these Indians out in the wilderness. The Lord's gonna use this lion's den and these Indians to be his protector and provider. God can skin a cat more than one way, friend. He had a reputation among the Indians. Even those he had not met, he had a name. They said they wore him. If you ever get to meet him, he's the greatest white man we ever met, and his name is Roger William. But his name was far and wide. While they didn't appreciate him up there at Boston, there's some savages out there he'd been preaching to, trying to win the cross. I don't know if he wanted them yet or not. But they knew his kindness and his friendship. He knew how he had friended them and defended them against being taken advantage of. So in the wilderness, Williams didn't fear for his life. Even though these Indians were madly hostile to the Indians, they were Williams' best friend. Amen. Williams said, when I came to them in my banishment, I was welcome. He had been trained by Sir Edward Coke. You know the story? His mom and daddy turned him out. Sir Edward Coke come along and they were just started this art of shorthand. And Roger Williams is a young man about 12 years old, become a master of it. And Sir Edward Cook, the greatest legislator or the greatest lawyer and judge in that part of the country, observed him and took him into his own home. Coke's own children didn't appreciate him, but Roger Williams did. He loved Williams like his own boy. and sent him to school, sent him to Cambridge, and Williams would graduate in the highest in the class, and of course, all the rest is history. But he learned the love of liberty from Sir Edward Coke. He dictated, he went to court with him, he watched the cases with him, as Coke would defend dissenters, as Coke would defend religious liberty, and Williams had been trained by God in the greatest minds of judiciary in all of England for this hour. Confident of his reception, Williams goes into the wilderness. One other thing, Edward Coke taught him be charitable and be generous, like Christ. They told one thing about him, them Pharisees did this right. They said he eats, he's friends and he eats with sinners. I guess you gotta be, when sinners, you got to love them. Competent of the reception, Williams, along with a few others, climbed a canoe, began to scout out a site for a new settlement. After those men at Plymouth, under the duress of Boston, the mafia, yeah, had to go and find another place to live. Williams would choose a place where God wanted him. God didn't want him at Plymouth. This is all God's hand, folks. God didn't want him around Boston. He sent him to Rhode Island. Isle of Rhodes was his name. And he started a settlement there. And today we call that Providence. That's what he named it. Providence. Who can't love a man, got enough sense to call a town Providence? Cause he's there by Providence. William said all the money in the world could not have purchased the land that I purchased from the Indians, though he purchased it. How did he purchase it? He said it was by the payment of love. The Indians so loved Roger Williams, they so respected him, they took him at his word, and he purchased the land. Amen. He called it a purchase of love. Williams was prepared to survive his lion's den by what he had seen in England. I'm about done. He's deeply committed to the liberty of conscience and willing to suffer any wrong to stay true to that principle. He would not be moved. If he would have just relented, he's the greatest preacher in America. The greatest congregation got the most money is Salem. He turned all that down. I mean, not Salem, Boston. They wanted to pastor a church in Boston. That's the most prestigious of all churches in America at that time. He turned it down because they wouldn't be separatists. They didn't believe in religious liberty. He said, I will not pastor a church that's tyrants that try to control the conscience of men. That means he wasn't for sale. I mean, he could just go, I mean, go along to get along, you know, man. Think about your family. Think about their education. Think about comfort. Think about what you're gonna give up. You mean you're gonna do that and prove what? I tell you what, prove what? It's called the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. It's called a man. How they had such power with Patrick Henry and such power with Thomas Jefferson that they talked about him and what he believed in his example. Do a lot of things they did. Sir Edward Coke was used by God to frame the young man, Roger Williams, to defend liberty as contained in scripture and would be contained in common law. American common law was based on the Bible. That's why men like Thomas Jefferson, as I said, in the framers of the Constitution, gleaned much from Roger Williams, especially the First Amendment. I'll get through this in a minute. He learned a lot from Sir Edward Coke. He saw such injustice in England and abhorred it. He abhorred it. It's like Patrick Henry goes into that Virginia court where the Church of England ruled with a rod of iron. And Patrick Henry walked in there, and here's these men over here, these Baptist preachers, old Louis Craig and some of them guys. He said, what's the charge? I mean, he walked 60 miles to defend these guys. And they had no money to pay him, he done it on his own dime. Patrick Henry walked in a courthouse in Virginia, but you come to attention. What's the charge? What's the indictment? He read the indictment. How dare you arrest men and try to prosecute men for preaching the gospel of the Son of God? Who ever heard such a thing? He so shamed the judge and the prosecutor, they threw the case out of court. He saw that injustice. He grew up near the place where heretics were burned at the stake. Williams was made Koch Secretary. This is graduated from Cambridge at top of the class. 1630, here we go, about done. A doctor named Latin became a Puritan, seeking to reform the Church of England. Now this is how they done the Puritans in England. And look what they're gonna try to do to him over here. Folks, I can't even understand such depravity. I can't understand such cruelty. You mean what? Here, it's sort of like in our day. You know, do as I say, not as I do. It's a law for thee and not for me. Yeah, the COVID, COVID restrictions. His belief in Latin, listen to this. Dr. Latin, for his beliefs in England, was whipped and placed in a pillory where one of his ears was cut off. He's trying to, he's just trying to reform the Church of England. Cause about all their bishops were drunks. They said you couldn't even find a man to do holy communion that wasn't drunk. I mean, they go to Oxford and Cambridge to be in the ministry, not even converted, most of them, and they're preaching sermons, and nobody'll go to their churches except the rich. The common man wasn't even wanted there. They couldn't. They're just bored stiff anyhow, just go to sleep. So when Whitfield come along preaching like thunder and lightning, but the common man said, I can relate to him. Thank God he don't put me to sleep anyway. He keeps me awake. For his belief so light was whipped and placed in a pillory where one of his ears was cut off and one side of his nose was split. One ear cut off, one side of the nose split. Then he was branded on the face of the letters SS. That is later Nazi lingo, SS soldiers. SS stood for Sower of Sedition. Trying to clean up the sin? And I'm a sower of sedition? I believe in salvation by grace through the blood of Christ? And that's a sower of sedition? Oh, we ain't talking about what you're preaching, we're talking about you don't obey us. Esau stood for sower of sedition. Then they sent him back to prison. Later he was returned to the pillory and his other ear cut off and the other side of his nose was split so it would rot. Now he came here and now he's in prison the rest of his life because he believed in salvation and sovereign grace. That's what he believed. So he's put to death. So Williams as a boy lived in a neighborhood and saw what they did to Dr. Light. Then he is at the right hand of Sir Edward Coke, England's greatest lawyer, watching him fight these injustices and fight for the principles of the Magna Carta. Roger Williams knew England was not ready for reform, but he heard, he heard of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where there's liberty and freedom. Boy, did he hear wrong. When the 28-year-old's called to minister in the Church of Salem, he is called again, preach at Boston, but immediately drew the anger of the powers that be. He preached people should be free to worship God as they choose, without fear of punishment from their government. If you don't believe that, you ought not be in the Baptist church, not the right kind of Baptist church, because that's what we believe. You should be able to worship God the way you believe, as long as you ain't harming nobody else now. If you're sacrificing children, you'll be killed. It don't matter if you ain't harming nobody. You shouldn't be put in prison just because you violated somebody else's conscience. You make me feel uncomfortable. Let's shut you down. We ain't gonna let you speak on our college campus. You conservatives, you make us feel bad. Yeah, go buy you a comfort dog and go back to sleep. No, don't do that. Get you a stuffed animal. Don't do nothing to no dog. It's something that you do to that dog. Amen. This made Williams heretic. All this will get Williams, all this, all that I've just told you will get him through the lion's den. so he can live, praise God, so he can die, 80 some years old, preaching liberty. He is prepared for the battle. He said, I learned the honesty of many pilgrims. He loved the pilgrims. He said, I learned the honesty of many pilgrims and the dishonesty of many puritans, not all of them. And John Cotton, Cotton Mather, these are great preachers. Read their sermons, man. I mean, they're great preachers. And can be this blind. And you shall know the truth. And the truth shall make you free. So Roger Williams believed the truth. And now we're free. Thank God for this man. and thank God for God because God made him what he was and God gave him grace through all he went through just like God gave Daniel grace to stand when he had to stand at the fear of losing it all and even to the point of his death. And Daniel said like the three Hebrew children, I will not bend and I will not bow and if God has his way, I will not burn. and I will not urge another to be back up, because I will not blaspheme, and I will not backslide. Hey man, you might break me, but I ain't about to, you know. Thank God for men and women that stand. I'll tell you what, I forget her name, might have been Elizabeth, I forget her name, might not have been that. I wanna thank God for Roger Williams' wife. Can you imagine? Her husband's banished. She don't know he'll ever come back. She got children, she got a newborn. She don't know how she gonna make it. Yeah, she made it, I guarantee you. Other Christian friends, like they always do, took care of her. Next time she seen Roger Williams, she wasn't slapping him in the face and giving him his 10 cent worth. I bet she said, honey, I'm so glad there's a man in the house. I'm glad I married a real man. They see a woman like you, can you believe that? Born a real man, yeah. Can't be bought, can't be sold, cause he'd rather be right. I like praise God, what Henry Clay said, I'd rather be right than be president. Remember what Rush Limbaugh said one time, they tried to get him to run for public office. He said, I ain't running no public office, because there ain't no man going to buy me. That's his opinion. Everybody that's a politician ain't bought my man. But that's what he said. I knew what they were talking about on a national level. That's why they hated Donald Trump, because they couldn't buy him. I said, go show everybody you ain't bought. They never did buy him, friend. Uh-uh. So what are they doing? They're putting him in a lion's den, too, ain't they? They're trying to get the lions to tear him apart, called the Lion of the Judicial Corrupt System of America. This is gonna be our end. If they let this thing happen, it's gonna be our end. We can't survive. We cannot survive. They throw him in jail, and they steal again. This thing ain't gonna make it. God's got to intervene. And we gotta pray and believe right and preach right, because if them devils win again, they'll shut us down first. If they get a chance, oh yeah. It's amazing to me how President J.B. is so, such a good Catholic, and don't believe a thing they believe. He's for abortion, all this trans, transgenders, transvestites, all this mess, all this gender mess. I mean, he's an empty suit. He ain't stupid, he ain't got no sense. You gotta have some sense to be stupid. This guy is empty between the ears. He's got no core of conviction. I don't wanna get into that. I'll get mad here in a minute and I don't wanna get mad. But God's bigger than him. Yeah, God's got the hand on the timer. Oh, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Amen. Thank God, good. Let's stand there, V. Thank you, Lord, for this little story. It's so dramatic and it's so powerful. I pray, God, tonight as we gather together and agree together for Brother Heath Williams. Told me today he packed for eight weeks, gonna be on the road. If this meeting goes on three weeks, he'll be gone eight weeks from his house. He got his wife, got his children. God, the pressure's on him. God, they such pressure on him. And dear God is he, Lord he preached that here land of the skies you believe and he preached for us here. And God these dear people, they're not preachers, they got no clue the pressure that a man's under in these meetings. And then dear God, he's going up there next couple of weeks. And then he got to go out to Indiana, Crawfordsville, preach another tent meeting out there in open air.