Please open up your Bibles with me to Jeremiah chapter 50. Jeremiah chapter 50, we're going to be reading verses 6 and 7. This is not going to be a normal message for me this morning. but it hasn't been a normal week, has it? The title of this sermon is Fierce Pastors in Faithless Times. Jeremiah chapter 50, Verse 6, the Lord says through the prophet, My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray, turning them away on the mountains. From mountain to hill they have gone, they have forgotten their fold. All who found them have devoured them, and their enemies have said, we are not guilty. For they have sinned against the Lord, their habitation of righteousness, the Lord, the hope of their fathers. Lord, I ask you to take every word that I'm going to say this morning. and use it in so much as it accords with your word for the good of your people. Call my spirit and strengthen my spine. In Jesus' name, amen. Over the past seven days, the American public has been exposed to the graphic footage of a beautiful Ukrainian refugee, Irina Zarutska, being stabbed in the neck by a black man on the subway train in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was murdered on August the 22nd, but the footage just leaked to the public this past week, maybe 10 days ago. Then this past Wednesday, we saw the heinous assassination of Christian husband, father, and conservative activist Charlie Kirk. On the same day, yet another public school shooting in Denver, Colorado. Still on that very same day, A motel manager in Dallas, Texas was murdered and beheaded with a machete by a Cuban illegal immigrant. This happened in front of the man's wife and son and was all caught on the hotel's security cameras. That gruesome footage also leaked online for the world to see. He kicked the man's head around in the parking lot like it was a soccer ball. This is not the kind of thing I wanted to be saying to you on this Lord's Day. But our nation is in trouble. But more than the nation being in trouble, dear friends, the church in our nation is in trouble. And I have a duty as your pastor to say things that are going to be uncomfortable for us to hear. You've often heard it said, and it is true, as goes the church, so goes the nation. I submit to you today that we are reaping the fruit of generations of compromising pastors who would not stand in their pulpits and preach against the cultural decay and the demonic ideologies that have been destroying our nation for the past 75 plus years. By and large, American pastors have either surrendered to the cultural ideologies of our day or they have been silent about the cultural ideologies of our day. Soft pastors make weak churches. Silent pastors make deceived churches. And as goes the church, so goes the nation. And here we are. So I want to do three things this morning. First, I want to address the neglect of American pastors that has brought us to this point. Secondly, I want to speak to four existential threats to our very way of life as American Christians. And lastly, I want to offer a very simple path forward to saving our country. In fact, it's probably too simple. So number one, the neglect of American pastors. I chose Jeremiah 50 as a text for this sermon because it uniquely relates to why we're at where we're at in America today. The context is the Babylonian captivity of Judah in the sixth century before Christ. Jeremiah is foretelling the future repentance and return of a united people of God to their homeland. specifically to Jerusalem. Verse four, which we did not read, but if you have your Bible still open, you can look at verse four, says, in those days and in that time declares the Lord, the people of Israel and the people of Judah shall come together, weeping as they come, and they shall seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion with faces turned toward it, saying, Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten. But then in verse 6, the Lord identifies the fundamental reason they were in exile to begin with. Look at it with me. Jeremiah 50 verse 6. This is our text. The Lord says, My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray, turning them away on the mountains. From mountain to hill they have gone. Now this is a reference to idolatrous worship on the pagan high places, okay? God says they, meaning the shepherds, have forgotten their fold. All who found them," this is a reference to really Assyria and Babylon, okay, the Babylonian Empire. All who found them have devoured them. And their enemies have said, we are not guilty. For they have sinned against the Lord, their habitation of righteousness, the Lord, the hope of their fathers. This is almost a mockery here, really. by the Lord's enemies, the enemies of His people. But Judah is in exile, Judah the southern kingdom is in exile because of their sin, because of their unfaithful idolatry. But where does God lay the blame? Where does He lay the blame? In the shepherds. He lays it squarely at the feet of their shepherds. They're pastors. That's what the New Testament word, pastor, in Ephesians chapter 4, that's what it means. It means shepherd. So God held Judah's pastors, their religious leaders, responsible for their sin. Friends, I want you to know this morning that God is going to hold America's pastors responsible for the crisis that we are currently in. This is biblical language, what I'm about to say, so don't be offended by this. This is totally biblical language. God's people are sheep. You just read it. God's people are sheep. Sheep need to be fed, led, and protected. Jesus is our divine chief shepherd. But God calls men as under-shepherds to care for His flock. Acts 20, Paul says to the Ephesian elders, God has appointed shepherds to care for the flock that is among them. Acts 20. In Jeremiah's day, as in our day, pastors were and are neglecting that weighty calling and responsibility. I suspect it's for a paycheck. Let me illustrate what I'm talking about. There are many in the church today who say that pastors should never ever wade into politics or political issues. What's even worse, many pastors themselves think that they should not address politics or at least not address them in a way that would potentially divide their congregation. I read this on X, which is formerly Twitter, right? Yes, I read this yesterday. This is Matthew Martin. He's a professed conservative Christian. He's a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, one of the most elite seminaries in the country, in the world. He is a lawyer and an author. He has a book published by Crossway called Reforming Justice. He said this in response to a post by Pastor Jack Graham Many of you maybe have heard of him. He's pastor of, I think, Prestonwood Baptist Church, large, large church. Matthew Martin said this in response to a post by Pastor Jack Graham calling on just ordinary local pastors to speak to the events of the week in their Sunday sermon. Here's what he said. This is Matthew Martin. He said, pastors, Sunday church is most definitely not an opportunity to speak to your congregations regarding the many questions they have regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk. He says, don't do it. You said it. It's a lie. Well, I scrolled quite a ways down in the comments, and the amount of people that said pastors should not addressed Charlie's murder in today's sermon was simply astonishing, even to me. I read many of them to my wife, and with rare exception, the vast majority were by professing Christians. They didn't want to talk about it, they didn't want to hear it, they didn't want pastors to say anything about it. I'm talking dozens. You want to get the pulse of this nation? Get on social media. Don't believe the legacy media. You want the pulse of this nation, you get on social media, you get on X. Friends, if you believe that pastors should not address politics or current events in the church, then you need to seriously rethink your position. Because the Bible actually does intersect with real life. Stuff like marriage, child rearing, sexuality, gender, education, race relations, law, culture, everything else, which means that the Bible intersects with politics because all of those issues have political dimensions to them. I know and have talked to many pastors, even in this very town, who tell me they will not address politics from the pulpit. But I will not be one of those negligent shepherds. My job as your pastor is to feed the sheep, fight the wolves, and run off the goats. That is why I preach the way I do. That's it. That means sometimes I say things that will upset some people. which is what I'm about to do right now. As we transition to the second part of this message, existential threats to our way of life as Americans. I want to give you four. Four threats that literally could and will and are changing our way of life as Americans. I want to begin this point by saying that it is indisputable that America was founded as a Christian nation. In fact, America was founded as a distinctly Protestant Christian nation. Look the numbers up. It was less than 2%. of the population of the original colonies were Catholic. This was a overwhelmingly Protestant nation from its beginning. Now, we've offered Rick Green's biblical citizenship course here at the church twice over the past three years. I think it's time we might do that again. Oh, which by the way, his course, Biblical Citizenship, was produced in conjunction with Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA. Charlie is in the videos. If you've taken that course, and I know many of you have, if you've taken that course, you know that our founding documents and the extensive writings of our founders are replete with explicitly Christian language. because America was founded as a Christian nation. But our Christian heritage is quickly fading. In reality, it's almost completely gone. And I want to identify four threats to the Christian character of American civilization. Listen, church, what I'm about to say would get me fired in most churches today, including many so-called conservative churches. I know that y'all think I say that a lot, but I'm not kidding today. Number one, existential threat to American civilization, the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party does not want the Christian God, who is the only living God, the Democrat Party does not want the Christian God anywhere in our government or the public square. Their doctrine is Marxism, critical race theory, diversity, equity, and inclusion. They worship at the altar of LGBTQIA+, whatever alphabet you want to add. Sexual deviance. They worship at that altar. And their most unholy sacrament is abortion on demand. Whatever it once was, The Democrat Party today stands for everything opposed to biblical principles, the kind that this nation was founded upon. And yet, professing Christians across all demographics, all ethnicities, vote for them election after election. 1 Corinthians 10.21 says this, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Friends, you cannot be a born-again Christian and vote Democrat. It's just that simple. Not today. It doesn't matter what you think of Trump or MAGA or the Republican Party. That's irrelevant. But you cannot vote for a party that explicitly promotes, their entire platform is built on the very worst kinds of depravity and still be a Christian. Can't do it. Number two, existential threat to the American way of life, Islam. On June 28, 2006, Barack Obama said this. This was before he was elected President of the United States for two terms. Now that couldn't have happened without the votes of a lot of Christians. He said this, 2006. He said, whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation, at least not just a Christian nation. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers. That is his exact quote. I watched him on YouTube say it. I transcribed it down. Friends, that kind of thinking is explicitly contrary to the distinctly Christian ethos which gave birth to this nation. And if we don't reject religious pluralism in this country and return to our Christian roots, the American way of life is finished. We cannot be a nation where mosques are allowed to be built. The First Amendment has nothing to do with that. You need to look up the way the founders and everybody in the 18th century used the word religion. It does not mean the same thing we say it means today. Muslims are taking over Europe. Everywhere they go, dismemberment and death follow, rape, gang rapes. You men imagine your daughters. Islam is a demonic religion, and yet Dearborn, Michigan is the first American city with a majority Arab population. Everything I'm saying to you this morning, I have checked and double-checked and triple-checked. 55% of Dearborn's population of 110,000 is of Arab descent. It is the home to America's largest mosque, where the Muslim call to prayer is publicly broadcast on loudspeakers every single day. Just this past week, videos, again, if you're not looking into my places, you're not going to see them. Because the mainstream media is not going to tell you this because they are complicit in this. Just this past week, videos were circling of Muslim protests in Houston, Texas, demanding that local businesses stop selling alcohol and pork This is in America. This is what they are. Friends, don't you believe what anybody says like this. There is no such thing as radical Islam. Islam is by nature radical. It is completely incompatible with the values of Western civilization and it must be stopped here and now in America. It's got to be stopped. And don't you think for one second, there's not a Muslim on this planet who wouldn't cut my head off for saying that if they could. You see, there's a problem in America. The Muslim birth rate is 2.9 children per family. The American birth rate is sitting at an all-time low of 1.6 children per family. You do the math. They're nearly doubling up on us here in this country. This is an invitation for our nation to be conquered by a foreign foe who lives right here among us. It's just a matter of time. Third, existential threat to our way of life as American Christians. Violent black culture. Blacks make up approximately 13% of the U.S. population, but they account for 27% of total arrest, 51% of murder arrest, 53% of robbery arrest, 29% of burglary arrest, 29% of motor vehicle theft arrest, that's almost a third in both cases, 42% of prostitution arrest, and 26% of drug arrest. One third of black males are convicted felons. Statistically, You are 31 times more likely to be violently assaulted by a black person than you are anywhere, anybody else in America. Those are the numbers. This is not racism. This is not discrimination. Numbers do not see color. They do not care about your feelings. I mentioned black violence in a Facebook post this week in relation to the horrific murder of Irina Zaruzka by a black man on the subway train in Charlotte. By the way, that very train, the light rail in Charlotte, my wife has been on by herself. This is why it hits so close to home. I was born and raised in the Charlotte area. Two professing Christian women slammed me as essentially being a race baiter because, well, they didn't care what the numbers proved, I just needed to be more loving in Christ's light. By the way, one was a pastor's wife. Just so we can put all this in context, On the day before he was assassinated, Charlie Kirk posted this on X. It's still up. Everything he said is still up. You can go on there and look. The day before he died, he said this. We have been propagandized by liars and fakers in the media to believe that America is a vicious, racist country and indiscriminate attacks on black people by whites happen all the time, but the numbers tell the truth. Black attacks on white people happen three times more often than white-on-black crime, despite blacks being only 13% of the population. Why won't the media just tell the truth? Why lie when those lies result in innocent people dying? That's Charlie Kirk. Of course, we know that Charlie was not killed by a black man. We know that. I never suspected that he would be. But he was making the very case that I'm making the day before he died. This is not something I'm just making up because I'm some closet racist. Men who are much smarter than me have come to the same conclusions. By the way, Everybody in this country, everybody in this country knows that if that poor girl on that train in Charlotte had been black and her killer white, Charlotte would be burning to the ground right now. Yes, right? What happens when George Floyd dies? The nation burns. When Charlie Kirk dies, the nation prays. The difference speaks for itself. Now, right now, even now, I'm probably being tagged as a white supremacist. God knows that's not true. I have very close friends who are black. I promise you right now, I grew up in South Carolina, and I have seen and lived near more black people than this town that has ever set foot in Grant County. You are not racist for just telling the truth. Don't you let anybody tell you that. Black culture is indisputably, disproportionately violent. The rap music, the gangs, it's all saturated in violence. So parents, You need to have that talk with your kids about being situationally aware when they're out in public. Now, I'm not telling you to avoid black people. I've never said that. I'm telling you to be situationally aware, even here in Petersburg. Just yesterday, I was driving to Dog General. I saw a young black man with his pants hanging halfway down, dreadlocks. He was bouncing down Water Street, rapping out loud to himself. Well, I immediately went into red alert. That does not make me a racist. It makes me aware. OK? Indeed. to be aware. Friends, if you think that I'm wrong on this, I can point you to plenty of godly black men. I've got articles loaded in the chamber to fire off. Godly black pastors who acknowledge all of this and they lament it. Virgil Walker, Daryl Harrison, Vody Balka, just to name a few. These are godly black men. And they say worse than what I just said. This is being recorded, and I have sought with all of my heart to be very careful with my words. One of the weapons of the enemy is misrepresentation. I have this sermon, all of my sermons are manuscripted out. It may not look like it, maybe it does, but I'm reading word for word everything I'm telling you. There, you look behind the magic green curtain. I do that because I know my tendency to get a little too amped up if I haven't carefully thought about everything I say ahead of time. I'm not trying to hurt anybody. I'm trying to help us. I'm trying to protect us. Fourth, and here, if you thought that was bad, just buckle up. Fourth existential threat to our way of life as American Christians, government education. Friends, if you take all the mass shooters, it doesn't matter what color they are, what ethnicity they are. By the way, we're all just one race, you know that, right? So this whole idea about, you know, black race, white race, Hispanic, no, no, no, no, no. There's one race. Read Genesis, read Genesis chapter 10. There is one race. What we call races, what we really mean biblically are ethnicities. So it doesn't matter what ethnicity they are, mass shooters, the assassins, the crazed leftist, look at what they have in common. Virtually without exception, you might find a rare exception here and there, here and there. You might find the occasional homeschool crazy person who goes out and tries to commit a terrible crime, or the occasional Christian educated person in a Christian school, whatever. overwhelmingly the majority, you will find they were educated in government schools. If you've been following the reactions of the progressive left celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk, and I hope you have. I hope you have. If you stick your head in the sand and just hear my sermon, you're probably never coming back to this church. But if you listen to what I'm saying, if you compare it to reality, You're going to say, well, gee, he's really not that crazy after all. If you've been following the reactions of the progressive left celebrating his murder, they are all coming from university-educated individuals, which ironically is where Charlie devoted the bulk of his ministry. He came into his own And His own received Him not. Have you ever heard that before? The woke mind virus is real. And it is transmitted in government schools. Don't believe me? Don't believe me? Do a quick search. Do this for yourself. Do a quick search on how many public school teachers, coaches and employees, even doctors and whatnot, Public school teachers, coaches, and employees have posted comments or videos celebrating Charlie's murder. It's disgusting. And we're sending our kids to these institutions for their education? Parents, if you don't think that the teachers in your kid's classroom Including Christian teachers in here we all if you don't think that the teachers in your your kids classroom have an ideology either good or bad That informs how they teach if you think that government school curriculum is just neutral My friends you are living in an alternate reality And it doesn't matter if your child's teacher goes to church or or claims to be a Christian, that can mean anything. The woke left is full of teachers, doctors, nurses, and everything else who go to church. If you leave your kids in public school, parents, you better be having regular conversations with every one of their teachers to see where they stand on the issues. You need to keep them accountable. That's the least you can do. Talk to them. Find out where they stand. But honestly, I don't know that that would be enough. I don't think it will be enough. Because the peer influence cannot be underestimated. In fact, it's just as dangerous. If they're not getting wokeism from their teachers, they'll be getting it from their peers, who they're around every single day because the vast majority The vast majority of kids are not raised in homes with a biblical worldview. They're just not. And we can play this, well, this is Grant County, West Virginia game if we want, but friends, pride flags fly in Petersburg. Some in homes occupied by teachers. I know this. Those are my four, and there are more threats. We could go on and on and on. I don't want to do that. Those are, I think, four major threats to our way of life as American Christians. If you stayed here this far and not got up and walked out, I thank you for that. I really do. You may decide not to come back, but at least I thank you for staying this long. What do we do? Last point this morning. The path forward. Path forward. I want to give you two ridiculously simple ways we can navigate these perilous times in which we're living. Two, they're almost like, should I say anything at all because they're so obvious? But yes, I'm going to say that. Number one, we need to be prepared to defend our way of life from those who seek to destroy it. Friends, we can no longer hide behind love your enemies and resist not the evildoer. Yes, those verses are in the Bible. But all those verses in the New Testament are prohibiting personal retaliation. I think I said this on Wednesday night, if somebody comes up in the parking lot and and keys my car. I do not have the biblical right to go and key their car or to do something worse to them. I don't have that. Resist not an evildoer. Love your enemies. But we're not talking about somebody keying your car or throwing a ball through your window. We're talking about defending the creation order rights that are given to us by God, without which we cannot have civilization. Yes, Jesus said, those who live by the sword, die by the sword. But you know what he also said in Luke 22? Luke 22, he also told his disciples, go sell your cloak and buy a sword. Why? Why did he tell them that? because his disciples were about to enter a season of heightened danger after he was crucified. That's the context. He told them that on the night that he was arrested. Go sell your cloak, buy a sword. By the way, this is on the very same night where he told Peter that phrase, those who live by the sword die by the sword. Jesus knew what he came to do. But we are not Jesus. We are not dying to earn what He did for us, we are dying to preserve it. Right? There's a big difference. And don't forget the obvious, church. I feel like I need to say this. If our founders wouldn't have taken up arms against tyrannical England, the United States of America would not exist today. We would not be sitting in these pews as American citizens, probably wouldn't be sitting in them at all. God sovereignly raised this nation up and he used the revolution to do it. But let me give a footnote, a caveat. So nobody misrepresents what I'm saying. I am not talking about hunting down leftists in the streets and shooting them. I am talking about being prepared to defend our way of life, whatever it takes. Friends, the radical left, they are arming up. And you can believe that. You can just say, well, he's just crazy. They are arming up. There are online Reddit groups. devoted to trans and extreme leftists getting together at shooting ranges. They are arming up. They are not kidding. Charlie is dead because of it. By the way, I don't know if y'all know that, but Tyler Robinson, whom the media originally tried to paint as a extreme right-wing fascist, well, guess what? He turned out to be living with a transgender partner. We need to be ready to defend ourselves. And as far as that goes, we need to amp up our security around this church. Charlie's assassin drove four hours to kill him. Don't think somebody, some lunatic won't drive here. Rabbi Jack is coming in a few weeks. His name is on the sign. It is not beyond possibility that a crazed anti-Semite might show up to hurt us. We need to maintain a constant state of readiness. The second way we forge a path forward, this is my last thing. We need to do whatever it takes to strengthen our families and churches. That's how we win this. We need to do whatever it takes to strengthen our families and our churches. This is why I've been preaching this series on the family, which has stirred up quite a bit of controversy itself. I mean, I'm getting messages from people all over who don't even go to this church or live in this state because they're hearing it online. People I've never even met. Some of the feedback, actually I will say most of the feedback from this congregation has been overwhelmingly positive, some not so positive, but most of it has been positive. And all that feedback over these sermons on marriage and family, it's really prompted me to think long and hard about all those messages. There's still two to go, by the way. There are gonna be a lot less. Inflammatory, I might say. But I've thought long and hard about this and there's not a single thing in any of those sermons I would take back. I stand by everything I said because we simply have to strengthen our families and we have to do it the Bible way. We also need to strengthen our churches. That means we need shepherds who won't lead the sheep astray like Jeremiah was talking about. That means we need fierce pastors in faithless times. Men who are willing to be called names because they're not afraid to speak the uncomfortable truth. Men who are willing to be fired because they won't bow to the pressure of the church mob that doesn't like the bold stance they take against compromise in the church. We need men who are willing to get on the front lines of battle and protect their people from the wolves and the goats that have crept into the church in these last days of apostasy. Friends, this is the only way forward, really. It's the only way to save this nation. Any secular political conservatism is not enough. We need to recover the historic Christian identity of this country and we need to make America Christian again. The only way this is going to happen is through the family and the church. not political movements, no matter how culturally conservative they are. The election of Trump bought us some time. That's it. But MAGA cannot save America. And his book mere Christendom, Doug Wilson says this. By the way, you may or may not recognize his name, Doug Wilson. I've actually quoted him in sermons several times before. But he was the guy on the infamous CNN interview about Christian nationalism a few weeks ago. He's despised by almost as many Christians as he is leftist. That makes me like him even more. He says this, if you have begun to wonder, as you ought to, how all this could have happened in America, the answer is that we have turned our backs on Christ. Because you have not trusted in Christ, the one who is Lord of all, you are part of the general apostasy, which means you are part of the problem. The left wants the apostasy and they lust after the consequences of the apostasy. In other words, the left actually wants a godless, immoral nation. They want that. He goes on the secular right, wants the apostasy, They want all of our freedoms without God, right? But they don't really like the consequences. He says, but America, like the prodigal son staring at an empty wallet, is now reckoning with the fact that the consequences have arrived regardless. So as part of our repentance, we need to acknowledge that secular conservatism conserves nothing. He says, come to Christ. Do it now. He will receive and forgive you. We are fast approaching the point where real churches will be the only resistance. Find and join one. That's what he says. So that's it. It's either Christ or chaos. Right now, the call is for America to come back to Christ. God is speaking to us. The stuff that happened on Wednesday, all the stuff this week, He is reaching out to us with terrible tragedies. The call is to come back to Christ. May it, by God's grace, start right here, right here. I want to close our service differently this morning. We're not going to sing. I want to call us to a time of repentance and prayer. You may be here today and do not know Jesus Christ. If so, I want you to know that God is holy, Every single one of us are rebellious sinners by nature and by choice. We are all lawbreakers who deserve the penalty of sin, which is eternal death under the just wrath of our Creator. But God is rich in mercy. He sent His own Son. to live a perfect life for us, to die under the penalty of our sin in our place, then He raised Him back to life from the dead and now He offers us a way to be made right with Him through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. However good you think you are, it isn't enough, it's not. Forsake your sin, forsake your self-righteousness and flee to Christ today. To the rest of us, The church needs to repent. I mean the American church. We need to repent of our spinelessness. We need to repent of our silence. We need to recommit ourselves and our families to Christ. We need to make disciples of all nations and be salt and light in this dying, decaying culture. The altar is open. Come if you would.