So, good night everybody. How are you? It's good to be around, isn't it? Amen, amen. We've got, if you remember last week when I turned to the camera, I just said, we'll see you later. I got more comments about shutting things off than about what my content was. I think I could have given away government secrets and no one would have cared, but it was the way I abruptly ended things. I got home and my wife said, what? What did you do that for? What? Why'd you cut it off like that? I want to know what else you said. I said, that's why I cut it off. And then Lashley said, when she got home, or when she was talking to Sam, they watched it, and said, Sam went, what did he just do? Is he going to record that? What did he just say? What's he saying to everybody else? I said, Lashley, I'm not going to tell what I was saying to you. That was a secret. And he said, we all should know that. So yeah. Oh, I gotta do that again tonight just for the fun of it. Or just turn my mic off and keep talking. Watch them turn the dial on everything, trying to figure out what's wrong with their phone. No, I do have some things we want to go over tonight. Some things I think that are important. I know there's one more woman I'm supposed to request prayer for. I'll think of it in a minute. Oh, Chris Kicklighter, Chris Kicklighter. So if you would remember Chris Kicklider, there's some serious stuff going on there. I thought so. Is my mic on? Dale, is my mic on? Yeah. He says yes, it is. It's on. All right. Anyway, write Chris Kicklider down if you would. And then, of course, Kathy Moorman. And I'm glad that Al brought up the sickness at school. We had about half of one learning center out. And one of the staff members, one of the two staff members has been sick for two days and was going to be sick this third day as well. Well, we just said we can't do it with half the kids and no staff. So you just can't do that. So we had to say, so yesterday we sent all the kids' paces home with them so they had something to work with at home. So they'll come in tomorrow. That's one advantage to an individualized curriculum like what we have here. You can take it home and work four or five more pages in it. You didn't lose the time. Now you got it all to score. When you get back here, you've got it all to score. And that can take a long time if you didn't get the right answers. It doesn't take hardly any time if you just get the right answers. So anyway. We'll have a word of prayer, and then tonight we're going to talk about the second part of teaching at home. This is actually part three, but I'm trying to give practical advice for what needs to be taught at home so we can be an American Christian home. Now, I'd be teaching you something different if it was a Nigerian Christian home, because I'd be telling you what you need to know about the Nigerian government, Nigerian history, that sort of thing. But we are Americans, and that gives us a certain kind of history to look at that we need to know. We do have a history. One of the things that it takes as being American is that people often say, we have no roots. You know, if you're British, you can go back centuries to find what, if you're French, you can go back centuries to figure out who your relatives were. But when you come to America, you are an American. What's the American tradition? Well, we're just barely old enough to have traditions now. So we're what, a little over 200 years old? And we just barely have enough time to have developed traditions. We don't have a royalty or monarchy or anything that you can build over that and hand down things like that. We are a very free people. That gives us sometimes not a lot of roots There was a young pastor I was trying to Mentor that was from one of the smaller towns around here was in a church that we had helped start and We met together at least once a week for prayer and encouragement. And I kept noticing he's getting more and more distant and more and more quiet. And finally I said, is something wrong? He said, well, I should be fair with you. I'm leaving. Where are you going? The IFCA started in 1934. Now the IFCA is something we're affiliated with. It's not a denomination for For all the structure, it's not a denomination. For the military, it is a denomination. Does that make sense? The military sees it all as one group of people. That's how we get the number of chaplains that we can have in there. So the more you are represented in the country, the more chaplains you get to have. So we're represented as IFCA, so we get to have IFCA chaplains in each of the services. This young man said There is no history with us. I need history So he was going to a Lutheran tradition Because they had history it had roots somewhere. You could trace it back. You could see your confessions You could see the the councils you could see the the meetings that were had and the way it developed you don't quite have that when you're an independent church and with an independent church, you can have a local history, and you can remember who did this, when, and that sort of thing, but not a deep history. Well, I encouraged him to read the history of the IFCA because it's far deeper than he realized. It's got more roots to it than any, and I gave him a book that had been written by a great teacher down at Dallas Theological Seminary that was all about the history of independent movements. And it was a fantastic book. I mean, this guy really did some research. Not a lot can be found about independent church movements because we usually get snuffed out. And the winner gets to write the history. And so whatever church snuffed us out writes the history about the heresies we were, the heretics we were, and all that sort of thing. So much of our history is just going to be history about heresies. We've all been heretics for centuries. But anyway, so what we want to talk about tonight is about being an American Christian home. Father, thank you so much for the Lord Jesus Christ, for all he is, for the things he's working on in our life right now. We give you praise for that. We ask that for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, you give us an understanding of the things we're looking at tonight. We do want to work together with the movement you've already started to restore the United States, to restore the nation, to give it some roots, to give it some real values, to give it back the background that it had before. Even more father. Thank you for what you're gonna do in Jesus name and for his sake. Amen We're noticing what think it was Maybe last year when it came to iron sharpens iron I think Gordon you and Paul went that was it right pretty much Was there some? Chuck wood. All right Okay, so you had four guys Yep. Well right now there are 23 signed up out there. I And Paul was saying, what changed? I said, a lot of things changed. Let me just give you one for instance. I think people, especially men, were starting to feel like we were just being crowded in. You don't know what a man is anymore. We're being told that men can get pregnant. Men can be women. Men can play in women's sports. And we're all scratching our heads saying, this is so insane. What kind of a world am I living in? So it just felt like it was crowding in. I feel like if Harris had won the election, I think it would have been just pretty well blackness for everything. Because men wouldn't know what we're about anymore. And we're gonna feel like more and more it's crazy for men to talk about having a wife unless that wife's the same gender you are. What insanity we're living with here. But when Trump won the election, and by such an overwhelming majority, it was like the scream you must have heard the day of Passover, or the day after Passover, when the Pharaoh says, get out, just go away. and the shout of liberty that comes from it. Because we actually heard somebody said, these are all the dark problems that are going on right now. We're done with that. We're going back to at least common sense. Now look, I'm not thinking that Donald Trump is the messiah or anything like that. I'm just simply saying this. He was in the right place at the right time, and that put a whole lot of people saying, we can get out of this. We can be free. And that's put a new desire in men to become what they really are intended to be. So I think there's going to be a lot more men interested this year in learning to be men. I'm gonna give you something that is just a little personal bother. I'm just gonna ask you to take a look at the banner on my right. That banner right over there, okay? I love that banner. That is a fantastic banner. But I do not understand the wings on that dove. I have not understood it. I don't understand it now. One of those wings looks like it's on backwards and the other ring wing looks like somehow it grew an extra appendage. I understand it's a dove and I love it. You understand? And I'm not gonna take anything away from the ladies who created that. That was one fantastic work of love and devotion and sacred worship, okay? So, but I've looked at that a number of times and I just can't, that you got for free. You don't have to pay for that one tonight. The rest of it, huh? That's what it is. Okay, all right, all right. Teaching the Biblical Principles Found in the Structure of the American Constitutional Republic. This continues from last week, that's why you're starting with letter D in your outline. I hope that those of you who are watching online did find the notes somewhere. You can find them on, what's that called, Sermon Audio. You can find them on Sermon Audio and you can find them on the Facebook community page. We give them there and of course you can come and pick them up here as well too. There will be copies of them, I'm sure, left over from tonight that'll be put out on table. You can pick them up Sunday. All right. So letter D was going to be, what should an American family teach to develop an American constitutional idea? What should you teach in that home? American history from the biblical viewpoint. That is, responsibility to God and His providence therein, the facts and their biblical interpretation, the righteous and unrighteous together. So you gotta tell the whole story. Every time I read anything about Israel, I am always amazed that you get to hear the good and the bad at the same time. I love reading Psalm 78, you know, we got to change it and here's Psalm 70 It's just a history of how they left Israel or how they left Egypt and the guffaws they made the bad things they did the Mistakes they made the faux pas they made all along the way the sin they did how many of them died along the way? All of those things that's part of every nation's history and hear that And you have to know the good, the bad, and all of it together so that you know to avoid the good, or avoid the bad, and complete the good. Keep on doing the good. So here's what we do. We'll do this. Start with God's sovereignty over all nations. that he sets up nations and takes them down. Acts chapter 17 and verse 20 reminds us that God is the one who determines the nations, their boundaries, their time of ascending, and their time of descending. God's the one that does that. Acts 17, 10. Daniel talks about God's sovereignty over all that. That he brings up kings, he puts down kings. He's the one that does that. Matter of fact, it was Nebuchadnezzar who acknowledged that. that God had done a work in raising him up, that was something that God had done, and Daniel acknowledges that's true, okay? So you start with God's sovereignty over all nations. There's not just one, not just the sovereign over Israel, he's sovereign over all nations. You may say, well, of course he is. Well, no, don't just simply say, of course he is. Those nations, if you remember, all of them had a little sponsor or guide that was over every single one of them. And they became, to the people they were over, gods. They treated them like they were gods. They made idols of them and worshiped them as they were idols. All those nations were still responsible and accountable to God. All the leadership in it was responsible and accountable to God. So as you're talking to your kids about that, you want to remind them, God is the one who's in charge of everything. If you're going on walks with them, remind them, it's God who makes the sun go the way it goes here. It's God that gives us directions. It's God that shows the stars. It's God that made the plants. And God is sovereign over it all. So just simply do that. So you're showing God's sovereignty all the time. Show them the accountability for every human is to God and the laws he establishes for all men to live by. So God's got laws that he established. I've noticed this. I'm a dispensationalist by dispensationalist. That means that I believe that God has a Matter of fact, I can show you that God has in different times given different rules for what's to go on But he carries over many rules also. All right, so I know that what? Adam and Eve are working with is not what I'm working with. I Don't have a tree of the knowledge of good and evil It's not there for me. I don't have a tree of life and I'm not living in a garden. I'm out in the wilderness out here. And my job is to make the wilderness into a garden. You follow me? So there are things that were given to Adam and Eve that are not given to me. Because they blew it. And I know that some of those things are repeated to Noah. And they've never been declined. Noah is supposed to be fruitful multiply have children. He's supposed to go out through all the earth He gets to now eat animals, which he didn't get to before everybody was vegetarian before that he gets to eat animals now and I don't doubt that part of the sin of the pre-flood people was starting to eat animals. Matter of fact, the old mythologies from Acadia and Ugarit and some Assyrian claimed that the giants, the Nephilim, were cannibals. That they ate other people. Matter of fact, The larger giants ate the smaller giants. That's what they were saying. Now, I'm not saying we don't have any biblical evidence for anything like that. I'm just simply saying that because they were eating meat before the fall, that may be something that God had a judgment on them as well. That may have been part of the whole judgment. But nonetheless, we get to eat meat afterward. But there is a different dispensation all the time with those. And with those dispensations, everybody is under that law. When God gives the law to Noah, how many people are alive on the earth? Eight. So how many people were responsible to God to be obedient to his laws? Eight. Same eight. And those, when they have kids, how many of them are responsible to be obedient to God's laws? Yeah, eight and whatever else is going on, right? So with every generation, you've got the rules that were given to Noah are carrying on. The big change came when God gave the law to Moses. And with that law, there came another big change. Now we're seeing what God says people ought to be living like. So to teach your children that God holds us accountable for everything. Matter of fact, God holds Mr. Trump accountable for everything that comes out of his mouth. Did you know that God holds Mr. Biden responsible for everything that came out of his mouth? And teach them, there should be some fear in our heart for that, guys. Because there's some perjury that might have gone on there. There's some wickedness that might have gone on there. There is some serious things that somebody's going to have to answer for. You know? So teach your children, kids, we're accountable to God. You can't just do anything you want to do. Yes, you've got freedom. But that freedom is bound by God's law. You can't walk beyond it. Number three, show them God has used both good and bad leaders in the nations for his own goal of preparing people for the coming of Messiah, both the first time and the second time. That's what I didn't correct. That's not he second time, that is the second time. his return to inherit the earth and be king of kings, lord of lords over all the cosmos. Now look, if history is a linear, just like I do on the platform, if history goes from this pew to that pew, this is all of history right here, and it's linear, I can tell you that there is a direction God's going to and it's the end of this. That's the kingdom of God that's ruled by the Lord Jesus Christ and the people who are going to rule it with him. Okay, so all of the people and all the events that are happening all in this big dash here between the two times, all of that is still accountable to God. And in this time, there've been some good leaders, there've been some bad leaders, but God is moving history that way. So he's raising up good leaders at times, he's raising up bad leaders at times, in order that judgment might be pronounced. Kids, I am convinced that part of the reasons we've had some of the presidents we have is to give the wicked the time to be seen. I don't think if we'd always just had good presidents, we'd realize how sick a world we're living in. But boy, just like the psalmist said, I think it's either Psalm 11 or Psalm 12, right at the end of where it says, once you let wickedness free, super wickedness dances around, then flaunting itself. These last four years have been some of the weirdest things I think I've ever seen. Some totally wicked stuff that went on during that time. Because God has to reveal it Otherwise it just stays underground all the time and everybody does this thing. They think secretly Oh, no, once once we had those guys in office. No. No, they just opened up the floodgates and Out they all came Now we know there are some really ugly stuff going on in this world It's untalkable wicked stuff, all right? I guess it's supposed to say unspeakable, but in Arkansas, we can do that, all right? Show them that God has used both good and bad leaders in the nations. So, whenever an election happens, and everybody's disappointed, well, that's a bad leader. Hold on, before you get too carried away, God raises up bad leaders for what reason? to reveal how ugly things are. And if we reveal how ugly things are, we get a chance to repent. We get a chance to have faith. We get a chance to rebuild. We get a chance to look over God again and realize maybe we've been sacrificing too much of our faith in Christ to the world itself. Let's get it back. And let's go to this right here. I watched a little video the other day, and I think I, Posted it, but it was a about a man talking about the most powerful church in the world and he said if if your preacher gets up next week and And a couple comes up and walks naked on the stage. How long do you think that that preacher will stay on that platform? What what do you think people will do? Or will it be upset? Why would they be upset? Well, if somebody walked up on the platform and started cursing the name of Jesus, started using God's name in vain, started speaking foul stuff, would you let him stay there? No, no, no, no. They'd come get him off the platform. Oh, okay. Well, if somebody was to come up now and start beating other people, would you let the guy stay on the platform? No, no, no. We'd take him off the platform. Okay. That's Sunday morning. Then can I ask you, if you don't think that's right, if you think that's wrong, why is it that the night before you just watched one or two movies in which that was going on the entire time? So I can tell you, the most powerful church in the world is not the Sunday morning one, but the one that sits where you have comfortable seats eating popcorn and watching the nastiness that goes on. Just a point I want to try to make about this. Number four, show them there is always a spiritual battle for control of the leadership and guidance of any nation, or even community, with spiritual forces of the rebellious angels and their human pawns, and the holy angelic forces led by the Lord of hosts, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, all we mean is this. Teach your children there actually is a parallel world going on with this one. There actually is a spiritual world that has spiritual entities in it that are up against the work of God. They're doing everything they can to frustrate the work of God. Let them know that this isn't just people that's doing this. Let them know Ephesians 6 teaches us. We don't wrestle against his flesh and blood. We wrestle against principalities and powers, rulers of the darkness of the age, spiritual wickedness in high places. That actually is going on. I was talking to the kids the other day and they were saying, I was trying to tell them about angels and how many of them are occupying space here on the planet. And they said, well, how many do you think there are? I said, well, I'm just nerdy enough that I took the scriptures and it said that the angels of the Lord are 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands. So I just multiplied it out and just took the thousands and thousands. Okay, so it came out to about one trillion. Okay, so here's one trillion. So there's one trillion angels. Now, I come back to Revelation 12, and I see that before Jesus is born, the great red dragon comes up and right in the heavens, he takes his tail and swoops one third of the angels and slams them into the earth. How many is that? Well, my imprecise calculations comes up with 333 million, billion, 333 billion. There we go. Thank you. That's a lot of angels. Okay. Now let me just go along with this. If there are 8 billion people in the world, how many do each one of us get to have? That's a lot of angels, right? You follow where I'm coming from? Now, add to that the demons that are also involved. Because see, that's an angelic bunch. That's not demons. The demons are the spirits of the children, the spirits of the Nephilim. Not the angels that sired Nephilim, the Nephilim. The Nephilim that died in the flood, their bodies are gone, their spirits are free. Where are they? They don't have a resting place. Why? They're not angels, and they're not humans. They're somewhere in between, and they don't have a resting place. So what do they do? Jesus said those spirits roam about looking for a place to inhabit. So they just roll around looking for a place they find. Here's Gordon all cleaned up. Let me join Gordon. So I attach myself to Gordon. And now I'm influencing Gordon. And as Gordon is now starting to look pretty weird, I see some of my buddies who are out there also without a place to live. And I say to them, Hey guys, come on in. This guy's really neat. He's let me live in him for the last three years and I've had a great time with him. He never stops you from anything. You can make him do a lot of weird things. Come on, let's do it. And now I get three, four, five of them. You follow me? That's in addition to the 333 billion angels that are out there. Do you get that there is a spiritual struggle going on here? That's what we're wrestling against every day. That's what you see in governments every day. That's what you see in cartels every day. That's what you're seeing in different religious organizations and groups, some of which seem quite sweet and nice. All right, so show them there is always a spiritual battle for control of the leadership and guidance of any nation. They want to be in charge. And if there's a way to intimidate and get that done, they will. Number five, show them that he has put his people in the position as warriors and mediators in this battle through obedience, faithfulness, and prayer. Battles are won or lost on the basis of faithfulness or lack thereof. of his people and the will of God to use the struggle to reveal his awesome power. So, let's get the picture. There's a battle going on and it looks like every time Moses holds his hands up, they win. When his hands start coming down, they lose. It's not a draw, they lose. Hands back up, they win. drooping hands, they lose. So what do you do? You have somebody who's coming along to help everybody hold each other up. Kids, that's what we have in the world we're living in now. God is expecting us to be the people who see serious enough what's going on in our world that we're praying all the time. Does it get tiring? Yes. Then pray that somebody will come along to help hold your hands up, because we need to win. There are plenty of defeats. Just because the war has already been won does not mean that there are not defeats along the way. There are often many defeats along the way, but those defeats are pretty well confined to a generation itself. Sometimes the next generation starts having a lot more victories. But my point is this, that when we're talking about the United States of America, we have to think, how does God work biblically with that? That's not ancient history. That's not just how he worked with Babylon. That's not just how he worked with Rome. That's not just how he worked with Greece. It's how he works with all nations today. Does that make any sense? That's how he works with all nations today. That's why you were called on to be a warrior in this thing with him to pray, to live, to be obedient, to follow through. Do you understand that every time we have an arrogant moment, a proud moment, do you understand how that opens the gate? You know, it's easy. My body is full of gates. I'm just gonna say 12 gates. And those 12 gates, I have to keep guard at all the time. And when I let my guard down, when I decide that, you know, my integrity's been impugned by what somebody just said, I need to give them peace of my mind, because they shouldn't have said that about me, and they're wrong about me. I'm not always a liar. I'll let you know when I'm a liar, all right? So you don't tell me, all right? So now I'm gonna give them peace of my mind. Every time I do that, do you understand how wide open that gate is? It's like inviting a spirit to come and be a part of me or to influence me in some way or another. If he got off on this one, what would happen if I do this? What would happen if I do this? Look, they're not having to occupy me to influence me to make stupid decisions. I'm perfectly capable of making stupid decisions by myself. I don't mean that. I mean that they're influencing me to make stupid decisions, all right? With that foundation, show them the history of the founders, the struggles, the losses and gains of this nation, the government they founded and those who tried to tear it down. Tell them of the heroes who restored it and kept it free. Tell them all of that. And look, you can do that at a dinner table. There are some excellent books you can work with doing that that are made for reading at the dinner table. You can read them and they tell good stories. Who was that? Peter Marshall wrote a series, The Light and Something. Anyway, you can find it. Peter Marshall wrote a great series of books about the prehistory and history of the United States, about the battles that were fought. Another one you can go to is David Barton. David Barton does a lot of work on this area. But I think what we'll do is create a resource book for everybody to have so that you can start looking. If you want to look up some of those things, you can look them up and study them for yourself, all right? But show them the history of the founders and do it from a biblical viewpoint. If you follow through what I just said here, you're looking at God's sovereignty that's involved. You're looking at God's the one that raises up and puts down. You're looking at the fact there's a spiritual struggle going on here and that your role in it is to be a prayer warrior and a speaker of the truth and to make sure that the kids know that, to make sure your family knows that. Number seven, help them to understand why it is important that any nation honor God and his laws and why his people must always remember what is good and what the Lord requires of us. What is that? To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. If we can teach our children that much and get it to stick with them, you need to do justly, you need to love mercy, and you need to walk humbly with your God. That could change a whole community right away. Demonstrate this by reviewing the history of Israel found in the Holy Scriptures, such as in Psalm 78, Psalm 106, Nehemiah 9, Daniel 9. Show them the promises of God in dealing with Israel in Deuteronomy 28. Demonstrate the decline of a nation whom God has raised up when it practices unbelief as revealed in Romans 1, 18 to 32. Guys, if we can just sit around the table, go on a trip anywhere, and just go over these scriptures. Psalm 78, here's the history of Israel. And God did this for them, and they were walking along great, and then all of a sudden somebody said, let's do this, and then we started, big decline, okay? And then God has to intervene again, and then they're building back up again, and then, big decline. It's telling both the good and the bad, all right? Number eight, be sure to show them the sin against God and his laws the nation did that led to deadly wars, abuse of people, and greed. Then show how God overcame that, working good from the evil, whether intentional or unintentional, and used people to correct it along the way. Now I'm gonna ask you, as you start reviewing history yourself, the history of your own country, See what you can do to find out how did God use that? How did God take something that was evil? What is something good that came from it? Not that it produced the good, it didn't. But the reaction to the evil wound up being a good thing from it. I know when you look back in the history of revivals in America, Before America was formed in 1746 came the the Great Enlightenment and that Great Enlightenment was not I'm sorry the Great Awakening it was not about reason and science coming along. It was about the preaching of people like George Whitfield, like the preaching of Jonathan Edwards, where they were preaching liberty. They were preaching freedom. They were preaching about responsibility, preaching about accountability. They were preaching about Israel and the need it had for checks and balances. They were preaching that there is an accountability that can send you square to hell. terrifying people, but it also gave them, when they had trusted Jesus Christ, it gave them an impetus to want freedom, to no longer be a slave. And from that, 1746 is about the period of time that was, 30 years later, they're declaring their independence. And another 20 years, well actually less than 20 years after, another 10, 15 years later, they're approving a constitution to seal those values they had talked about. Then there's another awakening that takes place in the early 1800s, there's another one that led to the abolitionist movement. And the abolitionist movement then was going to be the one that helps set people free from slavery. And there's going to be a lot of changes that take place in theology and biblical understanding during that time. Something's going to lead up to every single thing that happened. There was usually, whenever you find a big movement of the evil forces, you find a corresponding evil movement to God Almighty. Everybody follow where I'm coming from? Make sure as you look at the history of the United States, you're able to tell your children, this is what happened. Here's where we sinned against God. And here was the corrective measure that was taken. Here's what it cost us. Man, just think what the Civil War cost. Man, that's some deep blood, that's some deep hurt. There's a lot of things that went on with that. Talk about PTSD. There had to be years of PTSD among hundreds of troops on both sides of that thing, all right? So, all right. Number nine, show them that in spite of its sinfulness, the United States is still the most prosperous and blessed of all nations, arguably, in all of history. This is often called American exceptionalism because it is exceptional among the nations. It is exceptional in its wealth, its bravery, its compassion, and aid to those in need. Show them those things. Show them that among the first people to show up at any tragedy is going to be the United States of America, the first aid that's going to come in, the first people that are going to be there. Used to, you could always say it's always going to be Americans. Oftentimes now, guess who it is that shows up first? Israel. They're nearly always the first one. Volunteers, supplies, all kinds of things. And the reason they say to do it? We were once strangers. We were once in trouble. And God came to our aid. Therefore, when we find people in trouble, we're going to come to their aid. Isn't that cool? That's a biblical thing. And that sort of stuff happens because of biblical people, all right? So in its compassion and aid to those in need, it is exceptional as the champion of liberty, opportunity, and freedom, even though it is often slow to catch on to its own precepts. Do we know that all men are created equal? Did we know that in 1776? It was written in 1776. So we knew it, right? But not all men are created equal because we knew native Americans weren't equal because they're still calling them Indian savages in the same document that says all men are created equal. We know that the writer of it was a slave owner. He had deep regrets for it, but he couldn't see how he could make it without it. Just imagine if you were a farmer with 900 acres of land, and somebody said, the only way that you're ever gonna be a kind and good gentleman is you sell your tractor. I got 900 acres, I can't sell my tractor. Jefferson couldn't see how he get, Jefferson built Monticello on a mountaintop. How much water do you usually find on a mountaintop? No, it's not on a mountaintop. Great view, but you gotta have your mouth pretty open when it rains and hope that you can hold a whole lot of water, because it's not gonna be there. So how did he get water up there? Well, there was a big wagon train that went down every day to the river, barrels and barrels of water, made its way back up again. Well, who drove those wagons? Yeah, that's right, it's the slaves. He couldn't see how you could do it, but he knew the principle was right. That is, all men are created equal. Men, not women. Understand where we're coming from? So, we may be slow to catch on our own precepts, but we have the precepts. Does that make sense? Okay. We may be slow to catch on. I've got that written here. It is the exceptional as the champion of liberty, opportunity, and freedom, even though it is often slow to catch on to its own precepts. It is the wisest form of government when it is managed by people of integrity, honor, and godly wisdom. But like all governments, he degenerates to the lowest forms when occupied by those who do not hold honor and godly character high. Okay, so has America had some bad leaders? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Number 10, show them why we honor our heroes, our founders, the faithful Christians who altered the nation through prayer, obedience, and evangelism. Show them why we pledge to the flag and what it really means when you're pledging the flag. Show them how we patriotically demonstrate our appreciation for God's gift of this nation in times to stand, in times to sing, times to salute. Teach them to respect and honor. Don't forget that their allegiance comes first to Christ and then to the nation. There was a time when if you were wearing a cap and that flag came down the street, your cap came off and you put it over your heart. It was considered disrespectful for a man to let the flag go by wearing his cap or hat. He had to take it off. Then that was a way of showing respect, okay? We saluted. We said pledges. Teach them patriotically, what is their responsibility? What does an allegiance mean? Now, I'm gonna be real frank with you. At Berean Christian School, every day, we have pledged the American flag, pledged the Bible, praised the Christian flag. We always do that. We've been doing that for pretty much the 50 years that I know anything about it. But recently, three, four, five years ago, I switched the pattern for us to do it. We start with pledge to the Christian flag, then the Bible, then the country. And my reasoning is quite simple. The first allegiance is to Christ. When it comes down to it, a push comes to shove. The allegiance goes to Christ first, then to my country. It may not necessarily agree with me on it, Maybe it's because I'm doing pledges every day. And because I do pledges every day, I'm asking myself, what did I just do? Did I swear to do something? Because if I'm swearing to do something, I'm in a world of hurt. Because I'm not supposed to swear anyway. Now, I ask further. Here I am with these little humans with their heads full of mush. And I'm telling them, you stand and you say this too. Am I having them swear to something they don't even understand? To the republic for which it stands, do they know what a republic is? Do they understand what it means in liberty and justice for all? Do they believe that it stands for liberty and justice for all? Some of them there are not the same race I am. And some of them haven't lived necessarily the same way I have. Is it making sense? And I'm having them pledge to the Bible. Do they understand that they're giving allegiance to the Word of God? That that's what's going to be their primary source. Or are they going to say, well, I have to read the Bible while I'm at Berean, but I never read it outside of here. Well, then that's not really an allegiance, is it? So I just made them pledge an allegiance that they can't possibly mean. So have I turned them into little hypocrites? Kids, I've thought this thing over in my mind time and time and time again. Well, you can like me or not like me, we'll go on with this. Number 11, you must remind them that God's will for the final kingdom of the world is the kingdom of God governed by Christ Jesus our Lord, the millennium kingdom. The United States, as exceptional as it is, is not the kingdom of God and will one day, if it survives, submit to the Lord Jesus Christ upon his return for his kingdom and be no longer as it is today. Great as the United States is, and I love this country. Don't ever think that Pastor White doesn't love his country, I do. But I know this, this is not the end of the road. There's another one out there that really is the end of the road, and I need to make sure that I'm keeping my ducks in a row. Jesus Christ's kingdom is the big one, and this kingdom is gonna submit itself to that one. All right, now what I'd like to ask you to do, would you take your hymn books and turn with me to page 571, or I'm sorry, not page 571, hymn 571. I know this is this is trivial may not seem important at all, but I have audio Bible And I love audio Bible because I can actually hear and understand more than when I read it sometimes sometimes when I read it I'm not sure I'm grasping everything, but when I hear it and sometimes I hear it and read it That sticks with me a while well, I'm listening to the Psalms and Psalm 18 Psalms chapter 18 No No, it is not chapter 18. It's the 18th Psalm You follow me? Everyone over none of them are chapters. They're 18th Psalm here in this little book This is not page 571, it's hymns 571. That make sense? Because it's a hymn, every song is numbered in here. This one is one I know we all know, and I'm going to sing the first and the fourth because I think they have some meaning for us in what we just talked about then. My country, tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring. Our Father is God to thee, author of liberty, to thee we sing. Long may our land be bright, with freedom's holy light. Protect us by thy might, great God, our King. I chose that song because I think it's a good blend between God and the country. That the country is a great country. It was given to us by God. It is our stewardship to watch over. And if he was wise enough to give us this kind of a country and this kind of a government, then we need to say, how can we hold that government and keep it the plan you had us that you revealed to those guys before what was supposed to happen so let's go to a prayer for the church nation state and community to reach new heights of obedience and submission to God and the principle of freedom in our founding history as we await the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ all right So why don't you gather in groups there, or if you want to pray by yourself, you can pray by yourself, but just pray your way through some of these important things. Our country is in need of people who will pray. Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus for the things that you have given to us. We thank you for the things you're accomplishing through Donald Trump. We lift him up, Father, because I know he's making a lot of enemies along the way. He's already had at least two attempts on his life. And knowing, Father, that we've already had presidents who have been killed in office, We've already had officials who've been killed for what the things that they have done. We know that there are many enemies that have been formed over the years. We know Al Qaeda has enemies here and would seek to take lives of people. I'm asking in the name of Jesus that you put your angel of protection around them, that you keep them safe from harm. And that you'll give them a clear head and good vision. And if our president does not know the Lord Jesus Christ, I know he knows at least that you spared him. I'm asking that you bring him to that place where he finally does know Jesus Christ fully and completely. Thank you for what you're going to do. I think of the things he is trying to accomplish and the things that have already been done. I pray that all those in his desires for his cabinet will be confirmed. And I know you can move the hearts of men. The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, so I know you can move senators, congressmen, whatever needs to be moved to get them approved and confirmed of a father being able to complete his assignment. Thank you for what you're doing. We ask you to restore the state of Illinois because we sure need you here, Father. There are things going on in our state capitol that boggle our imagination. We cannot imagine some of the wickedness that must be in the hearts of some of the people who are there. So I'm asking in Jesus' name, bring them to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that they might get things rightened in their lives. Thank you for that, Father. And then we ask you to protect us from the wicked legislation that wants to be put about at times, and I'll thank you again. Now we ask your blessing to rest on the time we get to have here, and we'll praise you for it in Jesus' name. Yeah, man. All right. I'll try to fly through this next stuff a little more quickly. What we want to speak about, Nat, is the principles. So a family is going to teach the principles of a democratic, representative, constitutional republic, the American Constitution and its application. So let's start with this. It's democratic because the stewardship of the nation is with its people. Here, in this country, we've said we don't want a pure democracy. It's got problems with it, but we want to know that the people actually have ruling power. They've got to have the last say some way or another. It's representative because the people elect representatives to conduct business on their behalf. So that's what we mean by a democratic representative government. It's constitutional in that the people have codified in a single document the principles of how the nation is to be governed. So it starts out, we the people, right? And it's saying we, all the people. Now I'm gonna stop just a minute once again. That is a pretty collective name, we the people. I'm not sure that it's accurate that this was written by all the people. But it has to be ratified by all the people. You understand where we're coming from? So even though they might not have written it, they have to come to an agreement of it, or it's a useless document. So we can still say we the people. It's constitutional that the people have codified in a single document the principles of how the nation is going to be governed. They're letting you know. We the people have written up this document. We the people are telling you how we're going to be governed by representatives. And we're going to tell you what those representatives have to do. We're going to tell you how we're going to elect those representatives. We are telling you how we're going to set up the whole government. We're going to tell you about the houses of government. We're going to tell you about the three branches of government. We're going to tell you about those things. All the people are and every person is obligated to uphold and be judged by that rule. It is to be equally applied regardless of status, gender, ethnicity or creed. The states are given all of the rights not found in the Constitution and can govern themselves by their constitutions. All right? So you're going to teach them that. You're going to teach it as you just... Sometimes it's fun to go on vacation and just say, which state are we going through now? What's this? Oh, look at this sign right here. What's this sign saying? Coming to Arkansas. Hey, we just came into Arkansas, guys. Okay, so we're in Arkansas. What's what's Arkansas about? What do they do in Arkansas? Well, it's just a little piece of heaven, you know, and that's you can go on to the next day. Oh, look, we're coming into Texas. What's Texas? Shh, they think they're heaven. OK, so you have to you have to be careful what you see in Texas. You have to be careful what you but as you travel each state, just remind them this is one of the United States. But this state has its own government. And it sets up its own rules. You know when you come on Highway 30, when you come out of Arkansas, the speed limit goes up just a little bit in Texas? You're on the same highway. But as soon as you hit Texas, it goes up. Now, not necessarily, because if you've already been traveling at that speed, and you come to Texas, and you say, oh, good. It goes up. Look at that. Now I can do 95. Before I was doing 85 in a 70, now it's 75, so I can do 95 in a 75. But my point is, you're just gonna tell them there are different rules in all those different states. And God has set it up so 50 different states have their own governments and then they've all agreed to have a single place where all those states are governed as well, all right? Just have fun with it. Tell them what it is. It's a republic because it is ruled by the people through elected representatives. Okay? Demos means people and kratin means to rule. So democracy means the people rule. Republic is state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. Apart from the humans, which will be occupying any leadership position in government being sinners, a problem is how those elected representatives are elected and who elects them. Citizens elect them. You have to be a citizen to vote, right? Well, before that was white male property owners. And I'm going to stress property owners because you could be a white male and not have any property and you might not get to vote. Yes, same way. It was also true in some states you couldn't vote and run for office if you didn't have a confession of faith that says I believe in God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit. Most of them required, what's that? Yes, and most of them required church membership and to be in good standing. That was why it was dangerous, because when you're in a sacramental church, which most of them were, if you didn't get to take communion, you weren't qualified to be in that. Matter of fact, you could be removed from office because you did not take communion. You're a sinner trying to lead all these. You can't do that. OK, so anyway. Here were some fears. The larger the Demos, the more citizens you have, the greater the threat to the minority and the more unwieldy determining laws becomes. So it's okay if you only got 300 people, it is possible you could vote on a law and have 300 people vote for it. But when you get to have 330 million, That becomes harder for everybody to vote on. So the representatives get, what you have is an opportunity to vote on the representatives. You have opportunity to speak to those representatives. You can even call those representatives back if you don't think they are representing you. All right. So it's also true that uninformed That's not uniform people, that's supposed to be uninformed. Uninformed people or misinformed people would make poor decisions. They can be swayed by propaganda. Now, that's exactly what many of an opposing team said about this election. That they had hornswoggled a whole lot of people. They had misinformed and uninformed a whole lot of people, and it was ignorant people that voted for Trump. You remember that? When they were calling the people all kinds of uneducated names and stuff. A republic could become an oligarchy of elites or wealthy who control all the laws if the representatives change the parameters on who can elect them to office. Now, let me see if I can share this with you. The candidate we have currently, the president we have currently, what would you say his financial status was? How about those that are in his cabinet? Hmm. How about the previous president? Okay, and his cabinet? Okay. Amen. It's just a good way to make some money. But what I'm gonna say is, the old days where you could just come from the farm and be elected, left around the time of Lincoln. Because from there on, it's wealthier and wealthier and wealthier people all the time. It would be easy. And you get this picture. It's the greatest charge that the Democrats always had against the Republicans was that it was the billionaires party. Follow that remember that it was the corporate owners. It was all the businessmen. That's what that party was now the Democratic Party is the party of billionaires also or I think you get my point Who's been hornswoggled? All the middle class people who say, yeah, they're for us. Wait a minute. I'm not sure they know what the us are anymore. But anyway, the principle is there. That's what I want to get to. The Constitution's preamble reads, we the people, and then describes how the representatives are to represent them. The people do not vote on every issue, their representatives vote for them. They must represent all the people, not just the ones they like and who support them. They are obligated to uphold the Constitution and compare all legislation to its principles and statements. It is the duty of every citizen to share with his representatives what they have reasoned on issues of concern to them. Here's one way you can do that. Okay, kids, we're sitting at the dinner table, and here's God's word. To whom does God's word apply? Well, you're five, does it apply to you? Okay, and you're 15, does it apply to you? And you're my wife, does it apply to you? Well, then does it apply to Dad? Yeah, and so you're reading, and you say, but Dad, that could be hard. Yeah, yes it could. That can be quite hard. But if we're going to apply it and we're going to understand God's word and everybody's accountable, then I have to apply it equally to all of us. That means that when I sin, I have to confess my sin too. And when you sin, you have to confess your sin. So that they get the understanding that the family is accountable for what it does. Then describe to them the Constitution is like the Bible for all the believing and unbelieving people in the world, in the United States. They're accountable to it. If you're a citizen to it, you have agreed to this Constitution that you will abide by it. And so you keep teaching them that so they get the principle of what that government is. All right? It doesn't matter whether you read it or not. Yep, it does not matter whether you read it or not. Now, that's what I want to get to in the family. Wouldn't it be great if families started actually reading and understanding the Constitution? All right? It's the duty, obligation, and privilege of every legal citizen to lawfully vote in each election for those represented at every level. Now, I shouldn't have to say it, but I'm going to say once. You vote once. And it's only when you're living, okay? Failure to do so is a tarnishing of citizenship. Every parent must study and pay attention to the instruction given in the Bible about godly leadership, what does God tell you he wants for leadership, and the Constitution and its principles, laws, statutes, and amendments. What does the Constitution require? Can't just anybody run for office? Well, no, there's some requirements on it. You gotta have a few things there. You cannot teach what you do not know or understand. Get help if you need it, but get yourself educated. Commit to it, and then teach it. Young men and young women must start before they marry and have a good start on what will be a lifetime of learning. One cannot make an informed decision about candidates without a working knowledge of the Constitution and how the issues of any election are affected by it. Now, there were times when I was listening to both candidates speaking in the last election. You're listening to both candidates. I'm saying, wow. That sounds wonderful, but honestly, the Constitution would stop you right away from doing that. You cannot do that. You can and should be stopped because you just said you're going to do something that's not constitutionally correct. And I can hear both of them saying it, and I'm thinking, oh boy. And even now, some of the things that when Mr. Trump speaks, Here's what I've come to understand. Now, you know, this is where I stop and go, oh, I'm turning it off right now. Okay, I don't mean that. I'm gonna leave it on this time. Here's what I'm gonna come to understand. Mr. Trump is a businessman who has always used his mouth as a way to get free advertisement. Okay, so he wants to build a certain thing. He found the easiest thing for him to do is to, I'm gonna tear the whole thing down and build something new there. All the reporters are standing all around saying, what did you say? He's gonna tear down, what was that? Oh, I gotta get that down again. Get that down. Trump, and now he said, I never had to pay for a thing. I got thousands of dollars of free advertisement because they're going to write my story. They're gonna put up their, Trump says he's gonna tear down such and such thing and build a church in its place. What, has Trump turned to become a Christian now? What's going on? He loved it. Did he mean to do it? No. But it got things started, didn't it? So, we announce this. Okay, we're sending all these Venezuelans back to Venezuela. We're sending all these Colombians back to Colombia. And Colombia says, nope, not doing it here. Oh yeah, yeah we are. Okay, we're gonna slap a tariff on you. We're not gonna do this, we're gonna do that. You're not gonna get any of this anymore. Hey, you know what? What if I just do this? What if I send my own plane? And I'll bring them back. And I'll pay for it. Yeah, you got some other prisoners, I'll take, Venezuela says, hey, give us your prisoners. We'll take your prisoners too down here. We got a big unit down here. We'll put all the prisoners together. Why? Why does he say things like that? It's a negotiation tacky. So he says now, think we'll maybe just buy Gaza. Did you hear what he just said? He's gonna buy Gaza. He's gonna buy Gaza. He can't buy Gaza. This is why he can't have Gaza. I got a text today from somebody that says, I love Israel. What is he trying to do? I voted for Trump and now he's gonna buy Gaza. What is that? I'm thinking, okay, stop just a minute and think about it. What is Gaza right now? Blowed up. And what do we know is underground there? Well, we didn't get all the weapons that are under there. We didn't get all the rockets that are under there. How do I know one of those goofy things doesn't go off and set the whole thing off? So here, I built my beachfront house, and I'm away from it down at the beach one day. I turn around, look behind me, and it goes skyrocketing, and all the fireworks in the world blow up everything. Is that a safe territory? What he was trying to say was, it's not safe back there. Why would you go back there? There are no houses there. There are tunnels there. It's blown apart. That's why he's saying, let's let somebody else take them in. You build them a city, we'll help you pay for building the cities you're putting in. But by saying what he said, he got a conversation going that wouldn't have gone any other way. So if you can do that, let's be a people who understand our president. It's not that he's lying. It's just that he is one hyperbolic speaker. He exaggerates everything. He puts it in a place where now the people who before weren't interested in talking about anything are now. Here's Denmark. Denmark going in the hole trying to keep Greenland going. And saying, what are we going to do about this? We need to dump this country or something. And along comes this guy says, I think we'll just buy it. You know, I think if the people of Greenland vote on this and they don't want it, we'll just buy it. Boom, Denmark right away. I got to figure out, what did you say? And you got all of them. And what are they going to do? Now they think they're going to have to defend their colonial efforts at having this place they can't take care of and they can't afford and start with. But it got a conversation started, didn't it? That's the way he negotiates. So let's be a people who, when we do hear the president say something, let's just stop and laugh. Let's have some enjoyment out of the thing and say, that's good. Wonder what he's up to now. You know what I'm saying? All right. Last thing. Sing 569, would you with me? 569. Now I'm gonna tell you, I wanted this song for a couple of reasons, but when I sing a song, I wanna know that it's true. I'm far past the time where it didn't matter what I sang or whatever else. I'm past that now. I wanna know that what I'm saying is true. So verse four is the only one I wanted us to sing. And I want you to look at this verse with me. It says, in the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea. What? That's the one I have problem with. What do you mean in the beauty of the lilies? I don't know of any scripture that said Christ was born among the lilies. Do you? So you should see what people have done with this passage to make it So they understand. The only person that understands is Julia Ward Howe. She's the only one that understands what she did there. She's the author of this thing. Because nobody's got, man, there's some people saying, well that born is not really B-O-R-N, it's B-R-R-N-E. That he was carried across the waters. No. If you're Julian Ward Howe and you are living in the United States of America, where was Christ born? Across the sea. He's not carried across the sea, he's born across the sea. The lilies, I still don't know what that's from. Don't understand why she said it, but this is true. With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me. He does have a glory in his bosom that does transfigure me. I can't do anything like he does. As he died to make men holy. Let us die to make men free. When Christ died for us, he did make us holy. He made us a whole new people. We are called a sanctified people. And as he died to make us holy, let us die to live to make men free.