Glorious Way Church
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Glorious Way Church
God Has a Side | James Buntrock
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James Buntrock traces the theme "God has a side" from Deuteronomy and Joshua through the fear of the Lord, Jude's warning about infiltration, and the church's authority as an ecclesia to bind and loose. He brings that authority to bear on the present moment, addressing Islam's growing presence in Texas schools and two names on this November's ballot, and framing voting as an act of spiritual responsibility.
Prayer And Opening Welcome
SPEAKER_00Let's lift up our Bibles and let's say these things. Oh God, we love you this morning. Thank you for your holy written word. Thank you for your holy written word. Holy Spirit. Breathe life on this word. Give us revelation knowledge. Help us to know all the things we need to know. So that we can do and say all the things you would have us do and say. Our hearts are ready to receive everything you have for us. And we thank you for it. In the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Well, y'all can be seated this morning. Good morning to our live stream audience. My name is James Buntrock. I'm one of the pastors here at Glorious Way Church. We have an amazing congregation here today. And our pastor Griner is home. I believe he's watching on live stream, but uh he's on a scheduled day off. And so we're so grateful to have a pastor, a father in the faith, and he's worthy of some time off every now and again. But uh we have the same word of God and the same Holy Spirit, and it's my honor to get to bring you a message today, and I believe this is a timely message, a critical message, and uh we're gonna get started.
Choose Life And Blessing
SPEAKER_00I've got a couple of scriptures we're gonna read. I'll give you the title here in just a moment, but let me set this up. In Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 19. We're gonna read two verses here, 30, 19, and 20. It says, I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live, that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey his voice, and that you may cling to him. For he is your life and length of days, and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give them.
Joshua Meets The Commander
SPEAKER_00And then let's turn over to Joshua chapter 5. And in verse 13. We'll begin reading. And to set this up, uh Joshua has just led the Israelites across the river Jordan into the promised land. He has just done the thing that Moses was not uh allowed to do. Uh Moses couldn't get the uh the Israelites to get into a position to receive the promise. Um He got the Israelites out of Egypt, but he couldn't get Egypt out of the Israelites, if you will. And uh and he had violated one of God's command, and God said, I'm gonna let you see the promised land, but you're not gonna bring them into it. But he raised up another, uh, Joshua, and God said, As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. And so here is Joshua, and he's just led the Israelites across the river Jordan into the promised land. Uh they've built uh uh a uh a monument there, uh a reminder to the Israelites for everyone that passes by there to remember how God brought them out of and into, and it was a miraculous thing that he did. And so you can imagine Joseph has probably got some testosterone flowing about this point. I'm sorry, Joshua has got some testosterone going here. So in Joshua chapter 5, verse 13, it says, And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood opposite him, and his sword was drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said, Are you for us or for our adversaries? Two options. Are you for us or for our adversaries? And so he, this is the person standing there with the sword that Joshua has just approached rather aggressively, and he said, Uh, No, but as the commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. There were only two choices right there. Are you for us or are you for our enemies? And the answer was no. Okay, there's a third option I didn't think of. And it says, and Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshipped him and said, What does my Lord say to his servant? And the commander of the Lord said to Joshua, Take off your sandals, off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy. And Joshua did so. So who is the commander of the Lord of the armies? That would be Jesus. Jesus was standing before him. Now, in some version, it'll tell you that an angel of the Lord, the Lord, the Lord of the armies, it could have been an angel, except that Joshua worshipped him. And if it was an angel, he would have immediately rejected that worship. And instead, the fear of God fell on Joshua and he fell at his feet. He was talking to Jesus right then and there. How many know Jesus has always been around? He didn't just show up when he was born in a manger. He's always been around. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And so Jesus has always been and still is today. And so here were two options that Joshua presented him with, and the answer was no. And so there was a third option. And so the title of this morning's message is God Has a Side.
God Has A Side
SPEAKER_00And let me just say that it might not always be what we think it is. You know, we we kind of get stuck between a couple of options, and it might not be that. Just remember that. And so heaven and earth are still witnesses today against humanity. And there still exists a choice between life and death and blessing and cursing. And God is still lobbying and pleading with humanity to choose life that you and your descendants may live. That never went away. Now, God does not issue death and curses. What he did is he offered life and blessing through his Son Jesus. And uh and through his word, and they're the same. He pleaded then, and he still plead today. For all of humanity received that covenant of salvation. So death and cursing are simply the result of getting on the wrong side of God's word. There is an option for us. The two exist in time and space, and we can land on one side or the other, and the choice is entirely up to us. That is humanity. So there are some clues here because we want to be sure that we get on God's side. How do we get on God's side and stay on God's side? Well, we read there in Deuteronomy in verse 20, it says that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey his voice, and that you may cling to him. Those are good ways to get on God's side and stay on God's side. Love the Lord your God, obey his voice, and cling
The Fear Of The Lord
SPEAKER_00to him. Those are good things right there. Solomon, son of David, Solomon was credited with writing three books in the Bible. So you got Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. And in Proverbs, the fear of the Lord is mentioned some 14 times. And throughout the entirety of God's word, it is somewhere between about two to three hundred, depending on which translation or version you're looking at. There's some phrase in there, the fear of God, the fear of the Lord, in there, some two to three hundred times. And so, needless to say, the fear of God is probably important for us to consider. And so I want to read a verse out of Ecclesiastes, chapter 12. And I'm going to read it in the King James, and then I want to read it again in the Amplified. So in the King James it says this, and it's at the end of Ecclesiastes. It's the, I mean, the second to the last verse, but it's in conclusion of everything that was written preceding here. And so Solomon has just written a lot of stuff, and he concludes this by saying, verse 13, let us hear in conclusion the whole of the matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is man's all. So he just kind of sums up everything that he said with this one simple verse. In the Amplified, it says it this way it says, All has been heard. The end of the matter is this. Fear God, revere and worship him, knowing that he is and keep his commandments. For this is the whole of man, the full original purpose of his creation, the object of God's providence, the root of his character, the foundation of all happiness, the adjustment to all inharmonious circumstances and conditions under the sun, and the whole duty for every man. I want to clue in on something very specific there. The answer to all inharmonious circumstances and all conditions. Let's think for a moment. What is inharmonious with God's plan, purpose, and will? What condition doesn't fit in his design structure? The answer to all those things, anything that is inharmonious in circumstances and conditions, anything inharmonious under the sun, the answer to that is the fear of God and keep his commandments. And this is the whole duty of all of mankind, of every purpose. So what does it mean if the fear of the Lord is so critically important here? What does it mean to fear the Lord? Well, it's not running in terror. But instead, it is to have a deep and constant love and awe and honor and reverence and respect for God. A constant. That ought to be our constant. In every decision and every circumstance and everything that we face, there is a reverence and awe, a love and an honor for our Heavenly Father. Another way to say this is we ought to care more about what God thinks on the matter or the circumstance than what anyone else thinks. Nothing else matters. In all of life, we have one to please, and that's our sovereign. One. That kind of simplifies things for us because you don't have to dress up nice for anybody else. You don't have to try to uh win anybody or impress anybody else. You just got God, our Heavenly Father, our sovereign, our King. And if we can just please Him, nothing else matters.
Pastors Lead Feed And Guard
SPEAKER_00And so I consider this in the light of, you know, pastors. And I believe pastors are going to be here in this message, and I believe pastors are going to hear some things that maybe they haven't heard before, and there's going to be some meat in here for them that they're going to be able to use and help others. But what if pastors feared God more than they feared the IRS? What if they feared God? I mean, truly feared God more than they feared the church board that hired them. What if they feared God more than they feared the faces that were looking back out of them every Sunday? It would probably change some things, it would change some messages, it would change some words from the pulpit if they really feared that way. Now Jesus put it this way. Here's an example out of the out of one of the gospels, Matthew chapter 22, reading in verse 35. So this is where one of the Pharisees, and not just any one of the Pharisees, but an attorney, was questioning Jesus. And he was trying to trick him up here. And he said, Teacher, what is the great commandment in the law? And Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind. This is the first and great commandment. And he didn't ask for it, but he went ahead and gave him the second one too. And he said, And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law of the prophets. So there's a whole list of laws and regulations all throughout Scripture, but if humanity could get just these two things right: love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself, everything else would then kind of follow in suit. It would fall into place, it would be in order. If we loved God, we would fear and reverence him. We'd obey his word. We wouldn't have a problem obeying or loving our neighbor, because God loved our neighbor too. Jesus loved our neighbor so much, he loved the world so much. And you know, in John 3.16 it says, For God so loved the world, and that's not people. It includes people, but it includes everything. The Greek word there is cosmos, which is the entirety of his orderly arrangement, is everything that God set in order, created, and arranged. For God so loved all those things that he sent his son into the world to bring us back into right standing, to reposition us back in the original designed authority that he had for us. We were in one condition, one position. And Adam lost it and Jesus restored it. That's why he came. And he loved everything. He loved all of creation so much that he sent his son so he could send us. That kind of blows your mind. Blows my mind anyway. Alright, so so far in the message, and we're just kind of setting things up here. Um I hope you get these things out of what I just said. I'm gonna enumerate them for you and lay them out in case you didn't. Number one, on every issue that pertains to man, God has a side. Number two, it's up to us to get on his side and not the other way around. And number three, his side is not limited to the dichotomy of choice. You know, I remember Anna coming to us one time out of children's uh at one of the G-Force classes, or I guess it was the youngers, it was Sparks class. And you know, you've got kids that are going all over the place and you're trying to get them to do what you want them to, and she couldn't get one of them to sit down. And so she went to this one child and she said, Do you want to sit in the yellow chair or the red chair? As soon as you give them a choice of this or that, they'll choose one. They didn't realize that they had a third choice to run around the room and be rebellious. But immediately they latched on to, oh, I want to sit in the red chair. Oh, good, and then they were seated down. You know, that's psychological warfare right there. But God is not limited to the dichotomy of choice. You can't be pulling that trick on him. God, do you want the red one or the blue one? No. There's always another option with God. It's not this or that, it's not right or left, it's not Republican or Democrat. God has a side, and it may or may not be what we immediately recognize it to be. So we've got to find out what it is and get on his side. And the answer to staying on his side, getting on his side is the fear of God. Now, getting back to pastors, um, because, well, I am one, and we have a pastor here, and I think he does a pretty good job of this. He understands his role quite well. Uh there are pastors out there that I hope understand their role, but in case they don't, the role of the pastor, and the word pastor means shepherd, and a shepherd does what? Lead, feed, and guard. Three things lead, feed, and guard. And uh, if you were to look in Hebrews 13, 17, there's a there's a warning to those who are being shepherded about the pastor, says that a pastor is one who watches over your souls and gives an account. Don't give them a hard time. It's better for you if you make their life easier. And so that's in Hebrews 13, 17. In Ephesians 4, uh it talks about the the the fivefold ministry: the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. So the pastor is one of those of the fivefold ministry. And the purpose of the fivefold ministry, so that includes pastors, is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. You are being equipped this morning for the work of the ministry. All right, so that's the role of
Jude’s Warning About Infiltration
SPEAKER_00pastors. So if a pastor is to lead, feed, and guard, sometimes he's got to warn. And that's what I'm bringing you this morning. I'm bringing you a warning. And this warning comes, this is not, I mean, there's a new warning, but it's still an old warning, and it comes right out of God's word. I'm not making up a new warning here. Um, so if you'll turn over to Jude, just before Revelation, very small book, very critical book, because it contains a warning. In verse 3, Jude writes, Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which once was delivered to all the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation. Ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now I'd like to read it out of the message Bible, and it kind of breaks it down a little, uh, maybe closer to our common vernacular here. In the message, it reads this way Dear friends, I have dropped everything to write to you about this life of salvation that we have in common. And I kind of relate because I wanted to come here today. You know, I could preach a message on faith, we could talk about healing, we could talk about the anointing. Pastors just ministered on the anointing, we could talk about kinds of prayer, how to live successful in this life, how to defeat the enemy, all kinds of good stuff that will make you feel good when you get up and walk out of here and you're just, wow, that was invigorating. And this message can be invigorating too, and I want it to be. But there's a warning that's critical for right now. And so I wanted to write to you about this life of salvation that we have in common. I have to write insisting, begging that you fight with everything that you have in you for this faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish. What has happened is that some people have infiltrated our ranks, and our scripture has warned us that this would happen, who beneath their pious skin are shameless scoundrels. Their design is to replace the sheer grace of our God with sheer license, which means doing away with Jesus Christ, our one and only Master. And this is real, this is happening today, right now. That's why this is critical for right now.
Resisting Lawlessness With The Spirit
SPEAKER_00How many know there's an Antichrist spirit at work in the world today? So let's read about the Antichrist spirit. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 7. I'm making the case here. In verse 7, it says, For the mystery of the lawless one is at work. Only he, and it's capitalized in my Bible, so it's not really talking about me or a person in particular. It's talking about the Holy Ghost. Because remember, God sent his son into the earth, and Jesus was here for a particular period of time, and then he left and says, But don't worry, I'm gonna send you another, and he will be with you until I come back and get you. So the Holy Ghost is going to be with us. He dwells on the inside of us. Wherever we go, he goes. And he's gonna be here until we're taken out. Are we clear on that? Alright. So for the mystery of the lawless one is already at work. Only he, the Holy Spirit, who happens to dwell on the inside of us, who restrains, will do so until he is taken out of the way. And so the restraining power against the Antichrist Spirit is the Holy Spirit at work in us, and we take him with us wherever we go. So we're working with the Holy Spirit, and part of our ministry is to restrain the Antichrist Spirit at work in the world today. And in verse eight it says, And the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with his breath of his mouth, and will destroy with the brightness of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the work of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish. Because they did not receive the love of truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they may be condemned who did not believe the truth and had pleasure in unrighteousness. This is harsh. This is saying there are people who are not going to make heaven. And God is sending them strong delusion who are already deceived. In other words, if they heard the truth of the gospel, if they saw the light of the gospel, if they've been exposed to this and they refused it and chose to go. Go a different direction, the hope for them just got a lot smaller. It's not that they're hopeless, it's that they're gonna have to make a very serious turn around to be saved. And a praying mama can get that done in most cases. So I don't want you to feel like this is a hopeless cause. It is not. The effective, fervent prayer of the righteous avails much. But on their side, if they have turned away from something that they know is true and right and good and refused it, there is strong delusion sent, and it just got a lot harder for them. So for those that think that the church should not be engaged in politics and that we should not talk about this subject in church because I'm gonna get into politics, this is specifically the Antichrist spirit. So I am talking about a spiritual demonic resistance. And we're warring against that thing. Now there are people that are influenced by that Antichrist spirit. And to the degree that they're warring against us, we are in a fight, a physical fight, a natural fight on one level against people, but really it's a spiritual warfare at the higher level. And we're not called to war against flesh and blood. We're called to war against the demonic. And that's what we're talking about here this morning. So if you don't think we should talk about these things, let me just go right to the end of the book and tell you the Antichrist spirit is a political figure. That's a person. The Antichrist is a person and a political figure. So there's that. And the Antichrist spirit, I know, I don't know if the Antichrist is alive and present in the earth today. We could make the case, an argument. But the Antichrist spirit is at work and has been at work for a long time. And he knows his time is short, and we've got a lot to do, and he's recognized he's got a lot to do, and he's behind the curve, and so he's freaking out. All right. So the church is called to be a restraining force. Um besides that, governing and influencing is the Bible. It's all through the Old Testament. God charged Adam and Eve to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion over it. Uh, if you look at the the Old Testament as a whole, it's pretty much the prophet going to the king and influencing the king or anointing the king, or God speaking to one of them. Um God sent Moses to Pharaoh, Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, Joseph also to Pharaoh. God anointed King David. He anointed King David, and you know all the things, all the flaws that King David had, and yet God called him a man after his own heart. There's that. So if you're looking for perfection in a person, you are not going to find it. Jesus is never on the ballot. But there is a person that is right for a position. Uh Isaiah prophesies that the government would be on the shoulders of Jesus and that it wouldn't get smaller, but that it would increase. The disciples, Jesus warned them that they would be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles, and that we should occupy until he comes. Paul was sent to Caesar. Jesus gave us the great commission. He said, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore into all the world and make disciples. And he did not exclude the segments of the political and the government. And yet the church has neglected these places for a long time. So part of the fivefold ministry, we just talked about this, is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. There's lots of ministry, lots of kinds of ministry. I'm going to tell you about a kind of an unpopular kind of ministry.
Romans 13 And Real Authority
SPEAKER_00Romans chapter 13. Give me just a minute. I'm going to take a little side trail right here and explain to you Romans 13 because so many get this one wrong. They look at Romans 13, which begins, Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. And they say, Well, Lord, I just got to be subject to those who rule over me. I got to obey the law. I got to obey the governor. I got to obey the president. I got to obey the county judge. I got to obey the whoever. That's not what this is saying. So let me just break this down for you. This is a good place to take notes because I'm going to give you some Greek translations of very specific words in here. So let's read the scripture. Let every soul be subject to governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists authority, goodness, it just said authority a bunch of times right there. What is that word? That word is exusia. It is delegated influence, it is jurisdiction, and it is an office of authority. It is not a person. Okay. So when I read this, it's not a person. It is a delegated influence. It is an office. It is a position. It is a jurisdiction. Let every soul be subject to the jurisdiction. For there is no jurisdiction from God except, and the jurisdictions that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the jurisdiction, now you start to understand there's a meaning behind this. Whoever resists that jurisdiction resists the ordinance of God. Ordinance. That's an arrangement system or structure. So God has set up an arrangement system and structure. He has set up an arrangement system of structure of government for our nation. It's his ordinance. And God set it up. And within that ordinance, there are various jurisdictions. Okay, whoever resists the jurisdiction resists the orderly arrangement of God. And those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers, there's another word. Ruler. That's a person who is a chief, a magistrate, a prince, or a ruler. That's a person. So we've got jurisdiction, you've got uh the the orderly uh arrangement or system or structure that God has appointed, and you have the person. For the person who sits in the jurisdiction, that's a ruler, or not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have the same from them. For he is God's minister to you for good. We're talking about a ministry. Remember, the church, the pastor exists, he's part of the five-fold ministry to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. This is one of those ministries. It's an unpopular one. It's not quite as unpopular as the bathroom duty. Maybe it is, I don't know. But it's not a popular one because I don't see people who are in church being equipped to go sit in a jurisdiction and office that's ordained by God. I don't see that very often. I don't see it often enough. And we got to have more of that. And pastors got to be raising people up to do that. And the Holy Ghost is going to ordain that and put light on a person who's fit and suited for that. There's an anointing to do that. But the pastor has to equip that saint for the work of that ministry. But if you do evil, be afraid. For he, the person, the ruler, does not bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Well, I just gotta obey the authorities. Well, yes and no, right up until they cease to be righteous and do what's righteous. And then, no, there's no obligation to obey the unrighteous who sit in an office, somebody who's usurped a power that doesn't belong to them, that wasn't delegated to them, somebody who stole an election. You don't have to obey any of that nonsense. Alright, so now that we're clear on Romans 13 and what that all means, um let's get back to the message.
The Church As Ecclesia
SPEAKER_00So I was in an event uh recently, maybe a week or two ago, and a later lady came up to me and she was just distressed, and she said, Oh, Pastor, why does God allow these terrible things? And I said, Because you allowed the terrible things. And she was shocked. And I said, God allows everything that we allow. And so in Matthew chapter 16, Jesus has got his disciples with him, verse 13. So Matthew 16, 13, says, When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked the disciples, saying, Who do men say that I am? The Son of Man am? And they said, Some say John the Baptist or Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets, and he said, But who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter was quick. He popped up and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said, Gold star Peter, blessed are you, Simon, Barjonh, for flesh and blood is not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you, Peter, which means little rock. You're a chip off the old block. Just making a parallel here. He said, I also say to you, little rock, on this great rock, the rock of the revelation knowledge that Peter just got from heaven and spoke, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Flesh and blood didn't reveal that to him. That's the big rock, the revelation knowledge. And Jesus said, On that rock, I'm going to build my church. Up until that point in time, there had never been a church in the religious sense. This was a new thing. Jesus doesn't use words accidentally. He said, I could have built my, I'm going to build my synagogue, I'm going to build my temple, I'm going to build a place of worship. He didn't say that. He said, I'm going to build my ecclesia, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Ecclesia is a political assembly. It's a Greek word, it means political assembly. It was a group of people in that day who were decision makers for a town, for a region. They would meet in the gates or the town square. They would make decisions for all the other people. They could declare peace and they could wage war. They had authority. And Jesus says, I'm building my political assembly, my decision makers, and they have the power to declare peace and to wage war and make decisions for regions. I'm building my church. That's what the church is supposed to do. That's what the word church means. And people have limited it to this little building with a steeple on top. We don't have a steeple, but and four walls, and I don't know that we really have four walls because I don't see the corners here, but there's this concept that it's a building or that it's a meeting, a group of people. Yes, it is a group of people, but they forget and leave off the purpose. You're decision makers, you're part of the body of Christ, and he said you're authorized to make decisions for the region. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it. So the region of Caesarea Philippi, I wish I'd brought a picture to show you. But Jesus brought them to a place, a particular place. That place is important because there was pagan ritual worship that happened there. He brought them to the edge of a cliff where there was a pit below where the pagans would throw their babies down into that pit as part of pagan worship. Abortion and killing of babies is nothing new. The devil hates the image of God. He hates the offspring of humanity. And so the devil is coming for the kids. He always has been, and he's still doing it today. And Jesus brought his disciple to the gate of hell. And he's saying, That is not going to prevail. You are going to prevail against it. Now, how many have ever been chased down by a gate? Gates are not notoriously offensive weapons. Gates are an entry point, and gates are closed either to keep people from coming in from the outside or people from the inside getting out. I don't know anybody who's in a hurry to get to hell, so I can't imagine that these gates are there in existence to keep people from coming in. People aren't trying to get into a communist country. They're trying to get out. And so the gates of hell exist to keep people in bondage, enslaved, and from getting out from under the influence and control of the devil. And Jesus said, I'm going to build my church, and the church is going to go on the offensive, and we're going to break through the gates of hell, and we're going to start taking things back that have been stolen. And I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Let me say it this way. Whatever you disallow or put a stop to in the earthly realm will be disallowed and stopped in the heavenly or spiritual realm. There is a corresponding effect between what we allow in the physical realm and what happens in the spiritual realm. And so that's why I said to this lady, God allows everything that we allow. The church has been given the authority, authorization to storm the gates of hell and take back things that have been lost, and said the gates of hell will not prevail against you. And I'm giving you the authority and the power to bind certain things and loose other things. And what did the church do over history? They started binding the wrong things and loosing the wrong things and doing the opposite of what God intended. And we have the mess we have because of the consequence of that.
History Lesson On Faith And Freedom
SPEAKER_00George Washington said, Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. Without religion and without the morality that comes from the Christian religion, this whole thing crumbles and falls apart. And so in the beginning of our nation, we were in a tough spot where things were beginning to come apart. One pastor, a Lutheran pastor named John Peter Muhlenberg, when he heard the British were coming and the bondage that they had that this nation was enslaved to up until that point, and the British are coming and we're about to have trouble. He said he preached a sermon from his pulpit out of Ecclesiastes chapter 3, A Time and a Purpose for Everything Under the Sun. Then he takes his clerical robes off and reveals his Continental Soldier Army uniform underneath and recruits 300 to go to war against the British out of his church. And he writes a letter to his brother, who also was a pastor of a church, and says, You gotta do the same thing. And the brother and him start bickering back and forth. And the brother is saying, you ought to be more concerned with the scripture and with things in God's word than this other mess over here. You need to be preaching the gospel, you need to be preaching the blessings, you need to be talking about other things and not the current events. And what happened to his brother was that the British came in his town and took his church and destroyed his church. And then his brother joined the fight. You're gonna be in this fight whether you want to or not. The question is, are you gonna do it now when you can do something about it, or when it's too late and you've already lost something dear to you? Back to the warning. Some people have infiltrated our ranks. Beneath their pious skin are shameless scoundrels. Their design is to replace the sheer grace of our God with sheer license, which means they do away with Jesus, our one and only master. Jude was inspired to warn the church, and he wouldn't have warned them if the church couldn't do something about it. He was saying, I'm giving you a warning, and you can do something about it, and you ought to. And so heaven and earth are witnesses today against all of us, against all of humanity. Heaven and earth are witnesses today on what we choose. And I wanted to preach something else. I wanted to do something else, but there was such an urgency about this.
A Challenge On Islam And Pluralism
SPEAKER_00So here are the two urgent issues that I'm going to present to you today. The first one is Islam. Now in Galatians chapter 1, Paul said, if anyone, we or an angel from heaven, this is in verse 8, if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what we have already preached to you, let him be accursed. If anyone preaches to you anything different than this gospel, than the gospel of Jesus Christ, let him be cursed. So about 600 years after that scripture was written, an illiterate man named Muhammad sat in a cave where an angel of light appeared to him and gave him a different gospel. Additionally, Muhammad took what he got from the angel of light and pieced it together with some Christianity, some Judaism and other pagan religions, and kind of cobbled together what he called a religion at that time and created Islam and wrote it down in a book that they have that's called the Quran. And the Quran means recitation, and the reason it's called recitation, he couldn't write, he couldn't read, he was illiterate, and so he had to recite this stuff. It ended up in a book at a later date, but it was all reciting, and every time he said it, it was a little different, things changed, and it was just shifting for quite a while. It was a made-up doctrine by a demonically influenced pedophile. And he tried his best to convince people to follow this new doctrine. And he started out with roughly 70 that he got to do this, so it was basically it was just a nothing that was happening. And so he shifted methods here, and he went from kind of a religious uh leadership role to more of a political and then a military campaign to force people to submit to this doctrine, and it's been going on for about 1,400 years since. And if you want, and I encourage you to look up the name Bill Federer because he has an amazing dissertation on this subject and can explain from beginning through present all the things that have happened over the course of history regarding Islam. And uh, if pastors are watching, I encourage them to educate themselves on this. Muslims claim to worship the same God of Abraham. You know, Abraham had a couple of sons, and they had the same dad and the same God, and so here we are. It's not quite the same as Christianity, but it's the same God. No, it is not the same God. It is not the same God because they deny the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and they deny that Jesus is come in the flesh. They deny the incarnation of Jesus, the Son of God who came to earth. They deny that. They call him a prophet, they revere him, they respect him, but he is not the Son of God. And so they're preaching a different Jesus and let them be cursed, and they are. This ideology is leading people to hell, and the nice people of our country are making room for this. And the problem is that this political system of Islam, while people here are willing to share space with it, it will not share space with you. They will not share a country with you. A couple of facts about Islam. Islam means submission to Allah. And Sharia is the system of rules and laws to ensure a complete system to Allah. That's why there's also a movement right now to ban sharia in our nation and specifically in Texas. The Antichrist political ideology of Islam, it is antichrist, it is a political ideology, it is not a proper religion, and it is incompatible with our Christian form of government. What about the freedom of religion? Shouldn't Islam share the same opportunities as Christianity? We've got Christianity, shouldn't they have equal? No, they should not. First of all, this is a Christian nation with a Christian. Christian form of government. And we have a covenant with God through the Mayflower Compact, which defined the purpose for people to come and settle here, all for the glory of God and the furtherance of the gospel of Christ. The Bible was the most influential document for all of our founding documents. And after we fought a revolutionary war full of miracles in God's intervention on our behalf, our nation truly became established. It was established with the Declaration of Independence, but it truly became established on the world stage as a world power, as a recognized nation with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. It was John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams that were at that signing. And they insisted and wrote at the top of that document a title to that document. The title to that document that made us a nation on the world stage is in the name of the most holy and undivided trinity. We were declared to the world a nation in the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity. We are a Christian nation. You know, Muhammad didn't even know what the Trinity was. He thought it was God and Jesus and Mary. He didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit. So we have the establishment clause that people have long misinterpreted and call for the separation of church and state. There was a Supreme Court case called Lemon versus Kurtzmann in 1971, and it gave us something called the Lemon Test, which was a standard establishing whether or not it established whether or not a government action or law violated the establishment clause. And it basically required that whatever practice, whatever monument, whatever law must be predominantly secular. That was the Lemon test. And we've had that since 1971. Coach Kennedy versus Bremerton, this is a recent Supreme Court case in the last few years. It threw out the Lemon test, and now the standard is if it has a long-standing history and tradition in the United States, it must have a strong presumption of constitutionality. You know what has a long-standing history and tradition in the United States? Christianity. You know what does not have a long-standing history and tradition in the United States? Islam. You're catching on. And yet there's an active movement to gain special accommodations for Islam in our culture, in our workplaces, and specifically in our schools. Now we're just coming off the heels of a State Board of Education meeting where they were voting on curriculum for Texas, and Texas will now have its own curriculum, and this will go into effect in 2030. We're going to be in the business of printing our own curriculum and restocking the schools with the curriculum. And the curriculum is as good as it's ever better than it's ever been because it now incorporates our true history in here. And the Muslims were concerned, our history is not in there. And so they made sure that the vile history of the Muslims was also included in there. The Muslims have a vile history. And our kids need to know that that is a vile political ideology and it's being included. The Bible is included, our Christianity is included in the curriculum. These kids can't know what was on the thoughts and minds and in the hearts of our founders if they don't know their ideology and where they got it from. It's not going to make any sense. So you can't rewrite our history, and they will not rewrite our history. And the State Board of Education just passed an amazing curriculum and it goes into effect in 2030.
Schools Culture And Local Politics
SPEAKER_00How many have have heard of Muslim Student Association, MSA? So this is infiltrating Texas schools. I will tell you that it uh it is here in Harris County. I don't know that it's in every school, but I can tell you that it is in several public schools. The Muslim Student Association, the MSA, was established in 1963 at the University of Illinois by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a terrorist organization. That's where it came from. And so here's an example, a very recent one. So in 2017, uh the Muslim Student Organization of a high school, Liberty High School in Frisco, Texas, uh they kind of got swatted back by the uh attorney general who filed suit against them for allowing certain things, but here they go again. And so they had an advertisement posted about a prayer time and a prayer room in the school where the desks are cleared out of the way, and that room is dedicated to uh Muslim students only. In fact, it says that this room is meant as a space for Muslims to pray, and only Muslims will be allowed in. And the room is open every day from 1250 to 250, two hours for Muslim students. And they can go in for all two hours during class if they get parent permission to be there for all the two hours. And during that time, a male student, uh, if he wants to, can give an Islamic sermon. And if a female student wants to give an Islamic sermon, she she can't. She has to write down what it what she wants to say, and then she has to hand it to a male student who then can speak it if he wants to, if he deems it worthy. That is sharia. The oppression of women is sharia. That is part of it. And so you have this being practiced in uh a school, Liberty High School, in Frisco, Texas, right now.
unknownCome on.
SPEAKER_00By the way, your taxes pay for this. They also include a running donation for prayer rugs. And if each student brings a prayer rug, it will count as uh a volunteer hour in their in their uh tally for uh hours needed for the district community service recognition at graduation. By buying a prayer rug or donating a prayer rug to this Muslim-only thing, they get a credit hour in their community service. In 1991, in a federal case, the Muslim Brotherhood uh they had an explanatory uh memorandum uh entered into uh the court records, and it calls for a civilization jihadist process to destroy the West from within. Like it's it's laid out. They're not mincing words, they're saying we're we're doing this is jihad against this nation. This is a takeover of this nation. And the uh uh a tool of the Muslim Brotherhood is the MSA, the Muslim Student Association, for that purpose. And they will tell you the nicest things and say, oh, it is not that. It is that. Also, how many know that there is a Muslim on the ballot for our county judge this November? Letitia Plummer. If you elect, if you allow, if the church allows Letitia Plumber to be elected as our next county judge, we will have more of this Islamic political ideology pressed into us, pressed on us, oppressing us in Harris County. You will have it. Without a doubt. If the church allows that, we can allow, we can disallow. It's within our purview to do so. Jesus said so. And so, you know, we can pray, we can take faith, we can apply faith, and we can do all the spiritual things, but if there's not a corresponding action, faith is dead being alone. The church needs to rise up, pastors need to speak up, they need to talk about this stuff from their pulpits from now until election and resist the Antichrist spirit and stop that woman from being elected into office. That's what needs to
Testing Public Voices Against Scripture
SPEAKER_00happen. Next morning. There is a candidate hoping to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate. His name is James Tallerico. I'm going to read you a few of the Tallerico quotes. And these are direct quotes, some of these from the Joe Rogan interview. Maybe y'all are familiar with when that happened. James Tallerico said, When God takes human form, incarnation, by the way, is not just limited to Jesus. It's everybody, right? Everybody bears the image and sacred. He's saying because we are image bearers, we are the incarnation of God. If anyone preaches another gospel, even somebody who comes off looking like an angel of light, let him be accursed. Let James Tallerico be accursed for preaching a different gospel. There is one Jesus, one Lord and Savior, one God who came down in the form of a man, one incarnation, and we are not it. Another quote: in other words, the test of Christianity is not do you love Jesus, but do you love Judas? Judas, the guy who betrayed Jesus, who was called the son of perdition, the guy who Satan entered and betrayed our Lord and Savior. I can't say that Jesus didn't love him, but Jesus didn't leave the 99 to go chase after him. You know why? Because Jesus understands the difference between a sheep and his flock and the wolf. We don't leave the flock to go try to rescue the wolf. That's dumb, and people try to do it. James Tallerico voiced his opposition to the inclusion of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, calling it deeply unchristian. And that defining the word Messiah as a heaven-sent savior is likewise dangerous and unchristian. I can't make this up. He said it. He said, Christians understand that it's dangerous for the government to define our religious teachings for us, and that it is unchristian to exclude our neighbors with different religious beliefs. We've got to love our neighbors. So we have to make room for their false gods. You know, in Exodus, I think it's chapter 14, somewhere about 34, I think it is, God introduced himself as hi, I'm jealous. You'll have no other gods before me. I am a jealous God. Tallerico said, it shouldn't be assumed that just because you're Christian, you are anti-gay or anti-abortion, because there are so many Christians out there who don't subscribe to either of those policy positions. Today I set before you life and death. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live. That's what this guy is doing. He is taking God's word. And to the people who don't know God's word, he is twisting it to them and they're eating it up. They're believing a lie, and he's leading people into hell. Let him be accursed. He also said that God is non-binary and thinks there are six genders, and that the Bible supports gay marriage, and he fought vehemently against legislation that would protect women's sports, keep men from competing against women in sports, and against the anti-child gender modification bill. He wanted to mutilate your kids. Thought they were wonderful, beautiful kids, and he loves the transgendered kids. He is a sicko. And the church cannot let him get elected to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate. The church must not do that.
Speak Truth Vote And Don’t Back Down
SPEAKER_00And if the church is gonna not allow these things, the church is gonna have to get up and vote. And the church is gonna have to use its voice and help others to know what is good and right and true. It's not enough for just the church to vote. We are the pillar and ground of the truth. We've got to speak the truth, and we do it in love. Tallerico is full of the devils, and he's exercising the wiles of the devil. The answer to all inharmonious circumstances and all conditions under the sun is the fear of God and to keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of every person. We must keep the Antichrist spirit out and continue to restrain the lawless one and elect God-fearing people who will fear God and keep his commandments. That is a must. The ecclesia, his political body, his decision makers, his church must take its position and bind the things that need to be bound and loose the things that need to be loose to disallow evil things and allow the righteous things. We must pray. We've got to be salt, we've got to be light, we've got to preach the gospel and do it without shame. Salt is a preserving agent. If we preach the gospel, it will preserve the harvest, it will preserve people from hell. It'll preserve this nation. If we are light, it will expose darkness and hidden things. Jesus said, Do not think that I came to bring peace, but I came to bring a sword. Jesus, people have this image of Jesus that he is kind and loving and compassionate, and he is until you cross him. Then he's the Lord of the armies of heaven and he has a sword. And he's not limited to separating families. He said so right here, for I have come to set man against his father and daughter against his mother. He's not dividing a family for the sake of dividing a family. There is a dividing line, and part of the family chose what's good and right and true, and part of it chose hell. And he said, My sword will divide and separate. Romans 1 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. We don't quote the next one often enough. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous men. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against ungodliness and unrighteous men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. We love people and we hate the sin. But we are all going to have to get real unreal comfortable with offending people and making people feel real uncomfortable. You're going to have to get comfortable with this. The goal is not to offend people. But Jesus said, Blessed are those who are not offended. There's a blessing for not being offended, and if you are offended of Jesus, then there's a cursing. Some will receive the truth, others will not. Others are going to literally scream and wail and gnash their teeth at you. There are some incredible Facebook reels and videos that show people screaming, wailing, gnashing their teeth. It's demonic. For we are a fragrance to God of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. And to one were the aroma of death leading to death, and the other life leading to life. In other words, we go and we diffuse the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ in every place, in the political, in the government, in every place, in all the world. We diffuse wherever we go. And some are going to say, ooh, that smells good. I want some of that. And others are going to turn away and they can't stand it and they're going to be driven away. The choice is not for you, it's for them. We are to bring people to a point of decision and the rest is on them. It's not wrong to offend people, and I want you to get comfortable with that. We speak the truth in love, but we do not back down. Jesus called people hypocrites, called them vipers, aden of thieves. He called a humble woman who came for a crumb. He called her a dog. And when she was not offended, she got everything that she came for. Blessed are those who are not offended. He gave her every opportunity to be offended, and she would not. Some are going to be like that. Do not cast your pearls before swine. You know, I told somebody that right up here. There was somebody who came to this church with wrong motives, and I said, I will not cast my pearls before swine. Looked her right in the eye. Jesus told Peter, get behind me, Satan. I mean, he could be kind of harsh. Paul took notes on this. Being filled with the Holy Spirit, when there was a sorcerer that was getting in the way, being filled with the Holy Spirit, he said, Oh, full of deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord, Talerico? Now indeed, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a time. If you're going to twist God's word, you are accursed. We need to speak the truth boldly. Help others to know and love the truth. Arm people around you with the truth of God's word, and we do it with a heart of love. We're not against the person, but we are absolutely against the Antichrist spirit. God has a side, and we've got to get on his side.