liberty Sabbath. And uh the sermon today is called Wanted Faithful Preachers. And uh you know when you come to an event
you always have um if you imagine Chicago O’Hare airport when you look um when you’re driving under the um where they’re coming into land there’s always
about five or six planes you can see coming into you and you’re never quite sure which one is going to land first.
And so when you stand up to preach and you come to an event like this uh you’re always saying Lord there’s like three sermons coming in to land at any one time. Which is the one that we’re going
to share today? And so you pray about it and sometimes you make the choice at the very last minute and you’re saying,
“Lord, may give me somebody that says something that’ll direct me in a certain direction.” And so our sermon today is entitled wanted faithful preachers. And
as as Jonathan said, we will take up an offering just before Elder Kelly speaks for us uh in our last segment this morning. Um but the title title is
wanted faithful preachers. And I invite you to bow your heads with me and we invite the presence of the Holy Spirit. So shall we pray? Our heavenly father,
we thank you for the blessings thus far of the Sabbath day. Father, we thank you for this wonderful exposition by Dr.
Herbs on the truth about the Sabbath. We thank you Lord that the Sabbath is a memorial of creation and a celebration
of deliverance from slavery to sin. Now Lord, as as we speak about the need for preachers, uh for um all of us, Lord, to
stand up and speak out and to shine for you in earth’s darkest hours, I pray that your Holy Spirit will fall upon me,
that you’ll speak through me, you’ll speak for me. I ask, Lord, for forgiveness for my sins, for all of our sins, that there nothing come between
you and us this morning. So Lord, we give these moments into your hands. I pray Lord that hearts will be stirred and lives will be changed and heart life
and homes will be enlightened and communities will be changed through all that is said and done this morning. So thank you father for answering this
prayer. In the name of Jesus we humbly thank you. Amen. All right. So this is going to be our journey uh together. Um
today we’re going to first of all look a brief instruction on what happened in the book of Acts with the apostles and the Sanhedrin. We’re then going to look
at the story of a turbulent priest. Some of you may know about him, some of you may not know about him. Um, but he’s a very famous priest, at least in England,
and he has a legacy here in America.
We’re then going to look at the brave Baptist preachers who actually gave us the first amendment and freedom of religion in our country and how that
story came about. And then we’re going to look about well, what happens today and what are the challenges that we face before we come to our conclusion. So,
that’s the journey we’re going to go on this morning. And so we’re going to start out um by looking in the book of Acts chapter 5. And to set the context
here in Acts chapter 5, the apostles were preaching the risen Christ in Jerusalem. And this the the authorities did not want to hear this. They did not
want to hear that the Jesus they crucified had risen from the dead again.
And so they started practicing cancel culture against preachers of present truth. And uh they cancelled those preachers. They put them in prison. And
they were consumed with jealousy and with fear because the preaching of present truth in Acts 5 was causing the people to turn against the religious authorities of their day and say,
“You’ve betrayed us and you have you have crucified the Messiah himself.” So,
uh, the apostles were arrested. They were put into prison, but God sent an angel and he released them from prison. And so having been released from prison,
they went straight back to what they were not supposed to be doing, which was preaching about the risen Lord Jesus Christ in the temple of Jerusalem. And
so the the the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling authorities were so upset about this that they called them in for an interview. And you see on the screen the text from Acts chapter 5 27-28.
And it says there, the high priest questioned them, saying, “Now we gave you strict orders not to preach in this man’s name, yet you have here filled
Jerusalem with your teaching, and you are determined to bring this man’s blood upon us.”
And so the chief priests, the religious authorities were going against spiritfilled preaching and the truth of the gospel.
Now, one of the most respected teachers in Jerusalem at the time was a man called Galiel. He’s known as Galial II actually, but he was one of the greatest
minds in first century Judaism. He reminded the Sanhedrin that there the previous preachers had arisen and they
had preached about revolution against Rome. They preached that maybe they were the Messiah. They preached about a coming Messiah. And he reminded them that all of those previous preachers,
their ministries had come to north to nothing whatsoever. They had failed. And so he now he said it’s better not to give a severe punishment to these
apostles because if this is of God you can’t fight against it and if it’s of man it’s not going to go anywhere. And we see that um that quote there. He says
I tell you stay away from these men and let them alone because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin it
will fail. But if it is of God you will not be able to overthrow them. In that case, you may even be found fighting
against God. So those persecuted preachers once they’ve been flogged were released back into general circulation
and they went straight back to what God had called them to do to proclaim the good news of Jesus of Nazareth as Jesus
the Christ or Jesus the Messiah. They preached of a sinner-loving savior, a place- takingaking savior, a guilt-taking savior, a guilt-bearing
savior, a risenagain savior, and a soon-coming savior. This is what they preached. And the establishment era and
the hierarchy in their their life to persecuted them. But God was with those preachers. And through them, God raised up the apostolic church, the purest
church we’ve seen in salvation history in the first century AD. God raised up a house church movement that we call the
apostolic church. And throughout history, God has raised in every generation men and women, as we saw in
January this year, boys and girls in Sweden in the Advent movement. God has raised up faithful men, women, boys, and girls who are willing to speak the truth about God no matter the personal cost.
They’re willing to risk everything for the salvation of sinick souls, even if it means personal sacrifice, official cancellation, or public rejection. And
so, I want to transition now to a a case that maybe some of you are familiar with. And it’s the case of the turbulent
priest. And uh the guy’s name was Thomas Abeckett. Have any of you heard of Thomas Abeckett? Um he’s a very very
famous character in in in British religious history. And he actually has an influence on America today. We’ll come to that influence in a few moments.
But who was this guy Thomas of Beckett?
Well, he was actually the Archbishop of Canterbury um from 1162 to 1170 AD and that’s when it was this was before the
reformation. So he was the Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury. So who was this Thomas Abeckett? Well, he was born
in London into the family of a poor knight who’d come across with the Norman invasion in 1066 AD. and his father
valued education. So he got his boy into a grammar school. And in England we’ve had grammar schools and public schools.
And um a grammar school is that when you’re 11 years old, grammar schools are are private schools where you might say the cream of the crop academically go to
grammar schools. And when you’re 11 years old, you sit an exam in the English um schooling system and the cream of the crop go to the grammar schools so that they can kind of gallop
ahead. These are the people who are who are unfortunate enough to do you know geometry at the age of 11 and calculus at the age of 12 and whatever other things they they bless their minds with.
But they they he went to a grammar school at the age of 11. And after that he took a job as a clerk in his father’s business. The business wasn’t doing
well. So his father arranged for him to take a job as a gopher, literally a gopher with the then Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior cleric in
the land, a man called Theobbold of Beck. And so um this this young man,
Thomas Abeckett, he was working basically as an administrative assistant. He was running errands for the Archbishop of Canterbury. And in so
doing, he demonstrated that he was both intelligent, he was articulate, he had good judgment, and he could be trusted.
So very soon afterwards the Archbishop of Canterbury started using this young man Thomas Abeckett as his personal emissary. If he wanted to send a message
to the pope in Rome he’d send it with Thomas Abeckett. If he wanted to negotiate something with the king of France he’d send it with Thomas Abeckett. And so Thomas Abeckett became
a trusted ambassador of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Now the king of England at the time was a guy called Henry II.
That’s not a very good picture of him,
but um I’m not sure we have any contemporary photographs. I couldn’t find any on Amazon or Google at least.
But Henry II, he was the king of England from 1154 to 1189.
And he was a great king in terms of his organizational abilities. And he had to be because if you look at where he was
king of he was king of England but not of Scotland, he was king of England. He was king of Normandy. That’s northern France. He was king of Anju. There’s a region in southwest and western France,
Aquitane and Britany also parts of Wales and parts of Scotland. And King Henry II he was a very vigorous king and he
realized that under him were all the baronss and the baronss ran their own courts and some of those courts were unjust. So he instituted a system where
he would employ um uh uh crown justices um judges and they would go on a circuit of all the baronss courts and that their
rules their judgments would override the baron’s judgments and they became known as circuit judges. We have a circuit in America. We have the fifth circuit, the sixth circuit, the seventh circuit,
court of appeals and the federal court system. It goes all the way back to this guy here. And he set up these these circuit riding judges and their job was
to ensure that not just the law of the land was upheld, but that the precedents were upheld. And so if you received, you know, 10 lashes for stealing a cow in
this county, then the same punishment will be given out here. And so that was where precedent comes from or some lawyers call that equity that there is
fair treatment for everybody in a legal system. So Charles Henry II um he spent most of his reign on his horse as he
would travel over his realm. There you see a picture of Western Europe and that’s his realm England um the western part of of of Ireland. Um and then you’ve got the western parts of France.
Um I think it’s rather ridiculous that the French should claim to be their own nation when their king used to be the king of England and France. But that’s a side issue. We won’t go down though that
historical debate this morning. But um he he spent most of his time on the road and the Archbishop of Canterbury was so
impressed with Thomas Thomas Beckett that he said to the king, he said,
“You’re a great administrator. You need an administrative mind beside you. Why don’t you take him on as your servant?”
And at that time the financial minister for the kingdom was known as the Lord Chancellor of the realm.
And the position became open. And at the age of 30, Thomas Abeckett was appointed as the Lord Chancellor of the Realm.
And he was a brilliant financial manager and he traveled the length and breadth.
You know those days, it was all done on horseback. Uh the court would literally travel non-stop throughout the realm throughout the year. The king never
rested up anywhere. He had to enforce his authority, uphold the king’s law.
And Thomas Abeckett went with him and he spent some years traveling with the king doing the financial arrangements for the
kingdom. And uh during that time there were there’s much great social and economic progress within the realm. But
at the time at the time there was a great struggle going on between the state the king and the church. And what
was that struggle? The question was um does the civil law have jurisdiction over the over the priests in the church.
There was a clash. The church said if a priest is guilty of a crime they have to be tried in the ecclesiastical courts.
And King Henry II said, “No, if a priest is accused of a crime, he must be charged in the civil courts.”
And you say, “Well, that debate was a thousand years ago.”
Oh, no. The what happened in in Boston in the late 1990s, early 2000s, where
priests who’ve been predators were protected by the church from the civil courts and treated in the ecclesiastical system. This isn’t a go a longgone
debate. This is a debate that still happens today. Even in many parts of the world today um in the Catholic system,
priests are protected from the civil courts by the ecclesiastical courts.
This isn’t an old debate. This is happening in front of our eyes today.
And so there was a struggle between the church and the state. And the question was whose law was going to be supreme?
As we saw earlier this morning in the presentation, will the law of God prevail or will the commandments of the commands of the church prevail? Well,
back in the time of Thomas Abeckett, it was was it the king the law of the king would prevail or was it the law of the church would prevail over the church
employees and in particular the the priests. And so um the king uh Henry II he trusted Thomas Beckett. He made him the the Lord Chancellor of the realm.
And then in um in in 1162 the Archbishop of Canterbury died and King Henry II had
this brilliant idea. He said I’m going to appoint my finance minister to be the the Archbishop of Canterbury because I trust him and we see things the same
way. And if I appoint Thomas Beckett as the um Archbishop of Canterbury, then we’re going to have a unified view between church and state. And so Thomas
Abeckett had no theological training whatsoever. So, in perhaps the most rapid ecclesiastical progress we’ve ever
known in in in western history, he was ordained as a priest on June II with no theological training. And the very next
day, he was ordained as the Archbishop of Canterbury, perhaps the most rapid ecclesiastical advancement in Western uh Christian history.
And once Thomas Abecket became became the Archbishop of Canterbury, it appears that he had a profound conversion experience.
And he realized that today we have a good king Tom Henry II. What happens if we get a bad king? And what happens if
the bad king wants to impose his laws on the church? And so Thomas Abeckett became a champion for the separation of
church and state as a Catholic archbishop of Canterbury because he saw the danger not in the church imposing
her will on the state but in the state imposing her will on the church. And so there be arose a conflict between Henry
II and Thomas Abeckett, his former trusted um finance minister. And that conflict was dividing the realm because much of the realm was controlled by the church through the monasteries.
And so the tensions rose and one fateful day Henry II asked a fateful question.
He said, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
Now he later claimed it was a rhetorical question. He was misheard.
He was misinterpreted.
He was um people wanted to take advantage of his angry outbursts. But whatever the case, there were four knights drinking with the king that
night. We know their names. Reginald Fitzers, Huda Morville, William De Tracy, and Richard Leerton from northern France. They heard the king and wanting to curry favor with that angry king,
they rode a few nights and days to Canterbury to find Thomas Abeca. They found him um celebrating a church service in the altar in the arch of the
archbish in the um cathedral at Canterbury. And there they confronted the archbishop. Uh they didn’t ask for much in return, but they simply decided
to cut him down in front of the congregation.
And that’s exactly what they did. um they shaved off the top of his head with their axes and with their uh their their
spear uh swords. And we actually have eyewitness accounts to this uh the the eyewitness accounts because this was chronicled in the legal the law system
and we have those accounts. It says there the impious knight suddenly set upon him and shaved off the summit of his crown. That’s the top of his head.
It took it off uh with the sacred crism consecrated to God. Then with another blow received on the head, he remained firm. But with a third, the stricken martyr bent his knees and elbows,
offering himself as a living sacrifice,
saying in a low voice, saying in a low voice, and I’ve lost my place here, for the name of Jesus and the protection of the church, I’m ready to embrace death.
But the third night inflicted a grave wound on the fallen one. With this blow,
his crown, which was large, separated from his head, so that the blood turned white from the brain. Yet no less did the brain turn red from the blood. It purples the appearance of the church.
The fifth, not a knight but a cleric who had entered with the knights, placed his foot on the neck of the holy priest and precious martyr, and it is horrible to
say, scattered the brains with the blood across the floor, exclaiming to the rest, “We can leave this place knights. He will not get up again.” Probably not.
He didn’t get up again. The n the knights fled and horror spread all across not just the nation, but across
Western Europe. How dare these knights kill Thomas Abeck who was well known um as as a good archbishop of Canterbury and as a good national administrator.
The nation rose up against the king and the king had to humble himself and walk barefoot for days in a pilgrimage to
Canterbury to express his remorse for the murder of Thomas Abeckett. Beckett was then canonized by Pope Alexander II
third in 1173 just two years later. This is one of the fastest canonizations in Catholic Church history. And his tomb,
as you see on the screen there, you can go there today in the Archbishop the the Cathedral of Canterbury. It became the most popular shrine in British history
for about 600 years, inspiring pilgrimages and veneration for centuries from all across Europe. Cutting down
that turbulent priest magnified his life, his teachings, and his example for centuries to come. And his legacy lives
on even here in America. Here in America, we have the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty that exists over there in Washington DC. The Beckett Fund for
Religious Liberty is based on the principles that Thomas Becket espoused back in the 1100s. It is a nonprofit
nonpartisan legal and nonpartisan legal and educational institute that took its inspiration from the life and teachings
of Archbishop Thomas Abeckett. That turbulent priest who was cut down by a vengeful king.
his crime insisting that church and state should be separate.
Let’s come to a more recent example in our own history here in America, the brave baptists.
So in the uh in the late 1590s and early 1600s,
the church of England had many papal influences particularly in its worship services. And even to this day in England, an Anglican church, in America
it’s called Episcopalian. The Anglican church, every congregation is either high church or low church. And high church means the service looks and feels
like a Catholic service. And low church means it looks more like a Baptist or a Methodist service. And it’s very much more informal. And so the Church of
England had many um papal influences within it in the late 1590s. And we remember that Henry VIII or Henry VIII,
he didn’t establish the Church of England out of any deep religious conviction. He established the Church of England because he was tired of his first wife and he wanted the pope to
enol their marriage. And because the pope wouldn’t enol his marriage, he says, “Well, I’ll just dissolve the relationship with Rome. We’ll set up our own church. I’ll be the head of the
Church of England and I’ll enull my own marriage.” Talk about moving the goalposts.
So the church of England was not established out of any deep theological conviction. Although those convictions did come later among the the the members
of the church in the 1600s. And because there were these papal influences in the church of England, there arose within the Church of England a group that we that there was known then and known
today as the Puritans. And they were pushing for reform within the church so that the Church of England would rid herself of papal ideology, papal
theology, and papal practice. And out of that group came the pilgrim fathers.
Well, in6008 there was a an English preacher. His name was John Smith, which is as about as English a name as you can
possibly get. Many of the names in the Middle Ages were related to your profession. So this man was probably a blacksmith. That’s why his name is
Smith. If you were a miller, it made you you you were making um um wooden um barrels and and so forth. And so if you
were name was John Shepherd, you were a shepherd by profession. And so many of our names today come from from the from the professions that people had in
middle ages. But anyway, John Smith um he was an Anglican preacher and in6008 he led a congregation of dissenters and
uh in the English tradition dissenting has a long and noble tradition. You have the the the church of England which was partly papal in its theology. Then for
hundreds of years you had dissenting ministers and dissenting congregations who wanted to hold to the pure gospel and not accept papal influence. Uh those
dissenters ended up in Scotland. They ended up in parts of Wales. They ended up in parts of Ireland. Many of them faced persecution such as um John Bunan
who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. And so there was a long tradition in England of dissenting preachers. Well Jon Smith he
became convinced in about608 that infant baptism was unbiblical. And he taught the principle of believers baptism.
But you if what must we do to be saved?
Acts 238:39. The answer is repent and be baptized and believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is if you’re
going to be baptized, it must be because you believe in the gospel. And so uh he started teaching the principle of
believers baptism rather than infant baptism. And this was a strike at the power of the church of England.
It’s much the same way that if I did a four-part series on tithe, it would have the same effect. Okay, in the modern day Adventist world, but believe infant
baptism was the core of ecclesiastical power. Why was that? Because in the church of England, as in Europe with the Church of Rome, when babies were born,
they were immediately baptized. And once you were baptized, you were now in the Church of England or the Church of Rome,
subject to the ecclesiastical authority, rules, and laws of that church.
And you couldn’t escape it unless you fled the country and uh became maybe um a Protestant from the Catholic perspective or a pilgrim father from the
Anglican perspective. Once you were baptized into that church as an infant,
you were locked into that system until unless you made a radical change in your life. And John Smith, he started preaching that infant baptism is
unbiblical. The church has no right to impose its views and its structure and its authority on infants and we should
practice believers baptism. And for this teaching he was persecuted by the Anglican bishops and then he fled to
Amsterdam. Well, um about the same time you have the pilgrim fathers and uh there’s a there is a scale replica of
the um the Mayflower that sailed across here to America and um the you know the story of Plymouth Rock and the pilgrim
fathers coming to America. Well, in 1638 they were dissenters and um they were rejected by the Anglican hierarchy. So
then you come to Roger Williams here in America and he and another man called John Clark established the first two
Baptist congregations in America in Rhode Island. So I think I have a picture of it here. There you are.
That’s the first ever Baptist church in America. It’s in uh Providence, Rhode Island, and it was established in 1638 by Roger Williams. And we say, well,
that’s a Baptist church. That doesn’t have much significance today. But at the time, baptist meant believers baptism,
not infant baptism. It was a rejection of the exclusive jurisdiction of the Church of England over all the babies born in the land of England in its
empire. And so this was a rejection of the union of church and state that existed in England because even to this day, the king of England is the head of
the church of the church of England. And it was a rejection of papal claims that if you’re born into a Catholic country,
you’re going to have infant baptism and you’re therefore subject to the rules and authority of the papacy. So nowadays we say that’s a Baptist church without
really thinking about the profound significance that the name Baptist represents. It really means believers baptism. And John William Roger Williams
established the first ever Baptist congregation in the United States. What do those Baptists teach in the early 1600s? They taught justification by
faith. the need for a personal conversion, the need for believers bapt baptism and solos scriptorera. And they
rejected national churches in favor of a congregationalist approach. And they rejected national churches because they
said national churches always lead to persecution. What we heard this morning from Dr.
Herbs that when there’s union of church and state, it always leads to persecution. And the Baptists in the 1630s in Rhode Island understood this
principle very well. they being persecuted by the church of England in England and then Roger Williams have been persecuted by the Puritans in
Massachusetts and so they understood that unions of church and state are not helpful. So those Baptists they grew
rapidly across the 13 colonies despite intense persecution from the Anglican establishment from the 1630s onward
because the Baptists emphasized the need for a personal experience with Jesus Christ that your faith was not just to be theological. It wasn’t just to be
intellectual. It wasn’t just to be lurggical. Your faith was to be living, personal, and vivid.
And so the Baptists, they spread across the 13 colonies in Virginia.
Those are the five core Baptist teachings there that they spoke of in the 1630s, 1640s, 1650s here in America.
And um in Virginia, Virginia was the largest of the 13 colonies. Um, if you look at a map of Virginia over time, um,
from its initial founding, Virginia went all the way across to the Pacific,
literally, because the charter says everything west on a certain latitude line, everything west of that will be Virginia. And when we look at the map of
Virginia today, we don’t realize that Virginia originally went kind of north up to up the west side of Pennsylvania and all the way across the Midwest, all
the way to Oregon, Washington, and California. Virginia was by far the largest state. Now, this was a theoretical state, but it did actually exist. If you look at the maps of
Virginia, it keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Then later, it want West West Virginia broke off as well.
So, um there’s the map of the 13 colonies and Virginia at the time was the largest of the colonies. It was the most powerful economically and there was
there was an established union between the Anglican or the Episcopal Church and the government of the state of Virginia.
And so the clerics, the Anglican bishops, they had the authority to issue licenses to preach.
And so Virginia had a union of church and state. Tithe was collected by law, forcibly extracted from the population,
and then it was redistributed to the clergy.
And so this was what was happening in Virginia in the 1650s. And because of this, spiritual vitality went down all across the v the colony of Virginia. And there was an upsurge of gambling,
fighting, horse racing, horse racing,
and many other pursuits that drew men away from Sunday services. But many people were drawn to the itinerant and underground Baptist preachers who were
preaching the need for a personal encounter with Christ and the need to be born again on a personal level and the need to set up, if necessary, house
churches to get out of the under from under the heel of the establishment, the Anglican establishment. And those Baptists were beaten. They were attacked
by mobs. They were stoned and they were imprisoned. And most notably this happened in Colulp Pepper, Virginia. And uh yet they remain faithful to their
preaching. And if you go to Colulp Pepper today, go to the Central Me um Baptist Church, they actually have a
small um museum to the Baptist preachers from 1650s onwards. And this directly affects us today as we’re about to see.
And so you know many years ago I did a children’s story at very um village church and I was speaking about you know
after 20 years of marriage I get sent to the shops and I can’t remember what to do and I said that the reason for that is after 20 years of marriage this is
what forensic psychologists called institutionalization. I’m no longer capable of rational intellectual thought outside of the domestic sphere. And some of you men know what I’m talking about
that you need guidance on everything or things go astray. Well, um I I said to the kids, “You need to learn this eight-cllable word,
institutionalization.”
And the men were laughing in the congregation. The women were looking daggers at me. But there’s another word I want to share with you today, and it’s this disestablishmentarianism.
Disestablishmentarianism.
So disestablishmentarianism means that there were some people the Anglican priests and and pastors they they were
in support of the establishment the union between the Anglican church and the states of Virginia and the Baptists were opposed to establishmentarianism.
So they were in disestablishmentarianists.
So that’s a tongue twister you can master tonight. Disestablishmentarianism.
And one of those imprisoned preachers was this guy here called John Leland. He was an abolitionist. He was a champion of liberty of conscience and more
importantly he was a close friend of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and that relationship was essential for what
happened with the G when the giving of the first amendment. John Leland he was he was a writer. We have his writings today and this is what he wrote. He said
every man must give an account of himself to God and therefore every man ought to be at liberty to serve God in a way that can best reconcile to his
conscience. If government can answer for individuals at the day of judgment, let go let men be controlled by it in
religious matters. Otherwise, let men be what? Let men be free. And so, you know,
if if Sister White had written this, I’d say, “Praise the Lord.” But John Leland wrote this as a Baptist preacher, and it’s absolutely true what she wrote
here, that government cannot answer for the actions of individuals. Each one of us must answer before God for our words and our deeds. And therefore, we must be
able to act in harmony with our conscience.
And so this is what John Leland was preaching um there in the 1750s and the 1760s and 1770s. Well, uh influenced by
John Leland, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1777, which was voted in January
1786. It’s an incredible statute on religious liberty. And this is what the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
that was drafted in 1777. Notice it’s close to the American Revolution and Declaration of Independence. It was drafted by Thomas Jefferson. And this is
what the the Virginia statute says. It says, “Whereas Almighty God have created the mind free by the impious presumption
of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have
assumes dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring
to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest parts of the world, and through all time. Be it
enacted by the general assembly, that no man shall be contemp compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever,
nor shall be enforced, restrained,
molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief. But that all men shall be free
to profess and by argument to maintain that’s free speech and free religion right there. Their opinions in matters of religion and that the same shall in
no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. That is no religious test upon people in public office. Carrying on in the red bit
there, it says, “Yet we are free to declare and do declare that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind. That is they’re not given by government. They come from God.
and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to now its operation, such act shall be an infringement upon natural rights.
Now that Virginia statute on religious liberty was uh drafted in 1777 and in 1788
John Leland and met with John James Madison, the father of the American constitution and they met it for a rural
interview in rural Virginia and that uh interview led to the adoption of the constitution by Virginia, the US
Constitution. But then Madison strongly influenced by John Leland um he introduced um he presented the first
amendment to the congress that we have in our constitution the bill of rights that guarantees religious liberty free speech and a free press. So um James
Madison heavily influenced by John Leland’s thinking introduced this amendment to the US constitution that
congress shall make what kind of law? no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or bridging the freedom
of speech of the press or the right of the people peacefibly to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. And so when you look at the
history of the American first amendment and the freedom we have today of religion and the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, the freedom to have a religion or not to have a
religion, the freedom to worship according to your conscience, we can trace it not just to James Madison who introduced this amendment um for the for
the Bill of Rights, but we can trace it to the Baptist preachers that had such a profound influence on him and in particular um Pastor John Leland in the
late 1780s. Those brave Baptist preachers, they endured vilification and persecution in England. They were
persecuted in in Europe. They were persecuted in Massachusetts. They were persecuted all across the 13 colonies
from the 1638 period onwards to the time of the US Constitution. They were st they were persecuted by the Anglican church leaders in Virginia for almost
100 years. They were hated and hunted by the Anglican establishment.
Yet their message of liberty of conscience triumphed and their legacy is the first amendment to the bill of rights as they praise God for those
brave Baptist preachers who over a hundred years in the 13 colonies and before that in England they preached first believers baptism then
righteousness by faith as they understood it and then the separation of church and state and the the right to worship God according to your
conscience. And this first amendment to the bill of rights, this is the foundational principle upon which America is built
because freedom of conscience means freedom to think and when you have freedom to think everything flows from that everything.
And that’s why compelled speech is an attack on freedom of conscience.
Many of you are familiar with um Jordan Peterson in America in in Canada. He came to prominence in uh 2016
because the Canadian government passed a law requiring you to use preferred pronouns. And he said if you’re compelling speech, that means you’re
compelling how I think. That means the government’s getting between my two ears up here. And once you have once the government has the right to compel thought, you then you are no longer a free people.
And so um we see these struggles going on even today with compelled speech in certain parts of our nation and that you
must require you must use certain pronouns. In Ireland just about 3 months ago a Catholic school teacher was imprisoned for life because he refused
to use a preferred pronouns one of his teachers. It’s become a very famous case in the Irish legal system. And we see Ireland they they had Catholicism for
over a thousand years and um some of the abuses were so terrible with the Magdaleneies and the workhouses for the
boys that in the n mid1 1990s there was a huge backlash in Ireland and now Ireland is very very secular and Ireland
voted for samesex marriage and unlimited abortion and various other things um in the 1990s and the early 2000s as a backlash against a thousand years of
Catholic supremacy. Um, and in that backlash, this Catholic preacher, uh,
school teacher has just received a long life imprisonment because he won’t use preferred pronouns. And so these these struggles aren’t from yesterday year.
These struggles are happening in front of us today. They’re happening in front of us today.
The world runs on ideas. And most importantly, the world runs on truth.
As in the case of the apostles before the Sanhedrin,
as in the case of Thomas of Beckett and Harry II in the royal court, as in the case of those Baptists in Virginia and the establishment Anglican Church,
whenever there is a clash between a dominant structure and living ideas, if those ideas are ordained of God, the
living ideas will inevitably outlast and triumph over those stagnant structures.
You can’t hold truth down. Truth will always triumph. So what of today?
So I’ve got a slide in there. I should talk about that, shouldn’t I?
It wasn’t on my notes here. Maybe that was a late edition. So when the Puritans came to America, there was a a Puritan
preacher and just before he sailed across the Atlantic in 1630, he gave a very famous sermon called a model of Christian charity. And the Puritan
vision of America, he said this phrase said, ‘We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. And the Puritan
vision of America was America would be a theocratic state. We would have the same union of church and state as we had in England, we had in Europe with the
Anglicans and the Catholics. But now this America was going to be a Puritan state. And that was what Roger Williams um rejected. And that’s what caused him
to be driven out of Massachusetts Bay Colony. And uh there was there were two visions of America among the Puritans.
Either John Winthrop’s vision of an authoritarian city on the hill or Roger Williams vision uh vision of freedom of conscience and mutual tolerance. Which
was going to prevail in the American constitution? The authoritarian view or the mutual tolerance view? It was the Baptist vision of Roger Williams. And we
can praise God for that today. God worked through Thomas Abeckett. He worked through those Baptist preachers.
You know, God works in different groups in different times in different ways.
And we need to be honest to recognize in salvation history, God has done incredible things. And today, the freedoms we enjoy here in Beron Springs are because for over a hundred years,
Baptist preachers faced intense persecution in the 13 colonies. And they stood up for not just their liberty of conscience, but for their children’s and
children’s and children’s liberty of conscience. So liberty of conscience is a gift that’s passed on from generation to generation. And it’s incumbent upon
us to stand up for it that the next generation can walk in the same light and privileges. So what of today? Well,
I would argue today that we need spiritfilled preachers more than ever before. Why is this? Because the darkness is descending upon our world.
There’s a spiritual darkness descending in our land and around the world. And people who are not of any particular faith sense that this world is going
wrong, that things are that things are kind of winding down and wearing out and falling apart. Whether you look at the environment, whether you look at the economy, whether you look at um the
political system. Um you last night I was sitting in South Bend waiting for the planes to come in. All the planes were delayed. And so I had a privilege
to have a front a grand stand view. I was sitting out in the Laquenta parking lot because it’s free there. And we’re not sure if 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10
o’clock, one of these planes going to come in for our speakers. And in front of me there was there was a bunch of of teenage kids, maybe eight to 18. It was
it’s like um a pack of them. They all had hoodies on and they were going back and forth fighting in the parking lot and they were fighting in the parking
lot and I watched and I couldn’t discern there two groups here. Then there was some of them were just very aggressive.
Um, I think some of them were drinking there and they were bashing up against people’s cars and then the some lady got hassled and they had to call 911 and
like five squad cars arrived and the kids evaporated into the darkness and once the squad cars came back the kids came back again and I thought I don’t
want to be out here with these kids alone at night and I saw there like like where are the parents of these kids?
These kids just like engaging in like street warfare just outside the gates of South Bend Airport. And so we see, you know, in front of our very eyes like
social norms are breaking apart. Social expectations are being lowered all the time. Nowadays, you can’t have any social expectations without being accused of bigotry or prejudice.
And so what of today? I want to make four points here. The first is this.
When the prophetic voice is silenced, evil sweeps the land.
In the story of Ahab and Jezebel, they didn’t just import 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asher and paid for
them from the public purse, a union of church and state back then, but they set about the extermination of the prophets of God. They drove the prophets of God
underground. There were 100 faithful prophets that were preserved by a servant of the king called Oadiah. They were he preserved them in two caves, 50
men per cave. Um, but Ahab and Jezebel were determined to silence the voice of faithful preachers in the land of Israel. What happened to Elijah? Well,
Elijah went into hiding by the brook Cherith. God told him there. God says,
“Get thee at once from this place and go across the Jordan to the river Cherith.
For I’ve commanded the ravens to feed you.” And when the brook runs dry and there’s no water left in the brook, then God says to Elijah, it’s the same command in Hebrew, just change the name
places. He says, “Get thee at once from this place and go to a place where I shall show you to the land of Zarapath,
for I’ve commanded a widow there to feed you.” And so, um, for three and a half years, Elijah was hidden from public
view during the drought in Israel. While while Elijah was hide was was hidden from public view, there was no public
bull work against the onrush of idolatry and demon worship. The worship of idols is and was and will ever be the worship
of demons. And that is why it leads to a downward moral spiral because the worship of demons encourage you to follow your own inflamed lusts. And so
the nation of Israel descended into the grossest sexual immorality. We know from archaeology that there were all kinds of
perversion and cruelty in in Canaanite culture included rape, homosexuality, temple and ritual prostitution,
pedophilia, child sacrifice and murder. So when the prophetic voice is silenced,
when there is no public voice saying thus sayaith the Lord and the people don’t know what the thus sayaith the Lord is, the people are more likely to
descend into moral into the immoral abyss.
Today in our world, in our church, we live in a world of s of cancel culture for
prophetic preachers. We live in a world of dominant narratives adopted from a fallen world. We live in a world of vested corporate and financial legal interests and spiritual leadersism.
We employ attorneys, risk managers,
communications experts, federal healthcare contract specialists, retirements investment account managers,
money market account managers, corporate wealth managers. We see culturally Marxist professors in our colleges. We have woke administrators and we’ve
formally subjugated the consciences of all those in the advent movement to the goals and objectives of the god-rejecting United Nations. All of
which together is conspiring to silence faithful Bible preachers today in America. That’s the truth.
When the prophetic voice is silenced,
evil sweeps the land. Ezekiel 22:30 says this, “And I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the
land so that I would not destroy it, but I found no one.” And God is still looking today.
And maybe when you look in the mirror,
you’ll see what God is looking at. Maybe God is calling you to prepare the wall and stand in the breach in this generation. So the pro book prophets and
kings describes it thus. We read, “So men who should be standing as faithful guardians of God’s law have argued till policy or the church manual has taken
the place of faithfulness and sin is allowed to go unreproved. When will the voice of faithful rebuke be heard once more in the church?”
And in Michigan, preachers are not allowed to rebuke in the church.
So the Holy Spirit is quenched in our Michigan pulpits by the cancelling of preachers who rebuke open sin within the body of Christ. That is what is
happening around us. When religious authorities silence Bible faithful preachers who preach against popular sins among God’s people, those leaders are not preserving the body of Christ.
They are removing the bull work to greater spiritual decline and they are hastening God’s judgment upon a Leodysian church. The next principle we
see is that when the prophetic voice is silent, the people are lost. Without the voice of conscience ringing from the pulpit, an entire generation can grow up
not knowing right from wrong or their left hand from their right hand. God expressed this principle in Jonah chapter 4, the last verse of that book
where God is dialoguing with Jonah. And God says, “And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, which there are more than 120,000 pe persons
who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals.”
When the when the voice of truth and the voice calling for spiritual reform is silenced in the pulpit, a generation
grows up who don’t know what is right or wrong anymore. Let me give you an example. Last week,
Spectrum magazine celebrated the life and ministry of a pastor at Glendale Adventist Church in California who has
been has been in a same-sex marriage for the last 20 years as a pastor of that church. and they gave this this puff
piece write up celebrating him as a trailblazer and a pioneer and so forth and so forth.
And our children read that here in Berm Springs on the internet.
But in Michigan, you can’t talk about those things. You can’t question the structure from the pullpit. Which means
that your children and my children hear see these articles celebrating a same-sex marriage pastor in a same-sex
pastor in same-sex marriage for 20 years and they don’t hear anything in the pulpit or in their church that says this is not in harmony with God’s will. Our
children grow up with the idea that this must be normal and okay.
So when you silence the voice of rebuke and you silence the voice of faithful preachers, a new generation is raised that does not know their right hand from their left hand.
This is the results.
The spirit of prophecy describes it thus. God cannot use men who in times of peril when strength, courage, and influence of all are needed are afraid
to take a firm stand for the right. God calls for men who will do faithful battle against wrong, waring against principalities and powers, against the
spirit, rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. It is to such as these that he will speak the words, well done, good
and faithful servant. Enter in thou into the joy of thy Lord.
God is calling for men and women who have strength and courage and influence who are unafraid to stand up for the truth.
We would that all of us were that kind of men and woman today. with that all of us have the courage and the strength and the influence to firmly stand for what is true.
And so the next principle we look at here is this. When the prophetic voice is canceled, God’s primary means of communication is silenced among his people.
You know, people say, “Does preaching still matter?”
And I would say, u admittedly, maybe I and Pastor Kelly and all the preachers today, we have a vested interest in this, but preaching still changes lives.
Preaching changes lives. Preaching is not about filling a slot. Preaching is not about covering an ill preacher.
Preaching is not about setting members to write. It’s about meeting the spiritual needs of your congregation in the time and area in which they live.
It’s about drawing people closer to our loving heavenly father in repentance and confession to receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Preaching is about
lifting Jesus high so that if I am lifted high, I will draw all men unto myself.
Preaching is about fulfilling the promise of John 6. Jesus says and and uh if anyone comes to me, I will in no wise cast them aside. What a beautiful
promise that whoever you are, wherever you come from, you come to me, I will never cast you aside. And you look at the 12 disciples, Jesus never fired a
disciple. Even Judas, Jesus never fired a disciple. And his ministry was a fulfillment of that promise there in
John chapter 6. Preaching is about drawing people to Jesus Christ. Romans 10:147 17 famous passage says this but
how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed and how are they to believe in one whom of in whom they’ve never heard and how they to hear without
someone to proclaim him and how they to proclaim unless they are sent as it is written how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news but not all
have obeyed the good news for Isaiah says Lord who has believed our message so faith comes from what is heard or faith comes from hearing and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.
Faith comes through the hearing of the word of God. And the faithful preachers, faithful Sabbath school teachers, faithful evangelists, faithful elders,
faithful deacons will speak the word of God because the word of God is life. And when we preach the word of life, it may
be a rebuke. It may be word of encouragement. It may be word of guidance, but it is life from God. And when we preach, we are to preach around
the word of God because we are merely the messengers. But the message is a message of love from our heavenly father. And so when the prophetic voice is canled in society or in the church,
God’s primary means of communication is silenced. Uh the fifth testimony says this. It says, “The minor of God is
commanded, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression and the house
of Jacob their sins. The Lord says of these people, “They seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a nation that
did righteousness.” Here is a people though who are self-deceived,
self-righteous, self-complacent, and the minister is commanded to cry aloud and show them their transgressions. In all
ages, this work has been done for God’s people, and it is needed now more than ever before.
So God is looking for people who will be who will have courage to speak up and to cry aloud against the open sins among
God’s people. In so doing, we protect the next generation. We let the next generation of this is not in harmony with God’s will. And if we silence those
voices, we will have the bloods of the generation on our hands. We have to speak up about open sin because if we
don’t, the next generation will assume this must be okay. So when the prophetic voice is silenced, God’s primary means
of communication is silenced among his people. And finally there, when the prophetic voice is compromised, the
preacher loses spiritual power. So when Ahab had um when Ahab and Jehoshaphat,
they wanted to go to war and uh they wanted to consult the prophets and they wanted guidance. Should they go to war against the king of Syria or should they
not go to war against the s king of Syria? And they gathered the 400 known prophets of God. And those 400 prophets of God were gathered in the public
square and they all answered that God would give the king the the enemy into the hands of Israel. So they told King Ahab what he wanted to hear.
They were prophets for hire. They were financially compromised.
And Jehoshuhat sense that something wasn’t right. So he said, “Do you not have a prophet of the Lord here? Not a
prophet of the king, not a prophet of the system, not a prophet on payroll,
not a prophet for hire, not a contract preacher. Do you have a prophet of the Lord here? We’ve had these 400 men, but something doesn’t ring right here. Give me a prophet of the Lord.”
And there was a prophet of the Lord there. His name was Micaiah. He was brought before the two kings. The 400
faithful prophets in that story were intent on seeking Ahab’s favor, not the favor of God. What they spoke was politically expedient words Zidon to
please rather than guide the king. And so they spoke falsely.
Preachers likewise are not preaching to please the audience. They’re preaching to guide them into paths of righteousness.
We’re not preaching to make people feel good about themselves. We we’re preaching to make feel make people feel good about their savior Jesus Christ and
all he’s done for them. We’re preaching that people sense their need of a savior, their absolute um worthlessness in the eyes of God um as sinners, but
the fact that there is hope in Jesus Christ. And so preachers are not preaching to please. They’re preaching to guide people to the foot of the cross. The Apostle Paul put it this way.
He said, “Am I now seeking human approval or God’s approval? or am I trying to please people? If I was still
pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ. And why was Paul seeking to please um God and I’m not
seeking to please men? Because Paul was given a a message from God and he was going to faithfully discharge that message from God to the people there.
You know, you speak to many preachers and they’ll tell you that um that when when you when when God gives you a message, you have to discharge it.
And sometimes you sit at the front here and that you feel like you’re a condemned man about to face the electric chair because you know that this sermon is going to get me into a whole heap of
trouble. And you know that but you are preaching what God has given you to preach. And if God if you don’t give the
message then the Holy Spirit will ask somebody else to give that message and maybe the Holy Spirit will not visit your heart and mind again on these matters.
And so preachers preach to please God not to please men. Uh so Gala Galatians 1 uh 111 and 12 Paul explains why he
wants to please God rather than pleasing men. He says I want you to know brothers and sisters that the gospel that was proclaimed by me by me is not of human
origin for I did not receive it from a human source nor was I taught it but I received it as a revelation of Jesus
Christ. And so bearing a message from God Paul was constrained. He was compelled to preach that message faithfully regardless of the response
from the audience. Fifth Testament describes it thus. She says, “If the minister’s face is not flint, if he has not indomitable faith and courage, if
his heart is not made strong by constant communion with God, he will begin to shape his testimony to please the unsanctified ears and hearts of those he is addressing.
Will my sermon affect Will this sermon offend the richest person in my congregation?
We’re raising funds for a school, for new roof. I don’t I don’t want to affect those with deep pockets in the church,
I’ll preach a series of easy sermons for the next few weeks. It’s easy to do that.
But if God has called you to be a Sabbath school teacher, God has called you to study with somebody in Bible studies, if God has called you to be a
preacher, whatever ministry God has called you, if you’re leading a lifestyle immersion program where you’re talking about the most intimate details
in people’s lives, speak the truth. You may wash it down with grace and love,
but the truth must be contained in that mix one way or another.” The quote goes on, “In endeavoring to avoid the criticism to which he’s exposed, the
preacher separates from God and loses the sense of divine favor and his testimony becomes tame and lifeless. He finds that his courage and faith are
gone and his labors are powerless. The world is full of flatterers and dissemblers who have yielded to the desire to please as the desire to please
men. But the faithful men and women, you might add, who do not study self-interest, but love their brethren too well to suffer sin upon them are few
indeed. When the prophetic voice is compromised, the preacher loses spiritual power. If you’re preaching to pre to please men, you’re just speaking
words. If you’re preaching to please God, you’re going to preach the word of God. And every preacher has to make that choice before every sermon. And you
preach what the Lord lays upon your heart because souls are precious and eternity is the prize. And so when the preacher’s voice is canceled, God’s
primary means of communication is silence. with a prophetic voice of preaching is compromised. The preacher loses spiritual power. So what as we
draw this to a close, our time is up and we need to come to our conclusion here.
I hope we can move on here. Yes, there we are. Uh prophets and kings says this.
Those ministers who are men pleasers who cry peace, peace when God has not spoken peace might well humble their hearts
before God, asking pardon for their insincerity and their lack of moral courage. It is not from love from their neighbor that they smooth down the
message entrusted to them, but because they are indulgent and what ease loving.
What a what a what a uh a judgment upon preachers and teachers who smooth down messages because they don’t want to
cause social offense. True love seeks first the honor of God and the salvation of souls. Those who have this love will
not evade the truth to save themselves from the unpleasant results of plain speaking. When souls are in peril, God’s
ministers will not consider self, but will speak the words given to them to speak, refusing to excuse or paliate
evil. Powerful words indeed. True love seeks first the honor of God and the salvation of souls.
And that’s what preaching is about.
That’s what teaching in Sabbath school class is about. That’s what being a moral an example in your family is about. That’s what mean men and women uh
if to be the priests in your family is about. That’s what means when you’re leading pathfinders or adventurers or lifestyle immersion programs or whatever program we’re involved in the church.
True love seeks first the honor of God and the salvation of those people that God has entrusted us to our care if only for a few moments.
The Apostle Paul, our last slide here,
says, “If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid upon me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel.”
I encourage you today to no longer be silent.
We can all preach the gospel in one way or another. Some people use words.
Some people use words only if absolutely necessary.
But we can also all share the good news of a sinbearing, guilt removing, sinner loving and sooncoming savior.
We have out in the for there a lot of literature of various kinds. Um uh there’s a great controversy. There’s a bunch of other really great materials
out there. I want to encourage you to be preachers for God in this community in this coming week. Pick up some literature and pray that Lord, in this
week, give me an opportunity to share this with somebody. Pass on the message of salvation in your life, in your sphere of influence. The gospel is not
just proclaimed in the front. The gospel is lived in Walmart. It’s lived in the gas station. It’s lived when the when your car oil is being changed. The gospel is lived in the library. It’s
lived in the classroom. It’s lived as you walk with your friends for a morning walk. The gospel is lived if you stop by Taco Bell or McDonald’s. You maybe not want to do that, but if you do do that,
the gospel is shared wherever wherever we happen to be. And you may say, I’m don’t have words to speak. Pastor Vine,
I say, well, you may not have words, but we have plenty of things we can share with people. I want to encourage you
today to don’t accept that some people preach and we simply consume that we all have a part to play in finishing this work. You may have a prepared testimony,
may carry some literature, you may carry a glow tract. Um, but get in the fight because souls are precious and eternity
is a prize worth fighting for. And when we get to heaven, I want to meet people on the Sea of Glass who said, “Brother Vine, I’m here because you did this,
that, or the other.” And we want to get all get to heaven and meet people on the Sea of Glass said, “Brother Vine, sister so and so, we’re here because you gave me that pamphlet um at that restaurant.
You left that glow tract on the seat in the airplane. you you visited me when my child my my parents were sick and you gave me a book on grieving and and the
hope of the resurrection in Jesus Christ. We all have a part to play. So I want to encourage you today and don’t just come and listen to preachers and
say, “Lord, in this week, may my life be a living sermon for the gospel. May my life be a living sermon. May my life be a testament to the goodness and the love
and the grace and the power of our heavenly father who is able to save to the uttermost all those who call upon him. Get in the fight. It’s worth it.
Don’t be a silent preacher. Be an active preacher. Allow the Holy Spirit to speak through you, to work through you, to shine through you. And God will do
incredible things when we hand our lives into give our lives into his hands. May God bless us as we shine for Jesus with
the liberties we have in America as yet today until Jesus comes again. Amen. Amen.
So we will um uh we’ll close our eyes for prayer before we do anything else. I invite you to pray with me. Heavenly Father,
as we uh draw this segment to a close,
I thank you for the those faithful people over the centuries who stood for liberty of conscience.
I thank you Lord for those brave Baptists, those brave Methodists,
those brave um even that Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Abeckett. We thank you Lord for those brave apostles. And
now Lord in this generation, may we be counted among the brave. May we be counted among the courageous. May we be
counted as men and women who can speak of nothing but what we have seen, what we have heard, and what we know about our savior Jesus Christ. So Lord, in this coming week, wherever we may live,
uh living here in in America or online around the world, we’re asking that you give us divine opportunities, give us divine encounters, bring us into contact
with people, and spark a conversation that will lead to Jesus Christ as the savior of the world. Lord, in those moments, we claim the promise of Jesus
and Mark 13 that words will be given us from on high. Lord, may we speak up, may we reach out, may we love our neighbors
as ourselves. And Jesus, when you come again, we pray that we will meet multitudes on that sea of glass because in 2026, we spoke up for Jesus Christ.
This is our prayer in his holy name. Amen.