Espionage, Infiltration, and Subterfuge

Bless, O my soul, what is brave, Why should a waltz in silence end? It is He, my soul, that sent His Son, To die as done, He, O my soul, that is loved so dearly. Number 332. I hope we're here tonight because we want something. And we want someone to give it to us. So we're asking someone to give something to us tonight. Number 332. Pray, Lord, to me, As Thou didst break the loaves beside the sea. Beyond the sacred page, I seek Thee, Lord. My spirit pangs for Thee. O truth, bring this day to me. As Thou didst bless the brethren, Shall upon this peace all fetters fly. I shall find Thee as peace, And to obey Thou strove. Okay, this evening, we are pleased to have Alvin King. We'll give the opening here this evening. And then Andy Beiler will begin doing children's class. And then we'll have Dean Taylor finish up our evening. Well, good evening. It's good to be here. I've been enjoying these evenings of Bible study, Bible school. And that was a very fitting song to sing, Virgil. I don't know if you knew it or not. You probably didn't. But what I want to share this evening is on Jesus Christ being the bread of life. So that fitted very well with the theme or the devotional for this evening. Sunday evening, Samuel spoke about Alpha and Omega. Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega. Last evening, Ira talked about Jesus being the chief shepherd. And now this evening, I'd like to look at Jesus being the bread of life. And Jesus said in John 6, I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Now, there were some Jews there that heard that. And when they heard that, they were astonished. And, you know, you can almost sense what they're thinking. They said, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? And, you know, probably they were thinking, well, this man is crazy. After all, we aren't cannibals. So I'd like to read some of those verses from John 6, beginning at verse 32 through 35. And then we'll skip to verse 47. In the first part of this chapter, Jesus had fed the 5,000 with five loaves and two fishes. And then that led up to his declaration that he is the bread of life. So I'd like to read, starting at verse 32. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. And then skipping down to verse 47. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. I'm the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, he dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead, he that eateth of this bread shall live forever. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever. Now the Jews kind of understood, I think, the issue of eternal life, living with God, living eternally, living in heaven. But Jesus here was saying that it's through him and him alone. That they can have eternal life. And they did not understand what Jesus meant when he said that they had to eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have eternal life. Jesus said in verse 32 that he is the true bread from heaven. The true bread was not that manna in the wilderness. The true bread was not that bread that fed the 5,000, but none other than he himself. Well, Jesus was using an analogy here or a comparison. He was describing the close spiritual relationship that you and I must have in order to have the close spiritual relationship that we need to have with him, with Jesus, to have eternal life. Jesus is not a loaf of bread that we eat. But we need to believe in the Lord Jesus. We need to believe on his finished work on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. We need to realize that he lives within us in the person of the Holy Spirit. And we need to experience more of him through reading the word of God. All those things are necessary in our lives to partake spiritually of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'd like to add and to be a good spiritual warrior like we're hearing tonight. So it's only with that close and intimate relationship with Christ that we can withstand the onslaughts of Satan in our lives. Jesus said in another place to the Jews, you will die in your sins because you believe not in me. So the Lord Jesus Christ is God's spiritual provision for each one of us. You know, we eat natural bread or food when we're hungry. That's simple to understand. Another way of saying that is that we eat in response to a need that we feel. Or when we are hungry, we satisfy that hunger by eating. So if we men come home from work and we're hungry and we walk into the kitchen and our wife or someone is baking bread, you know, the smell of that freshly baked bread is hard to beat, isn't it? And there's not much that we would like more right then than a piece of that freshly sliced bread with butter and prepped strawberry jam. It's, you know, it tastes so good and we enjoy it so much. But on the other hand, if we have just walked away from shady maple smorgasbord and you've stuffed yourself with food at the buffet and maybe stuffed yourself to the extent that you're uncomfortable, you know, the smell of that freshly baked bread is almost repulsive. You have no craving for it. Well, it's the same way spiritually. You know, if we stuff ourselves full of the things of this world, the entertainment of the world, the pleasures of the world, the sports, the business, whatever it may be, you name it. And Satan has a whole buffet of things that he wants us to stuff ourselves full and neglect our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. He loves nothing better than that, than if we stuff ourselves full of the things of this world. But those things do not give us eternal life, but they leave us really feeling empty and void. And they can lead us to eternal death. Jesus said, who so eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. Unless we eat and drink of Christ in a spiritual way, we can't be strong spiritually. You know, God has given us his divine provision of spiritual bread, which isn't Jesus Christ. Question is, are we hungry spiritually? If we are hungry spiritually, you know, we enjoy getting into God's word, don't we? We enjoy fellowship with the saints, rejoicing in our salvation, spending time in prayer and all those things. And we can't be a fervent spiritual soldier when chasing the pleasures of this world. We just can't. So it's up to us to partake of and appropriate in our lives the bread of life. Jesus said, I am the bread of life. He that eateth me shall live forever. Well, I think we'll stay. I'll get you to stand for prayer and we'll have prayer. Then immediately after prayer, the adults can sit down and the children can come forward. And then Andy Byler will be leading the children in children's class. So let's pray. Father, we're so thankful to you for your provision for us through Jesus Christ. Thank you for salvation. And thank you for redemption through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Thank you for your word. And we just pray for your blessing upon the word as it is shared tonight. Be with Brother Dean and pray for your Holy Spirit to direct and guide him. And we just pray that you would receive all glory to yourself. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. OK, adults can sit down. Children, come on forward and Andy Byler will be having children's class. Good evening, boys and girls. They have a smaller crowd here tonight, don't we? How many of you enjoying Bible school so far? OK, well, what color is this jacket that I have on? Blue, yeah. Well, I like to honor a man who was a faithful servant of Jesus years ago, like 500 years ago. And he would walk throughout the streets of Switzerland and preach in the churches. And you know what? He got in trouble for being obedient to God. Do any of you think your parents know who the fellow was? Who the brother was? George Blorock, good. I didn't think any of you children would know who it is, but good. George Blorock, he would wear a blue coat. I didn't have a blue coat, so this was probably about the closest thing. So I doubt if it looked quite like this. But anyhow, he was known as George Blorock. And Blorock, I think in German, if you kind of translate into English, would be blue coat or blue garb. So that's kind of what he was known by. But anyhow, his faithful obedience to God cost him his life. So this evening, I'd like to talk about obedience. And as we think about obedience, let's just remember how George Blorock was obedient. And how we also need to be obedient to Jesus and our parents and our authorities. So there's three parts to obedience I'd like to talk about this evening. And, you know, you think obedience, well, that's only one word. That sounds kind of hard if there's three parts to obedience. But really it's not. So first thing about obedience, we always—what's this? Yeah, right. So our obedience should always be on time, right? When our parents, when we're outside playing and our mom tells us to come in, come into the house to help maybe make supper or help set the table or something, do we think we can do it—do you think we can keep playing for ten minutes longer? Is that being obedient? No. How about if we just make it five minutes longer? We play five minutes longer. Is that being obedient? Well, maybe just a half minute. Okay, no, okay, yeah, right away. And that's a part of obedience that we need to always remember to do it immediately. Now, I know sometimes when your parents ask you to clean your room, they may not expect you to do it immediately, but they want you to do it soon. And that's how it is sometimes. There's an exception that way. But when we're talking about our spiritual lives and you're talking about sin, it needs to be taken care of right away. But then sometimes God might call you to something that might not be right away, but you need to still be obedient to the call even though it won't be happening for another 20 years. So it needs to be on time. What do you think this represents here? Obedience, we should always—with obedience, what should it always be? Yeah, happy, cheerful obedience, right? That's another element. So we need to always be on time, and we also should be cheerful, have a cheerful heart. You know, think about George Blalrock and how he was punished for being obedient. Often we're rewarded for being obedient at home, right? So obedience should always be with a cheerful heart. So sometimes you may not want to go out and take the trash out. You know, that's not always fun, especially in the cold weather. I remember sometimes I had to take the ash out from our cool stove at night, and that was kind of cold and not fun to do. Or maybe what else are some things that are not so fun to do? Okay, yeah, so sometimes things like that we don't really like to do, but we should always have the right attitude, right, cheerfully. And then the last thing is our obedience should always be 100%, right, not half-hearted. So say your mom or dad wants you to clean your bedroom. So you want to quick get it done so you can go play, so what do you do? Sweep the dirt under the bed so you can quick go play? No, you don't do that. Do it 100%, clean up the room the right way, and then you can go play. That's 100% obedience. So it should always be on time, with a cheerful heart, and then 100% all the way. There's a verse in Ephesians I'd like to read yet, and that's in Ephesians 6.6. It says, Our obedience should be not with eye service, as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Okay, let's see if we can work on these things this week. You know, sometimes my obedience, I need to maybe work on being more cheerful, or maybe sometimes I need to work on being more on time, or maybe my obedience needs to be more thorough, 100%. So let's remember that as we're obedient to our parents and those over us. Okay, you may go back to your parents. Thanks for your attention. Well, I think our children are learning maybe just as much as we are as adults this week, and I'm blessed by that. Thank you, Andy, for sharing that with our children, and thank you to Alvin for sharing a lot of good stuff about our appetites and what we eat. So, again, thank you for coming. If you're locals here and if you're visitors, we're glad you're here. Welcome here this evening. And we have Brother Dean Taylor with us this evening, and this is our third evening, and he will speak, and I'll let him introduce his subject. Just a few things. I think we should continue in prayer for the next couple evenings, two more evenings after this. And just remember to pray for our speakers each evening. And I want to mention again that we will have an offering. We will lift an offering tomorrow evening for Brother Dean, so let's prepare ourselves for that. Let's be generous. He's done a lot for us. He has a family back home, and we appreciate you being here, Dean and your wife, Tanya. So thank you again, and the podium's yours. Well, good evening. Good evening. So today we're going to continue in the theme that we've had for the Bible school, and we're going to look at some examples in warfare of espionage and how infiltration, how the enemy comes into the camp and destroys the different armies. And then finally some examples of surrender, both surrender in the Bible, and we're going to see some surrenders. And then I'm going to bring up some challenging examples of how, I think, some of the struggles that we as an Anabaptist people struggle with losing our bearings on the direction that we have from our Lord. So let's start with a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for this time. I thank you for the messages already that we heard. We want our appetite to be towards you and not to be filled with all the things of this world. And, Lord God, I pray that you make us that way. And, Lord, help us to have the wisdom not to keep consuming all the junk things that would take away that appetite. And, Lord, we also want to have the kind of obedience that we heard today, cheerful, 100 percent, and right on time. And so, Lord, we thank you for this, and I pray that you would show us your way tonight and give us your grace. Help me tonight to present this, in Jesus' name, amen. Okay. So, looking at this, espionage, infiltration, and surrender. As we looked at, like, the very first night, remember as we looked at that time period when the armies of Israel were walking in faith and active, we saw that they were seemingly invincible, right? Remember that? They were forgiven, pure in the eyes of God, pure in God's eyes. They were faithful, practicing the will of God. They were holy, remember, sanctified, separated unto God. They were victorious, experiencing victory, and untouchable, seemingly, from the attacks of Satan. Remember the image that we gave about as Balaam was looking over and looking onto these people, and he said that they were a people that, he says, from the top of the rocks I see them, and from the hills I behold them there, a people dwelling alone and not reckoning itself among the nations. And so this idea of being a people that are not getting involved with all the different affairs of this world, to be a good soldier of the Lord, which went with our passage there in 2 Timothy 2.4, no one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, for what reason, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. And this is the attitude. Remember we talked about that I think it's my personal feeling that there's something inside of us that God created for us to have this patriotic nationalism for a cause and a people. But I also remember what I said is that God is very jealous that we don't give that to anything else but Him. And so this idea of a people that are directed and on purpose and going together with something is a powerful thing that I think God gives us to the church instead of to the different secular things around us. But then I think you also recall in those meetings, the first meeting, that what eventually got them was the seduction and that they remained in the acacia grove. They just stayed there, no longer active, no longer purposeful. And as they were going, they started to get bored, I guess, and started to be seduced by the different things. And we went into talking about how Balaam actually taught the government how to infiltrate the church. And this is what happened. And we saw their end. And it was bad. It was very bad. As I was given this military theme for the Bible school, one of the things I wanted to focus on this is to look at what are some of the military campaigns or the military strategies that you get. There's a couple books that I looked at. The Art of War, this is a famous one by Sun Tzu that is a very ancient one. And this recent one, it's 33, I think it is, 33 Strategies of War. This one became a New York Times seller. And it goes literally through different examples of battles and showing what the strategies were that were used to win that battle or to win that war. And my point in that was to try to make some sort of spiritual connections. And I have a few of them that impressed me as I looked through it. One from the Art of War, ancient text. And he says this, If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles. The whole idea of truly understanding yourself and understanding your enemy. You know, I'll tell you something about understanding yourself. God cannot change the person that you're pretending to be. Only with absolute honesty before God and knowing truly where you stand before God do you truly know yourself. And then also knowing what are the temptations, what are the things that are coming after you, I think it's healthy for us to understand the enemy. And certainly in this war. He also said, Every battle is won before it is fought. He says, Victorious warriors win first and then go to war. While defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. I think what he meant by this whole idea is the concept that it is an attitude. It is a preparation. It is a sense of dedication to your cause and knowing why you're doing that, that's going to win these battles. And just kind of haphazardly going into battle and different things, you're going to lose. No matter how much you want to win, you have to win inside before you go and have any hope of winning on the battlefield. And then the other one that goes into a few of those 33 battle tactics, I picked up just a few of them. And they're very, I don't know, scary, eye-opening, sobering is the word maybe, when you think of them in a spiritual context. Number 23 of his 33, he says this, Make, oh excuse me, Weave a seamless blend of facts and fiction. So when we think of the attacks of the world, the way the enemy would perhaps come against the church, is to blend together facts and fiction. He says, Misperception strategies, deception is an ancient art and invaluable when throwing people off your track. Misinformation and decoys can consume your opponent. He says, The false mirror. During preparation for the invasion of Normandy in World War II, the Allies developed a significant number of deceptive plans. These included a whole fake army in England and a look-alike General Montgomery in the Mediterranean Theater. A wealth of misinformation paralyzed Hitler's decisions, making capabilities when the actual invasion started, slowed his reaction. So think of that in the church. Think about how you have things that maybe seemingly are looking good and then switching that, and it discouraged the saints of God to have those kind of deceptions get to us. And I look at these sort of as just built-in human nature war plans and trying to get some applications for us in the spiritual war. Number 27 in his book, Seem to work for the interest of others while furthering your own. The alliance strategy. Again, more sense of deception. From temporary allies to meet your current needs, do what is necessary to hide the temporary nature of your business. Undermine the alliances of your opponents to weaken them. I think that this is really significant. When you think of, and I'm going to show you some historic examples of how Mennonites in Europe and such were temporarily used as allies and how it went really, really bad. And this happens in a much different ways. The world will many times want the church and want you as a Christian to be involved in different campaigns and different seemingly good things. But then with that, we tend to find ourselves following after in a trail that can end up getting us burnt if you don't know where you stand and you don't know yourself. Number 30. This one's really scary. Penetrate their minds. This guy wrote this book, not for spiritual things, but just literally showing the schemes of warfare. And the schemes of warfare, number 30 out of his 33, penetrate their minds. Communication strategies. Fight with words that will occupy your opponent. Make them think and try to interpret your meaning. Use actions other than words when needed to make a lasting impression. He goes on on this one. Make a strong front look weak. Feed your opponent with misinformation. Use imaginative and complete camouflage. Make a weak front look strong and attack from another direction. Maintain a pattern with the intent of changing it for surprise. Make the real look false and the false look real to create complete ambiguity. If there's anything that's frightful, and the Bible talks about the wickedness of calling that which is evil, good, and good, evil. And so as we, so many times, the things of God, and as we, as the world gets, throws to its different phases and different things, of things that are actually holy and good, like family, like man, woman, child, holiness, separation, those beautiful things, the worship of one God, the praising of God without, you know, without apology. Those things are looked at as bad, and we must fight against that and be careful that there is an agenda that's made to be deceptive. It's made to get us with their deception. Another one that, speaking of espionage, which I found is interesting from The Art of War, spies and bringing in spies are the most important element in war. And it's interesting the reason that he gave. Because on them depends the army's ability to move. So in other words, if we were to go from this place to the other, and you have a strategic change, or you wanted to do something, it's a spy can go and tell them, and then you can be attacked at that way. And so it's something that is interesting. Again, this deception, getting into the church, getting into your life, and letting those things in. And then 31 out of this 33, destroy from within. And I think how many of you have read C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters? It's a decent read. You should really read it. It's written by the perspective of demons that are menacing the church and all their different strategies of how they get the Christians to turn in on themselves and to fight amongst themselves. It's very sobering. Destroy from within as a strategy of the enemy. The inner front strategy. Infiltrate your opponent's camp. Once there, you do not need to attack or show your intentions. Slowly take over from within. Now that, to me, is like the scariest one. And that's where I brought in the Trojan horse. I think most of you know the Trojan horse story. It's one that just constantly surrounds both Roman and Greek mythology and their whole identity and everything. The Greeks were attacking Troy and fighting against them for nine years. I'll put nine years. Nine years. And as they attacked with them, came on them for nine years, then they said, you know, we finally give up. We're done. So they act like they're all giving up and everything, and then they give this little gift to the city of Troy. And as they give this little gift in the Iliad, they talk about this, and then finally, as they're all thinking, we finally won the war, the nine-year war is over, and Troy was victorious, they break out of this and attack from the inside and take over the famous city. This is a frightful thing when you think of how this happens in the church and how the problems that we have from within are oftentimes, maybe almost all the time, the most dangerous, particularly as a discouraged brother or sister who then loses the faith, maybe doesn't outwardly show that, but then they're just wrestling with this and fighting this, and this just comes out in a way, and Satan even used that as a way to infiltrate into the church. This is a very scary thing that I think we have to watch out for. So looking at this army, when it was invincible in this march, and not being involved with this world, and not being affected by the things, was this an isolated victory, or an isolated, rather I should say, an isolated example given to us in Scripture on the necessity not to get involved in the war, I mean into the world, and that march? And I don't think it is. It's not an isolated lesson at all. Look at some of these Scriptures, and they're so strong that you almost recoil when you think about them in a very literal way, but they let us know just how serious God was with them about how they did not want them to be affected by all these false gods and things that would attack the people of God. In Exodus 23, 33, God gave them the instructions. They shall not dwell in your land, talking about the pagans and the gods that worship false gods, lest they make you sin against me. For if you serve their God, it will surely be a snare to you. And Numbers 33, 55, but if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, then those of them who you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. You know, as we come to the faith and when you come to Christ, it is absolutely needed to get all of those things out of you. And if you're holding on to different sins, if you're holding on to things, these become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your side, and the spiritual application to this is that you have to be very serious about these infiltrations into your temple and to who you are. But these are very graphic and serious commands that God gave to them. Finally, Deuteronomy 7, 16. And you shall consume all the peoples that the Lord your God will give you, to give over to you. Your eyes shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. See how he keeps talking about that if you don't deal with this, it'll be a snare. Later you're gonna pay for this. If you don't deal with it, it's gonna get you. And then finally in Judges, he seems to, just says, okay, you're gonna have this. So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you. And so I think that this is a serious warning to us from the Bible. So what are we to make of these passages? Is this idea of the separation that we read here, is this an Old Testament principle, is this an Old Testament principle still applicable for today? In other words, what lesson is in this for us today? Remember as I read yesterday, we were talking about the word of God as the battle plan. There was a couple passages that I brought up there about how we should read our Bible. And in those, some of the important ones, it's like in 2 Timothy 3,16. And it lets us know a very important principle. And most likely, it was referring directly to the Old Testament, directly to these stories that we just read. And Paul was writing to Timothy, and he said this, all scripture, the ones that we just read, is given by inspiration of God. And is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction, and righteousness. Why? That the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Another one, for whatever things were written before were written for our learning that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. And so this is a way that we have to understand that these events, these historical events that really happen, are meant for us in the New Covenant to still have principles there that we're going to apply for today. So let's look at that warfare. Let's look at the spiritual warfare now into the New Covenant. And I want to bring a principle to you that I think you really need to grab a hold of when we think of God of the Old Testament and God of the New Testament. It is this. The Lord said, in Exodus 15, The Lord is a warrior. The Lord is my strength and He has become my salvation. He is my God and I will praise Him. And it says here, The Lord is a warrior. The Lord is His name. Yahweh is a warrior. Now it is, the Bible tells us it is impossible for God to change. There is no shadow of turning for Him. And if the Lord was a warrior in the Old Covenant, the Lord is a warrior in the New Covenant. In other words, so what do we take from that? I take this from it. That our God is just as jealous, if you would, just as zealous, if you would, for His kingdom and His power and His way. We use a different method of warfare. That has changed. We talked about that. Jesus Christ has made that a different way we do our war, by loving our enemies, by different means. But the same God is there from the Old Testament into the New Testament. It's interesting that the Song of Moses that's read here in Exodus 15, as He goes on to talk about throwing the chariots and the water and all, that Song of Moses is also read not only in Exodus 15, but in Revelation 15. We hear the Song of Moses and of the Lamb in Revelation 15. It's remarkable. And as I think of the Revelation 5, my all-time favorite scene in the Bible, as John is there and is told to look because the line of the tribe of Judah is strong enough and powerful enough to open the seal, he looks around and what does he see? A lamb as it has been slain. And this roaring lamb, if you would, is this beautiful way that you still have the zeal and the passion, the same, but through a lamb with a gentleness. And it's a lamb, not only a lamb, but it's a lamb that had been slain. Powerful principle for us to, I think, to get a hold of. The other thing as we look to the New Covenant, we have to understand as we look to these Old Testament wars and these Old Testament ways of the seriousness that they took it, they took those battles and that the attitudes that they had is that we are still at war. It's just a different way. Now look at these two passages that I'm gonna show you and they're still very strong about us being at war, but just with different methods. You know these passages, 2 Corinthians 10, 3. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. Very clear. We don't go into secular warfare. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but, what are they? They are mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds, the casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Do you know in Roman times when they would bring a captive through, it was a big thing. They would have a whole stage and a procession, and the whole, when they would conquer a king, it was a big deal. They would take them back to Rome, bring them through here, and some of the historians like Tacitus would talk about sometimes days would go by of circuses of showing these kings and these different people under subjection and show that Augustus or whoever has defeated them. He's talking this kind of thinking when he talks about every single thought captive unto the obedience of Jesus Christ. That is a high level of warfare that he's calling for, a high level. In Ephesians 6, he gives us another one. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood. Again, very simple. We don't take part in carnal warfare. But we do wrestle against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. And that we do wrestle against. So what does the New Testament actually say then about the idea of separation? That Old Testament concept. Is that something that we should watch out for and not get involved with? Jesus said, and he talks about our relationship to the world, I have given them thy word and the world hath hated them because they are not of the world as I also am not of the world. I pray not that thou should take them out of the world but that thou should keep them from evil. Now it's funny, it's one of those things, those verses that you look in the Bible that aren't actually in the Bible, this little axiom, we should be in the world but not of the world. And that's true. But we should look at it into where the idea actually came from. Jesus lets us know that we even by spiritual nature are not of the world. But he's sending us into the world, not to our own little country, our own little cloister off some area, but we should be there and not being of the world. So this concept is still very active and living for us. This idea, spiritually speaking, should at least be in our thinking and our way as we ponder this. So let me give you what I think is the most powerful passages that speak about this in the New Covenant. Get your Bibles out, we're going through this scripture. 2 Corinthians 5. Incredible passage in 2 Corinthians 5. He goes through there and he talks about being an ambassador. And at the end of 2 Corinthians 5, he says in verse 20, Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God. Have any of you ever been in a embassy, American embassy in a foreign country? Anybody? Anybody? American embassy in a foreign country. It's a really interesting thing. For me it was Sofia, Bulgaria. We were in Sofia, Bulgaria working on our visa with the Greek work and we had to do something in there. And Sofia is very, I don't know, Eastern Bloc communist feeling, you know. And as we went in there, we had to do something, I forgot what it was. And I went into the embassy there in Sofia and it's like you're suddenly walking into this little America. I mean you walk in, there's a guy named like Frank or John at the reception thing and they got American pop music playing. You see some guys eating some chili dogs or something, I don't know, but you just feel like suddenly, wait a minute, I'm not in, I'm not in Bulgaria anymore, I'm in America. And it feels like that. That's what the church should look like. We should be embassies of the kingdom of heaven. As Brother John always likes to say, to show the whole world what the whole world should look like if it would only follow the king. Amen? And so that's what we have here, this crying out to be this ambassador for Christ. And then one of my favorite passages he gives us in this context, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we may become the righteousness of God in him. So probably one of the most powerful passages of righteousness coming through Jesus Christ and his sacrifice is then put right next to, I think, the most powerful passage of separation that comes right after it. There's a picture I took of, or I got off the internet from the embassy in Russia to give you an idea of a foreign American embassy in the middle of Moscow. All right, so open your minds. The Bible says here in this passage now, turn your page, 2 Corinthians chapter 6. And Paul talks into this section after he gives a little apology about the troubles that affect us all and he gets to this verse 11 and he starts with the Corinthians and he says, okay, I want you to open your minds. And I want all of you to open your minds as you consider this because this stuff when said to a jaded, burnout, discouraged church is like, I don't want any of that. I don't want none of that. And I think maybe in Corinthians they didn't want that either. This is interesting, the second epistle of Corinthians. So there might have been some baggage behind all this but he starts off and he says, oh, Corinthians, we have spoken openly to you. Our heart is wide. You are not restricted by us but you are restricted by your own affections. Now return for the same. I speak as to children. You also be open. The King James says, you're not straightened in us but straightened in your own bowels, your own passions. Open your mind. And then he tells them this. You got it? Open your mind and allow the Holy Spirit to give this scripture to you. And he says this. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? And what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God as God said, I will dwell in them and walk in them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. He packs all of this up, quoting these Old Testament passages and bringing it to him then says, Therefore, come out from among them and be separate saith the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and my daughters says the Lord. And then he goes on to verse, there's a Lord Almighty. And he goes on, there's no big seven in the original Greek, he goes right on, Therefore, having these promises, which promises? That if you come out from the world, he will be a father to you and to receive you and you'll be his sons and his daughters. Therefore, having that promise, do this, Beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, both inside and outside, flesh and spirit, in the fear of God, standing on the promise that I'm going to follow God, I'm not going to get involved with these things of this world, I'm going to be a true soldier of Jesus Christ, yes, I'm not going out of the world, I'm going to be in the world and I'm going to represent Jesus Christ on this earth and I'm going to cling to that promise that I'm going to do this in the adoption of a son, remember, he just got through talking about Jesus being sin for us so that we can be the righteousness of God and in all that packed together, he gives us this beautiful idea of what a new covenant separation would look like that would give us that kind of invincibility that they had there is that army of God and there's nothing Satan could do to come against them, that's the kind of victory that we want in Jesus Christ, that's the kind, remember victorious warriors says this old ancient war book, win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win, so just a little historic example, I'm going to end with now some historic examples that I think, we're going to bring something practical to you, I'm a historian and so I want to bring you some historic examples that kind of maybe bring a little ouch to it, all right, and as I've seen in my 30 years or so walking in these circles, a trail to destruction, people get discouraged, they lose their purpose, faction and inner division, they're listening to propaganda, seduction from media and different things, they end up forming false alliances and finally apostasy, I've seen this too many times and it's terrifying, it's terrifying, and I think of all the ways that the new, what's just above us now with media going way beyond our phones and everything else and all the different things to distract us and like brother said today, just filling us with all the different things that we're going to be able to do and see all these things and all that but yet not have the ways of the Lord. Now, what is it really like with you? I found this meme, I added the words to it, if this is your comparison to your media, probably if you are a Christian you're faking, you know what I mean? You can't fill your mind with all this pollution from the world constantly, politics and media and sports and whatever the thing, I don't care what it is and then have tiny little bit of a wake up or something and every now and then, this is the kind of thing that will eventually make you either give up outwardly or give up inwardly and fake it for the rest of your life and it's scary because it's getting so much easier to get a hold of. Do you know, I venture to say that about everyone older than me in this room, you can remember a time that your pastors and your fathers and all the churches, every single church that you would have been related to around here, your fathers and pastors would have went to jail to not having a TV in the house. If the military would say, you're gonna have to have a TV in your house, they would say, we're not having a TV in our house, we're going to jail. There would be no question and yet now, we have these cell phones and different things and all that just totally infiltrating us, just in that generation. Remember, when my oldest son was born, the internet did not even exist. Somebody would have said internet, they'd say what? It didn't even exist and now from that time in my life and my children, all this has happened. God give us grace to know how to deal with it. So, I say, if your iPhone offend thee, pluck it out. We have to know what's real in our life and what our genuine things are. So, I'm gonna give you a big story examples. All right, I'll give you. How media and the different things can attract. When I first got here to Lancaster County in 2001, that was in 2001, I remember, it's when, remember when George Bush came through here and landed in the Lancaster Airport? Y'all remember that? He went to lap electric and all that years ago. I was working at Ephrata Hospital and I was talking to this Jewish anesthesiologist that I was working with and he was talking about voting and Anabaptists and he said, so you guys don't vote? I said, no, we don't get involved with this world. He said, what? You mean you don't, you guys don't vote? I said, no sir and I was just new in Lancaster County. So, he said, I said, no, so like you're saying our patient here who was an Amish man, he said, so he wouldn't vote? I said, no way, an Amish guy? Never. So, he looks over, he says, I don't know what his name was, Amos, hey Amos, are you planning on voting in this election? It was when this was going on right here. He looked over, he said, you bet I am. I voted in the last election, I'm certainly gonna vote in this one and I was just mortified. It's funny, a Baptist co-worker came to me in the break room and said, oh, that's weird. So, if you guys are gonna vote for the commander-in-chief, then how would you continue to be conscientious objector? And I said, you get that? I wish our people got that. Next election, I was down the street, I usually play this places they don't actually know where this is, but anyway, I was down the street and I went into a pretzel shop and as I was pretzel shop, there was two papers, one a voter registration card and the other why any self-respecting Christian would vote for the Republican Party. And so, I said, when did conservative Anabaptists start voting? Well, it's time, things have got so bad, we have to. Well, there's, I want you to understand that the subtleties and then this, this was our last election. I saw this and there's so much wrong on this picture that I was just devastated as this parade went through, I think it was Holmes County, with the smartphone touted up there, the different flags with all that represents and the different politics and all that was coming through and I felt, I've been preaching the non-resistance story for probably 20 years, at least 15 around these parts and I said, okay, I have failed. I did not get my message across that this kind of thing can still happen in this election and this kind of stuff, and there's again, you start looking at this, there's so much part of that that is just mediatized from one end to the other. This is an example of infiltration into our camp, infiltration. Jesus before Pilate said, my kingdom is not of this world. If they were of this world, then my people would fight, but for now, now, it's not from this world and so, you look at the early church, the early church stood under, stood the balance between the Romans 13 and what they should give to the government and what they reserved to God and they knew that the teachings of Jesus were something they would keep. This, as probably most of you know, was then destroyed in the 300s, not destroyed, but it was confused in the 300s by Constantine mixing the church and the world, but since then, the pilgrim church has existed all up until the time of the Reformation and the Anabaptists when they were starting, one of the things that they were accused of when Felix Mons was being killed was that you were, that you were teaching these seditious doctrines and upsetting the peace of the government because of the way they were trying to gather a people to themselves and be in faith. This idea is seditious to the ways of this world and let me give you one more historic example that's chilling just so I can hopefully catch your attention that we've got to make sure we keep our eyes on the blueprint which is the words of Jesus Christ, the whole scriptures. Let me give you an example of how all this politics always continues to affect us. So during the early 1900s, there was a movement within America to try to outlaw alcohol. This seemed to be a good thing, right? What self-respecting Christian wouldn't get involved with this? So right through here in Lancaster County, you had lots of these different temperance societies that got together and had meetings and then said, we can do this. We can literally go to the government and outlaw alcohol. And so you had guys like Billy Sunday and this that was campaigning this all over the place. You had this young lady, Carrie A. Nation, who would then be famous for coming in and hatcheting different bottles of things and finally they started knocking on doors right here and probably up and down this street saying, I know you guys don't vote. But you've got to now. And finally getting people into the politics. So we started. Here's a Mennonite temperance society. And another one of these fine ladies signing up Mennonites for the temperance society. And finally they started getting into it. The German Baptists even more so. They were more involved with the revivalism and Billy Sunday and the different things. And you had this bishop, Brumbaugh, who then got more and more involved in it. And he wrote in his own history of the German Baptist people, temperance is a time-honored and Bible-sanctioned principle. The church from its beginning has refused to allow any member to engage in the liquor traffic, to drink intoxicants, or to use tobacco. The oldest temperance society in the country is the Church of the German Baptist Brethren. And he literally identifies himself now with a political cause. Again, remember that strategy that we read about? Kind of flip things. Act like you're an ally and then change. Well, he raised in politics, started getting more and more popular. Next thing you know, right here in the fine state of Pennsylvania, Brumbaugh becomes the governor of Pennsylvania. He becomes the governor of Pennsylvania. And not only that, the inevitable happened. As he did this, and he was elected the governor here, the, excuse me, in Pittsburgh, they had a riot over some workers' rights. And he had to call in a militia to knock them down. And he even had them all swear oaths of allegiance, and he was running for president and trying to even run for presidency after that. He didn't win the presidency. But this mixing of the kingdom then finally came to World War II. Brumbaugh, it was a big upset with the German Baptists. They didn't know quite what to do with him. He ended up going to Philadelphia, and there was some different things that happened after that. The Hitler thing is one that I want to give the most chilling, because it's not just the Mennonites, but all the conservative Christians, and then I'm going to finish. I'll be done. But this one, I hope to make an impression that you'll understand the danger of this. Coming up past World War I, the Mennonites in northern Germany and in Ukraine, and all the different German-speaking areas were getting more and more involved with the different politics. They were reading the newspaper. They were reading the evangelical ideas of the end times and all of this, and all that media was just whipping them up and making them all very involved in the politics of the world of their time. And so this guy was really, I mean, he says, God with us. Gott mit uns. This is a guy who's standing for values, and we need to get behind him. As I said the other night, the worst atrocities ever inflicted upon mankind have been committed by men who think they do God a service. So the Mennonites started getting very involved with this. We've got to support them, and this is what they finally said, you know what, we're going to have a conference, and we're going to send this guy a telegram just to show him how much we support him, and this is what they said. The telegram written September 10th, 1933, representing the sentiments of the church council that had just taken place, read this. To Councilor Adolf Hitler of Berlin, the Conference of East and West Prussian Mennonites, assembled today in Tergenhagen, Free State of Danzig, feel deep gratitude for the powerful revival that God has given our nation through your energies and promises joyful cooperation in the up-building of our fatherland through the power of the gospel, faithful to the model of our forefathers, no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid which is in Jesus Christ. And I'm sure that Hitler didn't have time to write back every telegraph he did, but to the Mennonites he did. For your loyalty and your readiness to cooperate in the up-building of the German nation expressed in your letter to me, I express my sincere thanks, Adolf Hitler. It's disturbing. The only ones that really stood up was Eberhard Arnold, a first generation Anabaptist who was studying the communities in this and actually ended up starting the Bruderhof. He wrote a letter to Hitler saying you guys are wrong and rebuked him and he ended up being ran out of the country. Actually the Mennonites Central Committee got him into Paraguay, but when he got into Paraguay he realized that down there the German speaking ones were saying we're getting involved in it too. They wrote a telegram and also said, with greatest excitement we German Mennonites of the Paraguayan Chaco follow the events in our beloved motherland and experience in spirit the national revolution of the German people. We are happy that in Germany after a long time, watch out for this, a government that freely and openly professes God as creator stands as the head of the nation with special sympathy we hear that the current government takes seriously the realization of Christian principles and social, economic, and cultural life and especially emphasizes the protection of the family. Does that sound familiar? Ah, I didn't say it. When Eberhard finally got to Paraguay he walks into the first church there in the capital, walks into a church just like this and right there over the main pulpit was a picture of Adolf Hitler. He couldn't believe it. He started preaching to them and said, do you realize what you're doing that I just left Germany because of this and tried to have them see what was going on. It gets worse. Ukraine. So in the Ukraine, in Ukraine, the dots are the German speaking sections in pre-World War II. Lots of German settlements in this area and so particularly over here is where most of your Russian Mennonites and the Hutterites would come from and this was a place that directly received the propaganda of the German Nazis. I mean imagine God fearing, German speaking, holy, industrious, wealthy. This attracted the Nazis but how, what were the people going to do? Were they well grounded in their faith? Did they have their eyes on their army and their prize in following God or what did they do with these different propagandas? Well, this is a picture of Heimlich Himmler, the guy who basically architect of the atrocities that the Nazis did walking through the church in Torditsa Colony, the Mennonites. Here's a Mennonite home with a picture of Adolf Hitler. Here we have in the, this is from Hobstadt Colony, an entire regiment of SS troops of nothing but Mennonites. Here we have what the old history books said was the obvious ideas of the tyranny of the SS over the poor Mennonites that were there. Recent new historians are going, I wish it was. These are Mennonite SS troops at this scene of welcoming Heimlich Himmler when he came into town because this is the raising of the Nazi flag in the Mlachna Colony and that's Heimlich Himmler. How does this happen? Step by step of losing our way. This guy whose name was Johann Klassen in the Hobstadt was finally put to death after the Nuremberg Trials for joining in the killing of a hundred disabled patients. There he is with Heimlich Himmler, the guy in the white. Now, to be fair, they repented of this and saw this. They didn't know. They didn't know that Hitler was doing all that stuff, but that's the point. You just suddenly, remember the themes of war and how it tricks us and thinks we're allies and suddenly uses our language and suddenly next thing you know, yeah, I can get involved with this and we get our eyes on the different media and the different things that attract us and next thing you know it, you're supporting an Antichrist. They directly made movies and propaganda just to come to get the Mennonites in Ukraine. I'm going to show you. I hope it works. I'm going to tell you what it says because it's too, it's an old video. I have just a tiny clip. They literally made a movie of going into the Russian Mennonite community and where this newly enlightened wannabe Nazi is arguing with his bishop about how stupid and old fashioned the faith is that they had and so he begins to, he eventually screams out then I renounce that faith and let me give this to you and hopefully I can make it work. Here we go. Let me see. You who speak German can maybe get a hold of this. Let's see if it works. You who speak the same language you are my neighbors. No, all people are your neighbors. Even those who stole our horses, who rob us, who imitate our women. Yes, even those. Then that is not the right faith. It is our faith. It was just a propaganda video that they made to get into the minds of the German people that were there in Ukraine Ukraine to get them to renounce this this faith and to join the Nazi cause Chilling absolutely chilling now real quick. Well, was that just a Mennonite mistake? No, actually if you look at and look into it Any of your conservative Christians went this way the more conservative Christian you were the more you went It wasn't just a minute. I the minutes actually repented of this publicly I don't know if the evangelicals ever did here is a picture of a Lutheran Church the different things that they would have of mixing the religion. There's another one of Of a church done in this way in Berlin the Lutheran Church. They have st. Adolf under the pulpit there and This one as you can see a little better there from the lectern Or the here you have a scene from the Sermon on the Mount with a Nazi stormtrooper added in That's how much they got into it and and one of the perhaps the most chilling things as I read in Bonhoeffer's biography that this This tower here. The Marburg Tower is where Martin Luther translated the Bible just got a few more slides and I'm done This is where he translated the Bible. It is the icon or the I don't know shrine of Protestant Germany, this is where Lutheran, you know, this is where this is it and he was walking by it says in his biography from somewhere after the Germans had attacked Austria and there was such joy and such Praise of what was going on that they took this famous tower and did this to it What happens to the people of God? So I encourage you all As we look at these things. Why did I bring these things to us? I I am wanting us to Take a very good look at our principles that we stand on I want us to to realize that there are many ways that the enemy is Constantly trying to get at us and it's purposeful It is directed and as as you can see we make mistakes why I again I claim I The Anabaptist heritage is not just because I think that we've always done things, right? I don't want to repeat these mistakes Let's learn from a heritage and the good things and the things that we've done wrong and in this generation Let's march forward Without those distractions keeping our eyes on the prize and glorifying God and not any of these things of the world Let's pray and then I'm going to hand it over to brother for a song. Let's pray Dear Heavenly Father. I thank you Lord for your grace and all that you give to us and I pray God Please give us the wisdom the grace the understanding and the discernment to keep our eyes on only on you and not to fall to these things of all the different things that wants to distract us and Discourage us and to get us down and Lord Raise up a people when the enemy has come in like a flood you will raise up a standard against it We trust that promise in Jesus name. Amen I I I Do