Espionage, Infiltration, and Surrender

And I love the theme of praising God for these hard times. I remember a story, I don't know if I have it completely right, do you remember in the hiding, in Corrie Ten Boone's book, and when she was in the concentration camp, if I get the story right, she had lice in her bed where her and her sister were sleeping. Excuse me, somebody can get a water please. And she was grieving over it and her sister said, no, we should thank God for the lice. So I'm not gonna thank God for the lice, that's ridiculous. She said, no, we should thank God for everything, the scripture says. And so she said, okay, well thank God for the lice, all right. Well then later, some of the Nazi soldiers were coming in and they were wanting to rape these, many of the girls that were in the different barracks and they said, oh, that room has lice, don't go in there. And literally avoided it. So we see that through sometimes we don't know what happens. So praise God, I appreciate that burden there. Well amen, well today, we're gonna look at espionage, infiltration and surrender of the troops and how that happens to us. I'm gonna give you some indications of, we're gonna go back to our theme of the marching army in the wilderness. Excuse me. And then we're gonna look at, I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna end today with a historic example of a really, really bad outcome of a church, churches that let this sort of infiltration happen more and more. Thank you, brother. Might not be that good, it's purified, but it'll eat you up. Okay. Okay. All right, so let's start with a word of prayer and ask God to be with us. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for your mercy in our life and I ask you, God, to open up your word today and to show us your will. And I pray, God, that you would give within us that power and the spirit of a spiritual soldier to bring glory to you, to proclaim that you are Lord over the nations, over this earth, over the universe, Lord. And I pray, God, just like we prayed and sang today, it is only by your grace and only by your indwelling of your Holy Spirit that any of this is possible. Lord God, let you be true and every man a liar. And so, Lord, we ask you to be with this message today and help us in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Okay, so we're gonna be looking at this idea of how the church and how you as an individual Christian fall and if you remember from the first message, we talked about when the Israeli army, the Hebrew army was marching in that time period, that slot between being forgiven and messing up again, that in that time period, we looked at it and there were so many elements that came together that made things just right. They were forgiven, pure in God's eyes and we're gonna hit that theme tomorrow hard. They were faithful, practicing the will of God. They were holy, sanctified and separated unto God. We're gonna hit that today. They were victorious, experiencing victory, taking countries and such. We'll talk about that on Friday. And untouchable to the attacks of Satan. That comes in a little bit today too. So that idea, this image that we're given in the Old Testament of this people that didn't get involved with all the trash and stuff that's around them is a message. Recall that idea. Do you remember also the idea of just this sort of patriotic loyalty to the kingdom of God, which I believe is something that God-given area in our life of being a patriot, but he wants it only for him, for Jesus Christ and any adultery with that takes it a different way. And do you remember also that what they began to fall apart was when they got still. I loved the message today or the thought that Brother Tim gave us about the moment that we're converted and then going the next day. They remained in the Acacia Grove. So they remained there, got complacent, they started to experiment in things and that's what we're gonna look at today. And do you remember how seriously God took it? And so those are gonna be something that we're gonna look at. When Brother Tim gave me this theme, and I always love these military themes, you know, I can't help it. And as he gave this to me, I started, I wonder what some military strategy is. So I looked up a few, just a few of the classics. The Art of War, of course, by Sun Tzu, an ancient Chinese warfare book. And the 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene. This is a New York Times bestseller. And the strategy war is interesting. He gives 33 strategies of how that was used in battle and even some historic accounts on how those strategies were used. So I was looking at both of these to see, what can I make some sort of a spiritual analogy to them and look at the ways that Satan attacks us and attacks the church. And so I'll bring some of those examples here and then I'm gonna give you a historic example of a really, a few really bad mistakes. All right, so from the ancient, the Art of War, this one is powerful. If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles. Knowing yourself, let me tell you something and think it, please get this right this week. God cannot change the person you're pretending to be. Being completely honest with yourself, completely honest with God, he can cleanse anything and everything. But the facade that you're playing, the mask that you're wearing, will get you killed in battle every time. And you need to know the enemy. We're gonna talk about a few of them. You need to know what's the enemy for your generation. It's different than my generation. You can't do it the way I did it. You know, I'm a historian, but God gave me a special allergy. You know that? Everybody heard my funny allergy? I realized this years ago when I was doing the remnant here. In those days, you know, you bought everything. I bought all these old books and we were looking up all these great old stories from, you know, all these guys. And as I would get these books to the mail and start reading them and everything, I would suddenly start getting these itches. And I would start getting these whelps. And next thing I realized, wait a minute, I'm allergic to old books. I'm literally, I'm literally allergic to old books. I said, Lord, why did you give me a burden for history and then make me allergic to old books? And the message that I felt was the Lord, He said, because I want you to get your nose out of the past and on the future. So learn from that, but take it to the future. We can't just repeat those old things. We can learn from them, but it's your generation and you're gonna have to take up the cross, take up the cause of Christ and go forward in your generation. And it's gonna look different than mine. It's gonna look different. So let's go and look at this. Another one that impressed me. Every battle is won before it is fought. It's an attitude. It's a discipline. It's something that we both make with that. And he went on to say, victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. Kind of reminds me of the story of the 10 virgins who weren't prepared when Jesus returned. Think of those things as we think of the way Satan attacks us. All right, let's look at some of these 33 tactics of war and think of them with a spiritual application. Number 23 is one I found. And listen to this. Weave a seamless blend of fact and fiction. Think of the way Satan confuses us between truth and things. It says, misperception strategies. Deception is an ancient art and invaluable when throwing people off your track. Misinformation and decoys can consume your opponent. And he wrote here, the false mirror, is so-called this approach. During preparation for the invasion of Normandy in World War II, the Allies developed a significant number of deceptive plans. These included a fake army in England and a lookalike General Montgomery in the Mediterranean theater. A wealth of misinformation paralyzed Hitler's decision, making capabilities, when the actual invasion started, slowed his reaction. So in other words, you can think of different fake Christian movements or churches or Christians and things. And Satan will use that to discourage you and say, look, see, the church is worthless. It's doing these things and these things and it's terrible and it distracts us. It distracts us. Tactic 27. Seem to your work for the interest of others while furthering your own. So this is the alliance strategy. So many things and causes, and I'm gonna look at some significant ones in history here. Kind of wanna get the involvement of the church. Let's get the church involved with this agenda or that agenda or this or the other. And as you get distracted in all those, the church gets off their purpose and into their, and the next thing you know, you're in that. So 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 of this, the different riots and different campaigns and the different things just in the last 10 years. And how the church can get off of their purpose in those things. Penetrate their minds. This was written for a secular warfare. And just think of how even more so this stuff applies in the spiritual war. Number 30 in his book. 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. In other words, just flip things. I think one of the things that you'll notice is people will use our sacred vocabulary and change its meaning. Grace suddenly means something else. Salvation, atonement, Jesus, the word of God. And suddenly they'll use the same vocabulary but flip it around, change the meaning. Have a new meaning, we have a new understanding. And these are attacks of communication. He went on at this point and said, 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 and create complete ambiguity. The art of war, he said, spies are the most important element in war. Jesus had that, he had Judas. And many of us maybe even spies and betray ourself and our own heart. And when Satan gets you from the inside, he said it's because on them depends the army's ability to move. So in other words, when an army was going to go from here to here, if you have a spy, they can let people know. And so Satan works in a way, I think, it's an element of war to try to prevent you from even improving yourself in these things. And then 31, it's the last one I bring up from this, is destroy from within. The inner front strategy. And yes, I think this is perhaps the hardest. Infiltrate your opponent's camp. Once there, you do not need to attack or show your intentions. Slowly take over from within. These are people that are within our churches. These are thoughts that are within your head. They're things that offend you the most. Of course, the famous example of that would be the Trojan War. The Trojan War, they thought was complete mythology until they realized, oh, actually, 500 or 600 years BC, this thing actually happened. Maybe 700. And the story goes that for nine years, according to the Iliad, for nine years, the Greeks fought against the walls of Troy and could not penetrate it. Of course, the Iliad has all these fanciful, crazy things that were happening. But finally, they give up and go home. We're done. We surrender, we've tried, we can't penetrate Troy. And we offer you this offering, this big horse. So they take the wooden horse into Troy. And you know the story. In the nighttime, they come out and start taking it from within. And finally, they destroy the city of Troy. This kind of thing gets us all the time. And it gets you even on the inside. Your own thoughts, your own sins. Satan will want to try to say, you're lousy. You're, look, you can't do this because you're this way, and want to name you things that are not true, and put labels on you, and make you think that you can't do this, or you're this bad person, or whatever. I love how you have all these positive things that are on the sides of these pews. It's beautiful. Satan is a liar. And he'll work from the inside to try to discourage you and defeat you. Don't believe it for a moment. So this analogy again. And remember as Balaam was looking over in that first day, and he was trying to see them, and see how they were not letting any of these things defeat them. And number 23.9, he says, from the top of the rocks, I see him. And from the hills, I behold him. There, a people dwelling alone, and not reckoning itself among the nations. And do you remember what he said was what his heart's desire when he saw that? Do you remember? Yeah, let me be with them. You're supposed to curse him. Yeah, but let my death be like theirs. I want to give my lot to them. The very guy that was going to curse them wanted to be a part of them. And so that's an important element, however, of how they kept themselves apart from all the trash, and idolatry, and sensuality that was around them. Now, was this call for separation during that time period an isolated event? Was it something that was only particular at that moment? No, we see that actually in the Old Testament, particularly in this march into the promised land, that it came up quite significantly. Let me read to you some of these passages. And if you take them for what they are, they're terrifying. They're absolutely terrifying. And I believe they happen. I believe every bit of the word of God. And so when I look at these, I realize how serious God is about this topic. The way we do war changes, but the heart of God has not. Look at these passages. They're terrifying. Exodus 23, 33. They shall not dwell in your land, speaking of the idolatry and the idolatrous people and all that, lest they make you sin against me. For if you serve their gods, 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, listen to this. And as we come to this Bible study, I'm sorry. Ponder getting everything clean, because this is what he says in Numbers 33, 55. Sorry, I'll start over again. 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. We're going to pick that up tomorrow, too. Deuteronomy 7, 16. And you shall consume all the people that the Lord your God will give over to you. Your eyes shall not pity them. Neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. You see, he's continually talking about this trouble of being snared, that there's something that's going to trip you up, that you're going to be walking along, and it's going to snare you. And then finally, in Judges, it seems to be kind of turned over in Judges 2, 3. 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. Sometimes, finally, if we just continue to walk in our rebellion against God, OK, you have them now. They're there, although God, through the Jesus Christ, can still take those away today. So what is the Old Testament principle that we can apply to today? You remember the principle of the scar, hermeneutic, we heard yesterday, that we talked about that Scripture, and all of Scripture, has a purpose for us to learn from. Remember that 2 Timothy 3, 16 says that all Scripture, and he was particularly talking about these Old Testament stories when he said this, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So these stories that we just read about, we're talking, are given to us to prepare us for these good works, and to equip us as soldiers of the Lord. In Romans 15, four, for whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we should patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. For we, through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. That's the point there. Now, as we take those Old Testament stories, and apply them to a New Testament and a New Covenant application, there's one thing that I really want you to understand that does not change, and it's this. Yahweh is a warrior. The Lord is a warrior. He says in Exodus 15, two, three, it's the Moses song, the Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him. My Father's God, and I will exalt him. And then he says, the Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Interestingly, we get that both in Exodus 15 and Revelation 15. They sing it in heaven. It says, and they sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. And this combination, the Lord is a warrior. It is impossible for God to change, the Scripture lets us know. And so he is just as zealous over his kingdom. He is just as passionate over his name and jealous over his name as he has always been. That cannot change. It's how we do the battle. That's the only thing that change. We do, one of, I should have had it here, one of the art of war's battle is if we fight today's battle with last year's plan, we'll lose every battle. We have to be able to change where the general and the different battle plans are going. We were given a different battle plan in the new covenant, but the big scheme of things has not changed. And we have to understand that. The Scriptures that come, and you know them, but let's look at them again. In 2 Corinthians 10, it says very clearly both sides of this thinking. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. Okay, that's clear. We don't go to war in a carnal way. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They're not made of flesh and blood, but they are mighty in God for pulling down of strongholds, casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. In this time period, during the Roman time period, it was very common for when Rome was conquering different countries, that they would enslave the people, they would take the leaders, the kings of the provinces or something or whatever, and you know, and cuff them and bring them into Rome and through a procession. And people would come out for miles to watch this. They would, Tacitus and the different historians would talk about, they would see, you know, different wild animals and different foods and they would bring these things and they would bring this big army of all of these conquered kings and people and everyone would say, truly Rome is great. That's the analogy that he's giving here. And we'll talk about this tomorrow. Every single thought unto the name of Jesus Christ. And that's the kind of battle, that's the way God wants us involved in real warfare in this new covenant, Ephesians 6.12. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood. Again, it's very clear. We don't go to war in the flesh and blood, but we do wrestle, amen? We wrestle against principalities. That's the kingdoms of this earth. And in satanic places. Against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. He does need and want an army. He wants an army of people. So, in that discipline of a soldier, as our scripture that a soldier who goes to battle does not involve himself in the things of this life, so he may please him who has listened to him as a soldier. You know, Antonia and I were soldiers in the army. We were interestingly stationed in Germany. So we were American soldiers in Germany. And I lived at the base, and you know, I mean, I lived off base, but I was American. I spoke American. I spoke, in those days I voted in American elections and I paid American taxes. I didn't even know who the Burgermeister of Kaiserslautern was but I was an American living there. My purpose was there. And that's the way the idea of we as the people of God in the new covenant should have. So let's look at, so what is the way that we should be separated in this world? First of all, we should not cloister into some little, you know, safe corner. That's not what he has. In John 17, verse 14, this beautiful sermon that Jesus was preaching to his apostles right before he went to the cross. I have given them thy word, he's praying to the father, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, as I 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. So it's very clear, cloistering is a mistake that any of our churches or any church has made by trying to keep things safe and secure and all those types of things. He has us, he wants us on the move. And he wants us into battle and to going forward. And so in this analogy, again, we keep coming back to this idea, they're there, but when they just stay there, that's when they lost. When this was a marching army, they were invincible. So I'm gonna take you, and turn your Bibles now to 2 Corinthians chapter five. 2 Corinthians chapter five is one of my absolute favorite whole chapters, and particularly the last verse of it. It talks about this incredible idea of being an ambassador of Christ, and then it gives us this amazing verse it ends with. 2 Corinthians chapter five, verse 20. Whole chapter is amazing. But it finishes the idea with this. 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. We were given the sword of reconciliation. There's a sword given to the governments today, as Romans 13 makes very clear. We were given the sword of reconciliation. And he wants us to be this element on this earth through all times. And he made this, why, this, how do you ever unpack the ends of this passage? Verse 21, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. That's amazing. This idea of being ambassador. Any of you ever been, here's the thing, ever been in an American embassy in a foreign country? You do this, oh yeah, okay, hey brother Jay. So you lose your passport, that's what happened to me, or you need to do a visa thing, and you're an American embassy in a foreign country. It's kind of a cool thing. Because for me it was Sofia, Bulgaria. We were having problems with the Greek visas, so we were coming in there, and we were living in Bulgaria for a while, and then we went to Sofia. And Sofia's very obviously not American. It's very communist, very Russian-like, or various, yeah, that kind of thing. But when you walk into, this is actually the American embassy in Moscow, but when you walk in there, suddenly you hear like American pop music playing, you hear or see a guy named Frank or John, and somebody's eating a corn dog or something, or whatever, and you're like, oh, I'm like in America, this is cool. And that's an image of the church. We are to represent heaven on earth. But marching forward into enemy lands, and establishing an embassy of heaven, and representing everything that, as John Dee always preaches, that the whole world, how does he say it? That the whole world should know what it's like if they would follow the king. That we should live out what it's like to show the whole world what it would look like if they would follow the king too. Not to be cloistered away, but to be an embassy, an ambassador in the foreign land. Now, when we do that, just like what we learned about, you've got to have the spiritual discipline not to get involved with the things of this earth. So, I find in the next turn of the page, 2 Corinthians chapter six, an apostolic trigger alert. First he defends himself about different things and different attacks, he goes, and then he picks up this verse in 2 Corinthians chapter six, verse 11, and he says this. This is 2 Corinthians, interesting. He's been dealing with, any of y'all, when you're visiting I-58 or anything, go to Corinth, how many, oh, you gotta do that, next time you go, visit Corinth, it's only an hour and a half from Athens, you should take it out. And Corinth is amazing because of its place of where it was in that ancient world, and the port there, they would bring ships, would be moving over the isthmus, with now there's a great canal there, and during that time, people waited, and they needed tents, and that's where Paul was needing tents, and they would be sailors, and lots of bad stuff happened, and Corinth was a rough place. And this is 2 Corinthians, and he's been dealing with Corinth for a long time, and he's trying to get into their life about this idea, hey, you're in a place that's needing the gospel, but you're getting involved with a lot of really bad stuff. So I want you to listen, Corinthians, and he gives them this, but he opens it up with this apostolic trigger alert. He says, oh, Corinthians, we have spoken openly to you. Our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, the King James says straightened, or like a straitjacket by us, but you are restricted by your own affections, it's your own passions, it's your own desires that's wrecking your life. Now in return for the same, I speak to you as children, you also be open. So I would ask you, with all the different, yes, I know we've messed that up as leaders and churches and all those types of things, as trying to stand for holiness and all those things, and I know there's been more mess ups than successes, I confess it, I'm sorry. But open your mind, because what Paul's about to say was just as true in Corinth of his day as it is today. And listen to his cry of what he has for this generation. And your application to what I'm about to read to you doesn't have to look like my application, but it does have to have an application. So let me show you. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, he's telling this church in this cosmopolitan area of Corinth. 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? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? You are the temple of the living God. As God said, and he gives this passage, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore, because of that word, because of that Old Testament application, therefore, come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord. He's not asking them to leave Corinth and go off to some cloistered area somewhere. No, he's talking about in their attitude and their behavior. He wants them in Corinth. But he wants them while they're there to come out from among them in their worldliness and the things that they're getting involved with and be separate, saith the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. Listen to this. I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and my daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. The next chapter, there's no big seven in the ancient Greek. The promise comes to that application. Therefore, having these promises, which promises? That if you do this, if you come out from among them and be a holy people, a separated people unto me, if you do this, I will be a father to you and you will be sons and my daughters, saith the Lord. If you do this, therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Notice he said both the inside and the outside. Everything about you, everything, in the fear of God. Oh, Corinthians, there's a million different triggers going on in your mind, I know it. But allow, not what Dean's lines are, not what someone else's line, but let the Holy Spirit take that scripture that he said in ancient Corinth to you today and wherever you're from and say, okay, what does it mean to you? You apply it, you make a practical application. Where does God, where is the Holy Spirit wanting you to apply that application to your life and a life of holiness? Remember, victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. So, looking at the trail of destruction that I've seen, this is what I've seen many times. Young people get discouraged. We get discouraged, you old people get discouraged too. You lose your purpose. You get involved with factions and interdivisions both in your life and in the churches. You start listening to propaganda and you listen to Satan and seduction from media of all different kinds. You end up forming false allegiances and finally, so many people, so many of us fall to apostasy. Now, I talked about the kind of temptations that you're gonna have, I mean, seriously. We're in a world that has all these distractions and you're gonna get all these new things and all this and I said, I've given up trying to just hide the cell phones or whatever. You're gonna need to learn how to deal with these things. You do. But honestly, I'm not trying to take those away from you. Don't misunderstand me, but here's a meme that I kind of made up last night. But if this represents you, if your media consumption is there on the right and that's your Bible reading, I'm gonna tell you this is what's gonna happen. You're either gonna apostatize openly or you're gonna give up inwardly, but you've been trained to be a good boy or girl and you're gonna fake it for the rest of your life. That happens in churches all the time. Oh, they're good people. There's no real life in them anymore. You gotta reverse this. I'm not trying to take away your phones, but you gotta reverse this. You gotta get ahold of this and see that if this is the way it is, I tell you, when I read like the Wesleys and the Pietists and the Moravians, I mean, the letters they write home to their mothers convict me. I'm totally serious. They have such a spiritual world that I'm like, man, I am so carnal compared to those kind of people who had those kind of things reversed. If your iPhone offend thee, pluck it out. All right, that's the way it is. I mean, yes, you have these things that can be used righteously and I know it, but these are, Jesus gave us this command, if your eye offend thee, to give you a very practical application of what to do. Get serious with it. He means it. He created hell. All things were created by him. He says this as a warning. So don't play. We're gonna talk a little bit about that tomorrow, too. All right, so I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna finish this out now with some examples. I'm a historian. So I'm gonna show you some examples of right here in Lancaster County and that went really, really bad by getting our minds off. When I first moved here, I think in 2001, I think we moved here, George Bush came to Lancaster County. If any of y'all was too young to remember that, but he came to Lancaster County. Remember that brother Jay? And he flew out of the Lancaster Airport. He visited Lappelectric and all that. And I was here, the story of my life is going into places and opening my mouth and sticking in my foot. I'm always saying something wrong. And so I'm working at Ephrata Hospital here and all this talk about politics and everything is going on. And I said, oh, we have our eyes on the kingdom of God. We don't even have a horse in this race. We're committed to this. He says, so you guys don't vote? No, none of these Benites and Amish, none of these guys around here vote. No way, we have a different kingdom. And this Jewish anesthesiologist that I was working with, he said, oh, really? I said, yeah, really, yeah. And he goes, so we had a patient there who was Amish. And he said, so you're telling me like he's not going to vote? I said, absolutely, ask him, go ahead, ask him. I don't know what his name was. Hey, Amos, so he said, so you're going to vote in this election? And I'm sitting there going, yeah, I see what he says. He turns around, you better believe I am. I voted in the last one. I'm sure going to vote in this one. And I'm like, OK. Interesting, when I got into the break room, a Baptist co-worker came to me. He said, can I ask you a question? I said, yeah. He said, how does that work? I said, how does what work? Well, if he's going to vote and still be a conscientious objector, how can you vote for the commander in chief and not go to war? And I went, you get that? Our people don't get that. So next election, I'm driving down. I've got to be careful because it's a little too close. I'm driving down 322. I walk into a pretzel shop. And I go in there. And on the paper, there's two stacks of paper. One was a voter registration card. And another was why any self-respecting Christian would vote for the Republican Party. And so I said, since when did horse and buggy Mennonites start voting for election? Well, and here's this phrase. Oh, it's getting so bad, we have to. OK. And I said, well, you know, historically, that didn't turn out too good for us. Well, it is now. So and then this last election, I just had to cry. Parading down the streets of Holmes County was this. Now, there's so much in this, from this young lady holding up her obviously immediatized life and so many elements of that. I said, OK, I've been preaching this stuff for 20 years in these circles. And obviously, I'm not doing my job. Something's wrong. And not just that they voted. That's the whatever here. It's the fact that these people have lost all understanding of what kingdom they're in. And they really do have a cure for humanity, in my opinion. So as we look at this line that's made before Jesus and Pilate, it's powerful. And the early church held on to this. When Jesus stood before Pilate and said, my kingdom is not of this world, the early Christians get this for 300 years across languages and cultures and different ones, just held to the words of Jesus very practically, very simply, and said, that's the faith. When you read the most ancient documents, and they say, explain to us Christianity, they just give them the teachings of Jesus. It was very simple. They held this on. And they had a balance and understood how they were in Rome, and how God has given them the sword, given Rome the sword. And even when that sword, when Paul says, respect and honor this sword, cut his own head off. Nero, who he gave those warnings to. And they had this balance perfect, or not perfect, but in a very commendable way, up until finally, and I'm not gonna go into this today, but a whole thing where Constantine finally was the first to take the church and the state and bring it together. Now I'm bringing all this out as an example of how we can just watch ourselves get off track and get into different things. All the way up to the Reformation, even in the early Anabaptists, when Felix Mons was drowned by the reformers in Zurich, he was speaking, his condemnation was that you are bringing people together in faith, and making a little, and you're seditious to the government, and talked about how they were not part of that, and part of a people that's separate from this world was part of actually what was read out as his condemnation. So, let's look at some historical examples right here first in Lancaster County. During the 1900s, there was this movement amongst evangelicals and Catholics, mostly evangelicals, and revivalists and such in America to outlaw alcohol, and this was pretty strong. I mean, it was huge. And all around, you had things, what was called temperance meetings. Temperance, they used was a word to not be teetoters, to not drink at all. Guys like Billy Sunday here would be coming through, and literally, they have some little videos of him, and was quite a dynamic speaker. Carrie A. Nation would be running into bars with her little hatchet, hatchet whiskey thing, seriously. And it was a huge thing. And so, people started to form these little temperance meetings, and right here in Lancaster County, they started going door to door saying, I know you guys don't usually vote. I know, yeah, yeah, but listen, you guys gotta stop just being cloistered, and that was the point. They were just cloistered. And you gotta get involved. Join our temperance society. So, they did. They started joining and started forming this, and here's a little, I think this is in Canada, and here's a bunch of young ladies in a temperance society that were also part of that. And the German Baptists were particularly into revivalism at the time, and they'd go on with the different revivalists, and they were really getting into it, until this, like for instance, in this guy, the Bishop Brumball, and he even associated the German Baptist Brethren with temperance societies. He said, 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. You remember that tactic, infiltrate them. Change the definitions. So, now he's literally identifying his church with a movement, and what happens? Well, he was getting popular, actually getting real popular. As a matter of fact, so popular, Brumball became the governor of Pennsylvania. And everyone started doing that, but then, as he grew into that, a riot came out in Pittsburgh over some labor disputes, and he had to end up calling up the militia to get them down, called up a different swearing of allegiances in his cabinet, which was never done before him, and eventually ran for president against Wilson and lost. And this whole thing, next thing you know it, you have a very confused people here, that then when we came into World War I, a lot of people who were conscious objectors was because of this, they were like, well, wait a minute, it's confusing to me. I see this happening and that happening, I mean, what are you guys up to? And the church just lost its purpose, it became confused, and then either cloistered, or it got involved with this and lost out a lot. So the idea is to not mix these kingdoms, and when we do, it's bad. And now I'm gonna show you when it got really bad, and it's here. So understanding Nazi Germany is a really good lesson for us. And I'm worried, as I've seen the progression of what I've just seen in my lifetime, I showed you there, that this kind of thing of the church getting distracted can do this. Gott mit uns, what does that translate to? God with us. They meant this, the Nazi soldiers were representing God on earth, and every one of them carried that belt buckle. And the idea that we are going to bring righteousness to the world, and you remember my quote that I gave you, where I said the worst atrocities ever inflicted upon mankind have been committed by men who think they do God a service. I'm giving this to you to understand how we can get distracted off of our kingdom purposes. So coming out of World War I, the Mennonites in Germany, and the Mennonites in Ukraine, and the Mennonites in Paraguay, Central America, were really wanting to get into missions. Some incredible things happened about them getting into missions. They came into Indonesia, were one of the first to come to the Muslims and everything, and were growing in this and everything, but then suddenly this came in. Communism was what they were hearing coming through the northern and all this, and they were gonna fight this, and they felt the home was under attack, and then suddenly this man came around saying, God is the head of our nation, and they got excited about that. So they had a meeting in northern Germany, and said, you know what, we need to give our support. We need to let this new leader understand how the church, we are supporting them, and listen to what they did. They wrote a telegram, and this is what they said. Signed on September 10th, 1933, representing a council that was just had, sent the telegram to Adolf Hitler saying this. To Chancellor Adolf Hitler, Berlin, the Conference of East and West Prussia Mennonites, assembled today in Tergenhagen, Free State of Danzig, feels deep gratitude for the powerful revival that God has given our nation through your energy, and promises joyful cooperation in the upbuilding of our fatherland through the power of the gospel, faithful to the motto of our fatherland, no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now I don't think Hitler had time to answer everyone's telegram, but he did them. For your loyalty and your readiness to cooperate in the upbuilding of the German nation expressed in your letter to me, I express my sincere thanks, Adolf Hitler. Only the ones that I know, the very few stood against this. All the conservative evangelicals, the more Bible-believing you were in this time period, the more you followed these antichrists, historically. That was just what happened. One of the only ones that stood out was Eberhard Arnold. He wrote a letter to them and talked about an embassy besiege that he used in his letter. The embassy, he used that embassy language. He was, he sent it to Hitler trying to provoke him, or excuse me, challenge him, he provoked him, and he ended up getting kicked out, and actually the MCC, the United States Committee, actually helped him get into Paraguay. But when he got into Paraguay, he found they were all the same way. In Paraguay, they were writing this. We, with greatest excitement, we German Mennonites of the Paraguayan Chaco follow the events of our beloved motherland and experience in spirit the national revolution of the German people. I want you to see this. We are happy that in Germany, after a long time, a government that freely and openly professes God as creator stands as the head of the nation. With special sympathy, sympathy, excuse me, with special sympathy, we hear that the current government takes seriously the realization of Christian principles in social, economic, and cultural life, and especially emphasizes the protection of the family. Does that sound familiar? To be fair, they didn't know what was going on. They didn't know that this guy was a monster. They didn't know that he was an antichrist. They didn't know that he was killing Jews. Or did they? Did you just ignore it? And the point is, that's the point. They didn't know. And when we get our eyes off the prize and off the purpose of the church and what we're supposed to be in this earth, you get involved, and next thing you know, you're supporting an antichrist. We've got to keep our eyes on what God is wanting us to do. When Eberhardt got to Paraguay, he walked into a church, you can imagine like this, in Ascension, and he walked in, and right over the pulpit was a picture of Adolf Hitler. And community, what is that, Gemeinschaft, so the community over the individuals, and he gave this, and he actually went up there and started telling them, guys, you don't know what's going on in Germany. Oh, but this one guy who was visiting, he said, a leader riding home, he says, if one lives through such weeks in Germany, one is drawn involuntarily under the spell of the Fuhrer and can do nothing else than confess oneself a National Socialist. When Tonya and I were becoming conscious objectors in Germany, we visited a Mennonite community. It was my first Mennonites I ever met. And I went in there and I saw all these war plaques in there and I said, oh, I thought you guys were conscious objectors. What's up with that? And this guy just smiled. He was a 75-year-old man then. Imagine, he's gone in with the Lord. What was his name again? Hans? Yeah. Very good, she remembers all this stuff. She's amazing, isn't she? Anyway. So yeah, we were in there and I said, so what happened? He goes, he said, Dean, you know, I was this young, I was probably 21 or something. He said, I was a Quaker, and I have on my barn at my house today, I could take you there. I've left it there, a painting that my father put up, painting to vote for Nazi. And I've left it up there so that we can remember. I said, well, how did it happen? He said, Dean, it came on us like a revival. I'll never forget his words. There was a spirit that we just got into. And I think that we have to be careful because that false spirit, not the Holy Spirit, not losing our purpose will take us. Now I'll give you to the worst of the worst examples. Let's go to Ukraine. Who's here from the Ukraine? Yeah, thank you, all right, sorry. So in Ukraine, in those days there was many German settlements all through Ukraine. These black dots were whole German settlements in Ukraine. Catherine the Great had established it this way. Anyone who has a Russian Midnight background came from here, Chartistsim. The Hutterites came from over here, around the same area. A lot of it left here in the 1870s. Those who stayed got very involved with missions and some great stuff, Bible translations and different things. But then when this whole thing happened, it just swept. And I'm giving you this because this can happen to us. So this is a picture of a church service in Ukraine. And that is, anybody know? Heimlich Himmler walking down the aisle. He was the architect of all the concentration camps and all the crazy things that happened. Here is a nice home. Almost looks like a, today is like a conservative Hutterite home or something. And there on the wall, as you can see to the left there, she has a picture of Adolf Hitler. This is a group of fine young men that God has wanted to put and bring. And they were right, a generation before them, going up into the Volga. They were taking Bible translations. Now they're suddenly into this. And that is an SS troop, not just regular German army, an SS army troop of nothing but Mennonites from the Hobstadt colony. SS troops. Old history books on Anabaptist history, it's interesting, take this and say, here's a sign of these poor, oppressed women and these stern Nazis behind them oppressing them. No, no, no. Modern historians are going, no, you need to back out that camera. That's this scene when Heimlich Himmler came into town and those are SS troops that were Mennonites. Here he is, that's the Molochna colony. That's the raising of the Nazi flag and that's Heimlich Himmler. Oh, times are different now. That would never happen, right? I give this as an example. This one here, Johann Klassen, right there talking to Heimlich Himmler. He was actually killed, executed for war crimes from the Nuremberg trials, for joining in with Himmler's design to kill 100 disabled patients. How does this happen? All these areas. There was a absolute propaganda of media that was directly attracting to these Germans and Ukraine. I mean, imagine how Hitler would have loved this. You've got these prosperous, godly, hardworking ladies. You have these industrious men, these German speakers and all this type of a thing and they literally made movies and video and media to go against them. I have a little clip from one of those movies I'm gonna show you. It's all gerbil, it's all a 1930s movie or thing but I'm gonna give it to you. The scene is a church in Ukraine and this old bishop is confronted by this new thinking from this young man and he's saying, you want us to love our enemies? And the bishop's like, yeah. So, and he challenges them back and forth and well, who's our neighbor? Or is the Russians our neighbor and this our neighbor? And then he eventually says, I renounce that faith. It's chilling. I'm gonna try to give it to you and see if it works. I have a little clip here that I found and I think it's just chilling. This was literally a propaganda video, a media directly aimed at converting people there and here it is. I'll give you a little glimpse. Does that work? I'm gonna give it to you and see if it works. It's chilling. and here it is. I'll give it to you and see if it works. I'll give it to you and see if it works. It's chilling. I'll give it to you and see if it works. It's chilling. I'll give it to you and see if it works. It's chilling. I'll give it to you and see if it works. I'll give it to you and see if it works. It's chilling. I'll give it to you and see if it works. I'll give it to you and see if it works. It's chilling. I'll give it to you and see if it works. It's chilling. I'll give it to you and see if it works. It's chilling. I'll give it to you and see if it works. I'll give it to you and see if it works. I'll give it to you and see if it works. It's chilling. I'll give it to you and see if it works. I'll give it to you and see if it works. Wow. Wow. Literally media designed directly to take apart the vision of a people. It's no different today. It's no different today. A little more subtle, much more subtle. So what about the evangelicals? Actually, as we learned through from Bonhoeffer and different ones, the more Bible-believing you were, the more likely you were to follow Hitler. Here we see in different Lutheran churches and different churches embracing the flag, different pins that you would have and different things. The flag going up in churches everywhere. In Berlin, the Lutheran church in there, when you go there, under the pulpit, you get Saint Hitler under the pulpit there, right there in the lectern, and a picture of the Sermon on the Mount with a storm trooper looking on. Scary stuff. One of the most frightening things, he writes in his, it's very interesting, I recommend this biography of Bonhoeffer. He was walking, he's walking through coming from home, and this tower here, the Marbury Tower, is where Martin Luther translated the New Testament. It is the shrine, if you would, of Protestant theology. And he was in there, and that's where he translated the Lutheran Bible. And so it becomes the symbol of that. And he was walking by one day right after Germany took Austria. It was one of the first big battles. They took Austria, and there was such joy and excitement in the whole country that they decided they're gonna change this Marbury Tower, and he said, I saw this. They did that. Literally imposed a swastika on the top, shined the lights on it, and that was now representing their, it took over as their shrine of their faith in Germany. And he's just distraught about it. He reads in his little group of these very committed evangelical Christians and Lutheran Christians that he had there, then finally just giving up and giving up, and everywhere they were going, it was a tragedy. So why do I bring this to you? I bring this up as a very sobering example of something that really happens. Again, the battles are gonna be different. Satan knows he can't trick us the same way. We've maybe learned from that a little bit, but it's just as true, it's just as attacking Satan has not rested. He's a roaring lion. And now we have so many more ways to get ahold of you with this kind of mediatization, with this kind of ways. We have to be soldiers of the Lord, forgiven, pure in the eyes of God, faithful, practicing the will of God, wholly sanctified, separated unto God, and not involved with these things of this world, victorious, experiencing victory, and then with that, untouchable. And I think we can have, in a spiritual sense, a way that what these people had as we go forward. So let's pray and ask God to be with us in that. Dear Heavenly Father, we know that this is a different generation with different trials, but you are a victorious God always. And you have promised us, when the enemy shall come in like a flood, you will raise up a standard against it. And so, Lord, we come to you and we proclaim that promise, and we say, God, I pray, Lord, that you would send the Holy Spirit to this assembly, and to all these that are present, me included. And according to your promise, that when you send the Holy Spirit, you would convict the world, and convict us, of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. And so, God, I pray that you would let us see all ways that we are deceiving ourself and giving ways to the enemy. But, Lord, instead of not just remaining clean, but also walking forward victoriously in our life, I pray that you would give us grace to do that by your Holy Spirit. We ask this, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.