Y'all ready to get both sides angry today? I need to go to a counselor because I love getting everybody mad. I don't know why.
What is that about me? I love getting everybody aggravated. And we're going to do that today. And I'm going to reiterate something I've said numerous times. One political party is not going to bring us back to God. That's not the job of political parties. Revival begins not in the White House, but God's house. And our hope is not found on Capitol Hill, it's found on Calvary's Hill. And so when I say what I say today, you need to understand, I am not saying one party is going to bring us into the promised land.
That ship has sailed. You saw that Monday night, if you saw the Republican National Convention close out their first night by having a Sikh close out by praying to the demon god Vayaguru on Monday night. Don't tell me the Republican Party is going to bring us back to God.
It doesn't work that way. We start in the book of Daniel. And the book of Daniel is not a blueprint on how to bring a nation back to God. The book of Daniel is about how to stand strong for God in a pagan generation.
You see the difference? We can go back to 2 Chronicles, and my people called by my name, let's bring the nation. That's not my goal today. My goal is to equip God's people to be Daniel's in a Babylonian pagan generation. And we start our study of the book of Daniel by going to Daniel 1, verse 1. And it says, in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, or modern day Iraq, to the house of his God, and brought the vessels into the treasury of his God.
Let me give you the background. This king Jehoiakim, verse 1, his father was a man named Josiah. Have you ever heard of Josiah in the Bible? Josiah was a good man. In fact, he was the first good king to sit on the throne in 57 years.
He became king when he was eight years old. And they found a copy of the Bible that had been kind of stored away, and he started reading it. He dusted it off and read it, and he started tearing his clothes. He said, our nation is not following this book.
And from now on, we're going to do our nation this way. And there was a revival in Judah like the world has never seen. God blessed them, God protected them, because they went back and started doing it the Bible way. And so Josiah dies, and after he dies, there's some turbulence, and his son Jehoiakim ends up on the throne at age 25. And he and the nation of Judah were wicked, wicked, wicked people. Where his father had honored the word of God, Jehoiakim, in verse 1, says, we're going to do things differently around here.
And in fact, he takes the book of Jeremiah, the Bible, he sits by a fire, and he takes a knife, and he chops up the Bible, and he burns it on the fire. It went from the Josiah generation to the Jehoiakim generation. And as you look at Daniel 1, 1 through 2, you see a progression, you see a pattern that I think we might be seeing today.
First part of that progression is the generation of Josiah. That's a nation that is run on biblical principles. Listen to me, our founding fathers were not all Christian.
You had DSG, they were all over the place. But they all had a biblical worldview and a sense of biblical morality. Even though not all of them were Christians, there was this Josiah generation that respected the word of God and honored the word of God, and the word of God shaped their worldviews.
Does that make sense? Mormons are not Christian, but Mormons do have a Josiah worldview of things like marriage and sexuality. So I want you to understand this, not everybody who lived in the Josiah generation followed the word of God, but there was this biblical worldview that shaped life and nation and morality. That's the Josiah generation. That generation gave way to the generation of Jehoiakim that says, we don't like the Bible, we don't like this antiquated book. We want to do it our way. Metaphorically, the Jehoiakim generation takes their knife and chops up the word of God and burns it. The Jehoiakim generation is always followed by the generation of judgment. Romans 1-28 says, at some point, God says to a society, a nation, I'm giving you over. You want to do it your way?
Fine, you can do it your way. The society begins to collapse and they come under the judgment of God. And Daniel 1 verses 1-2 talks about that generation of judgment. Do you understand the progression? Generation of Josiah gives way to the generation of Jehoiakim, which gives way to the generation of judgment.
And again, I think we're seeing that same pattern in America. We are now currently in a shift from the Josiah generation right here in America. We are now in a shift from the Josiah generation to the Jehoiakim generation. And we might be hurdling to the final generation, which is the generation of judgment. Let me give you about six, maybe seven ways that the Josiah generation is different than the Jehoiakim generation.
For example, this is just a little snapshot of what I'm talking about. The posting of the Ten Commandments, you know, that started back up again. Legislators in Louisiana and was at Arkansas, we got to post the Ten Commandments in our schools. Because the Josiah generation says our society was so much more stable when we had that. And our society was founded on that Josiah worldview. The Jehoiakim generation says, no, we don't want the Ten Commandments.
Freedom of religion, separation of church and state. Do you see the difference between the Josiah generation and the Jehoiakim generation? Y'all remember Chuck Colson? Chuck Colson, great Christian thinker.
He had been on Nixon's staff before he got saved. Chuck Colson said years ago, I went to this inner city school and met the principal there. And the principal's a big liberal. He's so proud that I'm the one that single-handedly took the Ten Commandments off the walls of this school. When I came in, there were the Ten Commandments. I said, separation of church and state. We're taking it down.
We took it down. He said, I was proud of that. He was proud of that. And he said, later on in the day, we were talking and I asked him how things are going at school. He said, well, you know, it's crazy. Here's what he said. He said, our kids are stealing everything. You can't leave anything. Our kids are stealing left and right.
I've never seen anything like it. Kids steal stuff. But he said, Chuck, this is going to a weird level. Our kids in school are stealing everything.
Do you have any advice? Chuck Colson said, have you ever thought about putting a sign on the wall that says, thou shalt not steal? Well, that's the difference between that Josiah generation and the Jehovah Kim generation. There's a difference when it comes to gender. The Josiah generation had a very clear view of gender.
It's binary. Male and female. That's a Josiah worldview. The Jehovah Kim generation comes along and says, we're throwing that out the window.
As of 2014, Facebook has 58 gender options now. I don't know if you saw this a few weeks ago at the Juneteenth celebration at the White House. Did y'all see this? Well, President Biden is just standing there.
Two men down is a tall bearded man in a mauve sequined dress. Did you see that? 30 years ago, we would say, that man's mentally ill and he probably shouldn't be standing next to the President of the United States. Now we're expected to clap and say, that is beautiful. That's wonderful.
A tall man in a bearded beard with a sequined dress on is dancing next to the President of the United States. That is so beautiful. Do you see the difference between the Josiah generation and the Jehovah Kim generation? That there's a difference when it comes to things like abortion. Look, there's always been abortion.
It's not anything new. But the Josiah generation, even though they understood the reality of abortion, the Josiah generation says abortion is not good. It's the taking of human life. Even if members of that Josiah generation had abortions themselves, it was understood that's not a good thing. The Jehovah Kim generation has now come along and said, it is a good thing.
You need to be proud of it. It's almost a sacrament among the Jehovah Kim generation. That's why you have people like the Catholic pro-lifer, Mark Hooke, who recently had a SWAT team of 25 officers arrest him in front of his children because of his pro-life activities. Now, he was later on acquitted. But what happened? The Jehovah Kim generation came against a representative of the Josiah generation. I don't know if you saw this on WRAL last week. WRAL reported that at Fort Bragg.
Fort Bragg. They did a presentation on terrorist groups. The National Right to Life, a pro-life group, was presented as a potential terrorist group. What's going on? The Josiah generation is giving way to the Jehovah Kim generation.
That's what's going on. Children. There's always been pedophilia.
Pedophilia is horrible, it's bad, but it's always happened. But the Josiah generation said, kids are off limits. They're off limits.
They're off limits. Let's leave them out of the social re-engineering stuff. The Jehovah Kim generation is coming along and they're castrating our children. They're chopping off their breasts in the name of some weird transgender ideology.
You see the difference? The shift from the Josiah generation to the Jehovah Kim generation. And even Europe now, did you know this? Even Europe has started to back off on this transgender reassignment stuff for kids. Did you know that? And they're now looking at us, Americans, and they're saying, you guys are weird.
When Europe calls you weird, you know you're weird, okay? But that's the difference between that Josiah generation and the Jehovah Kim generation. You see the difference in world view when it comes to masculinity. The Josiah generation celebrated masculinity. Did masculinity sometimes go off the rails? Absolutely. Did men go crazy sometimes?
Absolutely. But that Josiah generation understood true biblical masculinity, strength, and courage was something to be celebrated. That's the Josiah generation. The Jehovah Kim generation hates masculinity. Whether it's Taylor Swift yelling blank the patriarchy at her concerts or Evangelicals teachers teaching that men don't lead the church and family, the Jehovah Kim generation hates masculinity. And that's what we saw last week. A hundred years ago, everybody, Republican, Democrat, would have celebrated a man getting shot, standing up, raising his fist, and saying fight.
They would have celebrated that a hundred years ago. I watched CNN, I watched MSNBC, and I watched ABC talking about Trump saying fight. That's not very nice. I can't believe he said that. I'm telling you something, church.
A man just about got his head blown off, he's shot in the ear, a supporter dies, and you're upset that he said fight? Do you know how twisted that is? But that's the shift between the Josiah generation and the Jehovah Kim generation.
And I could go on and on. Gay marriage, the Josiah generation understood marriage was between a man and a woman. The Jehovah Kim generation says love is love. Anybody should be able to marry anybody. When somebody asks me what my view on gay marriage is, do you know what I'm saying now? When they ask me, what's your view on gay marriage?
Here's what I'm saying now. My view on gay marriage is the same thing as Barack Obama's view of gay marriage. Do you know when Barack Obama ran for president? He said this isn't right, gay marriage is not right, marriage is between a man and a woman. I'm not saying that to bash Obama, I'm saying this. Do you know how quickly this thing has shifted from the Josiah generation to the Jehovah Kim generation?
And so let me throw this one out. The race issue, the Josiah generation did not always get the race issue right. In fact, the Josiah generation in America failed miserably in the whole race issue. But you know, it's interesting, you go back 75, 100 years ago, even though there was racial tension, African Americans, Caucasians, Hispanics, Asians, they all had the same Josiah worldview across the board.
They said gay marriage is wrong, you know, one man, one woman for life, they still have the same worldview. Isn't that interesting? Even though we got the race issue wrong, there was still that Josiah generation that transcended all races.
Does that make sense? So we go from the generation of Josiah to the generation of Jehovah Kim. Beloved, I'm sorry to tell you, but the final stop on that journey is the generation of judgment. And I'm wondering, I'm wondering, I could be wrong, I'm not a prophet, I've never claimed to be a prophet. But I'm wondering if what we're seeing in society now is the beginnings of that generation of judgment, that we have moved so quickly from the Josiah generation through the generation of Jehovah Kim that we have now hurtled to the generation of judgment.
I'm just wondering. Suicide is through the roof, we've never seen anything like it. Abortion, anxiety, depression, the breakdown of the family, it's all just, it's going up astronomically. And I'm asking myself, are we now entering the generation of judgment? I don't know. Maybe we're beginning to see the rumblings of anarchy in our society. Was last week the first shot of the next civil war that's an indicator that we are now in the generation of judgment where society itself falls apart?
Or was it just a quick one-off? I don't know, I don't know. I told y'all last week, I'd give you my take on the shooting. You know, I remember we had a guest last week, so I don't want to talk about it last week. I said, I'll give you my take this week. You know my take, what happened on last Saturday?
It's just a typical 20-year-old boy who just happened to have encrypted overseas accounts and no social media footprint, who just happened to have a 138-yard shot to the most hated man on the left. Nothing to see here folks, just another normal Saturday. I'm just telling you, there's more going on.
Something's going, I don't know what it is, I'm just telling you something's going on and we may not ever know really what happened. Verse one says that the king of Babylon came in and destroyed Judah. God often used foreign powers in the Old Testament to come in and judge his people. It's interesting, there may be no connection whatsoever, I don't want to push this analogy too far, but it says it came from the king of Babylon, which is modern-day Iraq, Syria, and Iran. News reports say that almost 2,000 quote special interest encounters took place with individuals from those areas who snuck across our border.
Individuals that got caught from Iraq, Syria, and Iran just in one year, there were 2,000, 11, 12, 13 individuals caused 9-11. I'm just hoping that we're not seeing the same pattern where the Babylonians come in and exact judgment on this nation. And so beloved, these are dangerous times. And this is the importance of studying the book of Daniel because Daniel lived through all three generations.
Did you know that? He lived through the generation of Josiah, then he lived through the generation of Jehoiakim, and he also lived through the generation of judgment. And I feel God is telling me we got to get equipped to live through all generations. How many of y'all remember the good old days of Josiah where everything was closed on Sunday, everybody went to church, society said, okay. And of course, we're now in that Jehoiakim generation and we may be heading toward the generation of judgment.
I wonder if we, like Daniel, had better get equipped to live through all three generations. Now, this is where I get people mad at me on the right. I'm an equal opportunity offender because my brothers and sisters on the right want me to say, no, we're going to go back to the days of Josiah.
All you need to do, Chad, is wave the flag, drive a Chevy, bring Lee Greenwood up here to do some songs, and we're going to go back to the days of Josiah. Maybe, maybe not. And I get some people aggravated at me because you're so, why are you so negative? Now, look, I'm going to be positive. I'm going to end my sermon positive. Next week, actually, next week, you won't be a positive. The week after that, I'll be a positive sermon.
So just sit tight. But I feel like there's a prophet most people never heard, and I'm not a prophet, but I feel like the prophet in 1 Kings 22, his name was Micaiah. Have you ever heard of this guy before? So Ahab, wicked king, wants to go fight Syria. He can't do it alone. He needs the help of this good king, Jehoshaphat. He said, Jehoshaphat, would you help me fight the enemy? Jehoshaphat said, yes, but I don't do anything without hearing the prophets of God first. So Ahab tells his soldiers, go get my prophets.
The soldiers come and say to the prophets, listen to me here. He really wants Jehoshaphat to go to battle with him. Jehoshaphat won't do that until y'all say it's okay. We pay you good money.
You better tell him it's okay. So the prophets come and they say, Ahab, go to battle. Jehoshaphat, go with him.
You guys are going to be successful. Jehoshaphat said, whoa, time out. All you prophets are a bunch of yes men. He said, is there any prophet that hears from God? And I love what Ahab said. He said, well, there's this one guy.
Here's what he says, but I can't stand him because he's so negative. And Jehoshaphat said, that's who I want to hear from. So the soldiers, this is a great chapter, the soldiers go to Micaiah and they said, listen to me, Ahab wants Jehoshaphat to go to battle. He won't go to battle until you and the rest of the prophets say it's okay.
You better tell them it's okay. And so they bring him to the kings and Jehoshaphat says to Micaiah, I've heard from the other prophets, but I need to hear from you. Should I go to battle or not? And Micaiah says, woo, yeah, go for it. Make Israel great again.
Yeah, you can do it. Go to battle. And Ahab said, did that tell you he's a smart elf? He just gets mad at him. And Jehoshaphat said, time out. What does God really say? And he says, God wants me to tell you judgment is coming on this nation. And if you go to battle with him, you're going to come under judgment as well.
Sometimes I feel like Micaiah. Chad, we pay you good money to tell everybody that we're going back to the days of Josiah and everything's going to be great. Maybe we are. But there's something inside of me that says we might be closer to the generation of judgment than we realize. So, beloved, in light of that, in light of the fact that we are living in this incredible transition between the days of Josiah, that Josiah worldview, that biblical worldview in America, to now we're in the days of Jehoakim, and we might possibly be going toward the days of judgment, the generation of judgment. What kind of applications do we have? Let me just, I got a lot, but let me just give you three or four real quickly.
First application is that, is this. Look, don't take the bait of the generation of Jehoakim. Don't take the bait. We cannot initiate violence. We cannot use violence. Jesus, I don't care how hot-tempered and Irish and red-headed you are, Jesus said, my people do not attack. My people do not use violence. So I want to go on record right now, and I want you to bookmark this, because I live in fear.
Some wack job who says he's from cross assembly going out and doing something stupid. So you listen to me. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you cannot perpetuate violence.
Okay, that makes that very clear. Having said that, while you cannot perpetuate violence, you can defend yourself against violence. And if things are starting to fall apart the way that I think they could be falling apart, you need to be prepared to defend yourself and your family. Here's what Jesus said.
The night before he dies, his guys are about to leave and go out into a dangerous world. And he says in Luke 22 36, whoever has no sword, disciples, should sell his garment and buy one. In today's day, you know what Jesus is saying? If you don't have a concealed carry permit, you may want to think about getting one, is what he's saying. I read liberal scholars this week and said, no, no, that's not what Jesus is saying.
Jesus is talking about the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. No, he's not. There's a great scholar named Wayne Grudem.
I don't know if you've ever heard of Wayne Grudem. He did a great study on this. He said, if you look at the language and you look at the context, Jesus is saying to his disciples, you can't go perpetuate violence, but you can defend yourself against violence.
And people will ask, this is kind of interesting. John Locke with the Wall Street Journal said that laws that prohibit gun ownership generally lead to increased gun crime. For example, the District of Columbia enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the country and the murder rate increased 134% in the same time that the national murder rate decreased by 2%. What do you do with Matthew 539? You say you can defend yourself, but in Matthew 539, Jesus, same guy, says, whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. How do you reconcile those two? You can defend yourself, Luke 22, but, you know, somebody slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek.
How do you reconcile those two? Jesus says somebody slaps you on the what cheek? Right cheek. In a right-handed society, the only way you can get slapped on the right cheek is by being backhanded, which is like one of the most incredible insults in the time of Christ. So here's what Jesus is saying. If you are insulted, you don't insult back. That's not how my people operate. You're insulted, you're blessed.
You're cursed, you're blessed. Jesus, now look at this, Jesus is not saying you can't defend yourself. Jesus is saying you can't take vengeance for yourself, and there's a difference between the two.
Does that make sense? And so the first point is very important. If things start going south and things get crazy, we can't perpetuate violence. We can't defend ourselves against violence, okay?
Number two, jot this down. Raise your children in the ways of Josiah. See, your kids are being raised in the Jehoiachim generation. They are saturated by Jehoiachim ideology. When you say to your kids, gay marriage is wrong, homosexuality is wrong, and they look at you crazy, they're not being rebellious.
They're legitimately confused because their Jehoiachim generation has said, again, love is love, and now mom and dad are saying, yeah, but the word of God says this. You are trying to raise Jehoiachim kids in a, pardon me, a Josiah group of kids in a Jehoiachim generation. But parents don't give up.
Listen to me. You actually have more influence on your kids than social media, than the teachers, than the preachers. You have incredible influence on your kids. Use that influence to raise up a bunch of Josiahs, okay? So number one, don't take the bait. Number two, raise your kids in the way of Josiah. And then number three, now I'm speaking to myself, as much as I'm speaking to you when I say this, stop whining. We get so mad because I can't believe Stephen Colbert said this about Christians. I can't believe Rachel Maddow said this.
We're under attack. I read the book of Daniel. Do you know what I never see Daniel doing? I never see Daniel whining or complaining. He doesn't say, God, why is Nebuchadnezzar doing this? God, why am I being thrown in the lion's den? What kind of God would let this happen?
You never see Daniel whining. Jesus himself said this, in this world, followers, it's possible you might have a little bit of tribulation. Is that what he said? In this world, you will have tribulation. It's coming. The man told us it's coming, and then we act surprised when it comes. And so I want us to be like Daniels. We don't whine and we don't gripe and we don't complain. It's a great lesson for us.
I'm speaking to myself as well. Talk about whining. It reminds me of a story of a man named Dan Betzer. Dan's a great pastor, retired a little while back. Dan Betzer went to this church, preaching the word of God, and they hated him. They spit on him, insulted his wife, keyed his car, did all this stuff, and it really tore up Dan Betzer. And the board came against him, tried to get him fired. People came against him.
It's just a messy situation. And so finally he said, in desperation, I wrote to a man that I had respected a great deal. This guy named Leonard Ravenhill. Anybody heard of Leonard Ravenhill? Wrote a great book called Why Revival Terries. Leonard at this time was an old man.
I think that guy was a prophet. And he said, I just poured out my heart. I told him about the board trying to get me fired, the church members spitting on me, car getting keyed, my wife being insulted. He said, I just poured out my heart to Leonard Ravenhill, hoping I'd get some pity and compassion. And he said, instead I got this reply in the mail.
Here's what Leonard Ravenhill wrote. Dear Dan, poor Dan, quite possibly nobody in the history of Christianity has ever suffered as much as you have. My wife Martha and I were just discussing you this morning at breakfast about what a privilege it is for us to know a martyr of your stature.
Now don't ever write me a letter like that again, Leonard Ravenhill. I love that because what he's saying is, you're a soldier. This is a war. You're a Josiah living in a Jehoiachim generation. You can whine and complain or you can say, I am more than a conqueror through him who loves me. Greater is he who's in me than he who's in this world. And Jesus is coming back one day and he's going to make everything all right. Don't whine.
And finally, look at this. Remember, remember, God is in charge. No matter how chaotic it seems down here, God's in charge.
Look at verse two. And the Lord, who? The Lord gave Jehoiachim, king of Judah, into Nebuchadnezzar's hand. God let it happen. God did it. Explain that to me, how God can take a Jew, part of his chosen people, and put him under the authority of this wicked king. God's in charge.
How could God allow a wicked king to come in and decimate his temple and steal stuff out of God's holy temple and take it back home to his pagan gods like verse two says it is? Because God's in charge. God's in control. Beloved, listen to me. I've told you this before. If you really believe two things, you'll never be anxious ever again.
If you believe God is in control and God really does love you, he's out for your best interest, you'll never be stressed out ever again. Because everything that happens in your life, you will understand, is part of God's divine plan. And no matter how chaotic it looks in America, God is sitting back saying, I'm in control. It's all, remember the 18? Y'all remember that?
What did that one guy always say, Hannibal always say? I love it when a plan comes together. God's looking back on America, we think everything's out of control, and he's smiling, saying I love it when a plan comes together.
I'm in charge, I'm in control, I know what I'm doing. Y'all really believe that? Okay, other than the five of you, the rest of you really believe God's in control and everything's going according to plan? You believe that? I love this story.
Oh, wait, listen. This is why Daniel has so much end times prophecy. We're going to really get into prophecy because as you study end times prophecy in the book of Daniel, it becomes very clear, oh wait, there is a plan.
I think it's chaos there's a plan. A man told a story one time of going to New York City, and he said, while I'm there on the streets of New York City, there's this mama cat, and you know how the cats carry their kittens by their neck? She said she had a little kitten by the neck, and that mama desperately wants to cross the street, and she has that little kitten in her mouth, and she'd step out, and a truck would come by, and she'd run back, and she'd try to dart out, cars all over the place, she'd run back. She's desperately pacing back and forth, wanting to get on the other side, and she's panicking. Well, she couldn't see it because she's so panicked looking at the road, but out of nowhere, a New York City police officer stepped out into that road. They stopped traffic here, they stopped traffic there.
She never saw that police officer. All she knew was there was now a path from point A to point B, and he said that cat darted across the road, not knowing that the authority of the New York City Police Department had made the way. You and I see chaos going on down here. We're watching the news, and we're panicked like that mama cat, but I want you to understand above us, high above us, where we can't see, stands the God of the universe, and he's stopping traffic, and he's directing traffic. He's lifting up presidents. He's bringing presidents down. He's changing the trajectory of bullets. God is in charge.
He is in control. Don't be depressed. Don't be down. Celebrate and rejoice because the quicker this thing gets over, the quicker we're going to go home and be with Jesus, and so shall we be with the Lord forever and ever. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Let the people of God raise their hands and raise their voices to the God who is in control. Rejoice, rejoice. And again I say, again I say, rejoice. Oh, I'm never gonna stop, never gonna stop, never stop giving you praise. I'm never gonna stop, never gonna stop, never stop blessing your name. I'm never gonna stop, never gonna stop, never stop giving you praise.
I'm never gonna stop, never gonna stop, never stop blessing your name. Rejoice, rejoice. Let everything that has breath. Rejoice, rejoice. Let everything that has breath. Because you are worthy. God, you are mighty. Lord, you are awesome and holy in pain. Rejoice, rejoice.
Let everything that has breath. I feel like I'm looking at a bunch of Joshua's living in a Jehoiachim generation. Joshua's are warriors, they're giant slayers, they're bold, and they're fearless.
That's what I'm looking at right now in this place. And so I say to you, Joshua's, what God said to Joshua thousands of years ago, He said to Joshua thousands of years ago, He said to Joshua thousands of years ago, He said to Joshua thousands of years ago, which means y'all be bold. You be strong. You don't be afraid and you don't be terrified of anything.
Why? Because the Lord your God is going to be with you and you and you everywhere you go this week. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit we pray, amen and amen. God bless you, beloved. Let's go change this world for Jesus Christ.
