God intervened, and the assassin missed

And we need to consider this, we need to consider carefully what God is up to, what this means for our moment and how we, as people of faith Christians, respond. So if you think this is political, it's not. Yes. Sometimes we have to talk about things that happen in the political arena, but I see you don't reach for the off button.

Don't turn this off. You need to listen and consider what God would say to us. Now. I'm not really quite so arrogant, I guess you could say, to think that I speak for God all the time, although that is my responsibility as a pastor. But I do want us to carefully hear what God is saying to us, and if I can contribute to us, hearing that, that's what I want to do. I'm Pastor Rick Stevens, and I'm the pastor of Diplomat Wesleyan Church in Cape Coral, Florida.

And yes, we talked about this last Sunday, it happened just on Saturday evening and we talked about it a little bit. And we prayed for our country and the situation in our service Sunday morning. Because we realize this is such an important time and it's such an important time because it's a time when we, the people of God, have to have faith. And you know that around here, we talk about faith as absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God. And when we see things shaking, like those events of Saturday night, shook all of us. That's a time we need to remind ourselves to have absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God, to have faith.

And I want us to have that kind of faith, and I want us to think about this from a perspective of deep and abiding confidence in God.

And I don't want us to get distracted by thinking that this is a political issue. Too many people. As soon as something has the first whiff of politics, or the political, they run for cover as though they'll be polluted by it. Well, I've been around some politicians and I've been around the political process a little bit, mostly advocating for policy improvements. I haven't gotten involved too much in elections, except for candidate forums to help people make informed choices. I'm not someone who goes out and campaigns for people.

I'm not against that, I just haven't done that. I can't do everything I do, what I can, and what I think that God would have me do at the time. But this is not political, even though it talks about political things, and political considerations will always pop up when you talk about these things in the public arena.

But I want us to make sure we think about these things from a Christian perspective and what God might be doing in our time. I don't know whether I can really speak for God, I try to as a pastor, but I really am careful about that. But let's start with this idea of having faith, absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God. At our church, we have a regular men's breakfast and Bible study every Wednesday morning early.

People sometimes are surprised we come early by now, I guess 6.30 in the morning doesn't seem that early to some of us. Although I hear from people that say it's too early and they don't want to come. But that's a different story anyway. We take the time and we go through a book of the Bible.

We've chosen different ones. I wish I could say we have a real purposeful plan to do that, but we don't particularly have a real purposeful plan. We take what God seems to lead us to, and we don't worry about did we choose the right one? We choose a book of the Bible and start going through it section by section. We read through it and we try to understand what God is saying to us.

We have a conversation about the Bible. Yeah, a lot of other things get mixed into the conversation sometimes, but that's just kind of the way people are. We don't worry about that. In fact, we have some really robust discussions. So much so that one of the men said to me after the Bible study this week, and I was kind of struck by this. I don't really think I responded very well to him because I just didn't know what to say.

I appreciated his statement. But he said that he gets more out of our Wednesday morning Bible studies than any other Bible study he's ever been a part of. I was kind of stunned by that, I was glad, but I didn't know how to respond really. Anyway, what we do is we take a passage of the Bible. And this week, we happened to be studying in Matthew, where Jesus was admonishing his disciples that they had to have faith and not doubt.

It says you have to have faith, is the way that the Scripture says it. Now we talk about different things and I challenge the guys in different ways, just because that's what I do, I guess, and they challenge back, it's okay. I said to them, Well, we're going to understand what's going on here. And it was kind of a difficult and challenging section. I said. We have to understand some things first.

We have to see what God is really saying here, not jump to conclusions just because we jumped to conclusions. That's real good admonition, by the way, for all of us. When you look at the Scriptures, be careful about jumping to conclusions, look carefully, look before you leap would be good counsel on that.

So I pulled us back and said, let's take a look at what's going on here. The first thing I said was notice, Jesus says, you have to have faith. I reminded the guys because we've talked about this from time to time. That most often in the New Testament, when the word you is used, it means something different than what we tend to think of. We live in an individualistic culture.

We understand that the word you can be singular, meaning you, I'm looking at you, or it can be plural, meaning you. The whole group of people that we're talking to. So, if I were to say you on Sunday morning, when I stand up to preach, I would likely be saying you to the whole church, not to an individual. I wouldn't likely, in that setting, call someone out individually.

So I reminded the men that in the New Testament, and in the context that we were studying this, you was probably a collective idea. Meaning all of you together have to have faith and not doubt. That was Jesus challenge to them, that was Jesus stretching them in his direction. Okay, that was all well, and good people seemed to understand that.

But I went on to explain it a little bit more. And to say that we all, because life has its ups and downs, doesn't it? We all, from time to time, find ourselves struggling with absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God. I would imagine some of you today have had that. Maybe somebody listening is going through that right now. If you are, then I have good news for you.

I understand that when Jesus said to his disciples, remember he was talking to the group, he was saying you have to have faith, He was saying, all of you together. So if you are struggling, you need to think about faith. In terms of how your church, your Bible study group, can lift and carry you with their faith. When you struggle to have absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God, I hope that makes sense. I think that is something we overlook.

I think that is something we overlook to our detriment. We need to learn to encourage each other and to strengthen each other with our shared faith. That is kind of what I think we need to do these days as we look at what is going on in our country and really around the world. We need to encourage each other with our shared faith and we need to build people up, particularly when events shake us, as they did Saturday night, I think the whole world was shaken by that.

I remember pretty clearly the events of the 60s, when there were a series of assassinations, not all days apart, of course, but several. I was just a kid, I didn't know how to process that, I knew it happened, and I paid attention to it. I remember very clearly hearing the news that John F.

Kennedy had been assassinated riding on the school bus on the way home. I can remember the road we were on. I'm not sure I could pinpoint the spot where the bus driver said that to us. But a whole rowdy bunch of kids suddenly got very quiet when we heard that news. Well, it was a shock, as were the others, and I believe that the conscience of the nation was shocked by all of that. We didn't know what was going on exactly.

We couldn't hardly make sense of it, the horror, the disappointment, all of the ramifications of that. And so I think that the nation, and indeed the world, was shocked by the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Not because we didn't believe it was possible, many of us did. We're concerned about that very thing, but that it was real and what could have happened and yet didn't.

So we need to process that in terms of our understanding of what God is up to in the world and where that leads us forward. Well, we talked about that on Sunday a little bit. I didn't devote the whole sermon to that, but we did talk about that and we did pray for the nation. And I think that's entirely appropriate. Again, this is an incident that affects all of us in ways we may not always come to grips with. But certainly, it calls for us to call on God to help us as a people and to deliver us from evil. And I want to start there.

One of the things that people are talking about is God's role in the attempted assassination and the near miss that occurred that saved Donald Trump's life. Well, I don't know what God did exactly. I have some ideas and we're going to talk about that in some sense in just a minute. But I do know this that we pray regularly, when we pray, the Lord's prayer deliver us from evil. And I'm pretty sure we would all agree that it's an evil thing when someone is murdered.

And so God saved the life of one man and delivered really the nation and the world from encountering evil. In a way none of us wanted to have to face up to. And so we need to give God thanks for delivering us from evil. Evil too often rears its ugly head and we suffer the consequences of it, but here, in this instance, God delivered us from evil. And I don't think that's a stretch to say that.

It's also important, in the context of that thinking, to realize that. The Bible calls all of us, who are followers of Jesus, to overcome evil with good. And so when God overcomes evil, then we give thanks. And we want to be a part in every setting, with every person, of overcoming evil with good. So I think there's room for us to not be political, but to be human, to be Christian and say Thanks be to God, He delivered us from evil. For if that bullet had taken the life of Donald Trump, the nation and even the world would be a very different place today.

And God was gracious to us and merciful. Now there are other perspectives that you will hear popping up, and I think we should take them seriously again. I don't know all that God is up to. I know, from my perspective, that God is involved in the lives of people and he has a plan and a purpose for the world. He gives a lot of human freedom. But when God has an intentional purpose, he intervenes and orders events to accomplish his purpose.

So one of the very interesting things that I heard was an interview with Speaker Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson is the speaker of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. You may remember we mentioned him some long time ago when the whole furor was going on over who would be speaker of the House. And he was elected, and people didn't know if he would get unelected soon after that. And there's been some challenges to that and some working things out. And people didn't like some things he did, and other people liked some things he didn't, and I remember us talking about that. That one thing we knew about Speaker Mike Johnson is that he was a, and remains a committed Christian. A person who I don't know well, but I know enough by reputation, was very forthright. Who knows Speaker Johnson very well, was very, very straightforward about his serious commitment as a Christian.

And that has not changed. It was obvious in the interview that I heard that he's a committed Christian. But he said in the interview that he believes something providential is happening in our world, and I thought his remarks were worth us considering. Now it's in a general way, we could all say there's always something providential happening.

He was more referring to the events that are taking place in our nation. He thinks that by the providence of God, things are happening and we need to recognize that. And he didn't say this. But if God is really up to something, don't? We need to be cooperating with what he's up to, and we need to be observing and giving thanks that God is helping us as a nation.

And certainly, sparing the life of Donald Trump helped the nation. No matter where you are in the political wars, it would never be a good thing for someone to be murdered. I think we understand that well. Speaker Johnson said in this interview that something providential was happening in the nation, and it reminded him of George Washington.

Now, he wasn't saying that Donald Trump is the next George Washington. He wasn't saying that at all, He was just remembering an incident in history that involved George Washington. And you may remember this too, and you may have thought about it. I hadn't until he mentioned it in this interview.

I thought it was fascinating. But he talked about how George Washington was often called the bulletproof president because before he was president, he was involved in military campaigns that put his life at risk. And one in particular stands out. And Speaker Johnson went on to remind us that George Washington was a colonel in the army during the French and Indian wars. And he was fighting a battle that he and his troops had been ambushed in a forest.

There was a barrage of gunfire. This was in 1755, and George Washington emerged alive from that incident. He emerged alive in spite of the fact that two horses had been shot and killed in that incident, and he had to find a third horse.

But he continued on in the battle when the battle was over and he began to assess what had gone on. He discovered four bullet holes in his coat that's how close he had come to being wounded or killed in the battle four bullet holes. And he wrote to some people after that incident, saying that the divine hand of providence was on him that day, during that battle.

And who can doubt that, for some reason, God spared the life of George Washington? Now, historically, we can look back and say, well, we understand he was the first president, he was the pivotal president to get things started in the right way.

Well, Speaker Johnson said he remembered that incident and did a little looking into it, and he discovered that. That event involving the life of George Washington, took place 47 miles from where Donald Trump was shot, that's not very far away, it took place in Pennsylvania, just 47 miles away, and it was also in July of 1755. So, when Speaker Johnson spoke to former President Trump on the phone after the assassination attempt after things had settled down, Speaker Johnson said to President Trump that no one can deny this was miraculous.

Now that's Speaker Johnson speaking, and who of us is going to argue with that? he said. No one can deny this is miraculous, Speaker Johnson said to President Trump. God has providentially spared you. That's a heavy statement for someone to say to another.

God has providentially spared you. Speaker Johnson went on to say to President Trump He clearly has something for you to do. Wow, that's a big statement. Now I don't know what the outcome of the election will be.

I know there's going to be so much stuff. Continue on between now and then. It is going to be nothing short of amazing to watch. And amazing probably isn't the right word. Maybe you can think of a better word.

It's going to be so many things that will unfold between now and the election in November. But I was really struck by Speaker Johnson saying that he believed that this was a miracle and that God had providentially spared the life of Donald Trump. Because God has something for Donald Trump to do well, we'll see how that all works out. And I think all of us want to pray that Donald Trump will take that statement seriously and that he will recognize the hand of God on his life. And you don't have to like everything about Donald Trump.

You don't have to like anything about him. I'm not here to tell you what to like and what to dislike, I'm here to tell you that. As Christians, we lead with love, we don't wish ill on anyone, and we have to take seriously when God has clearly been involved in something.

When these parallels exist, that God is clearly up to something in our nation, there's plenty of evidence of that outside of the assassination attempt. And we as Christians need to be on the wavelength that God is on, trying to sort out the times. So that we can be faithful in whatever way God is leading us to be faithful. And since we're talking about elections, I want to say one more time, I probably say this so often that some of you don't like to hear it.

Someone mentioned it in passing to me the other day that, well, it's the choice of the lesser of two evils, referring kind of offhandedly to the election process. And I want to say again to all of us, so many people. And you will hear it and you will have to train yourself to think differently about that. And I urge you to do it because people need to hear what I'm about to say. And you may be God's voice to someone in a way you could never imagine. In fact, I said this to a rather nationally prominent pastor one time.

And he looked at me and said, I'm going to steal that, and I said, That's fine. It wasn't original with me and I wish I could remember who I heard say it, but I can't. But here's what I want you to consider.

This is not in any election, is not the choice between the lesser of two evils. Every person that runs for election is flawed in some way or another. We all are. Can we speak plainly? We're all sinners, and we are only saved from our sin by the grace of God. And we need to recognize that there are no perfect politicians.

And if you're looking for the perfect politician, I can promise you 100, you will be disappointed.

It's not about finding the perfect politician, it's not about finding the person that perfectly lines up with your view on every issue. That is difficult to impossible to find as well. So how do we sort out how to vote? Yes, I am implying, and I'll say it straight up, if you are a follower of Jesus, you need to make sure you're registered to vote and you vote every time.

The polls are open, you vote in the primaries, you vote every time, and you vote your biblical convictions. And I'm going to tell you how to narrow that down a little bit in just a minute. But so many Christians have stepped back from voting. I saw a pastor's Facebook post after the attempted assassination and he said, Well, I wasn't going to vote, but now I am.

And my head exploded. well, people around here say it explodes too often. My head exploded. Because I thought, how could he ever not recognize his responsibility to vote? Well, Clearly he didn't, but now he is.

And you, as a Christian, have been given a gift. The people in the Bible did not have the opportunity to choose their leaders the way we do at the ballot box. And God has given us both this gift and this responsibility, so we need to exercise that. So if you're not registered to vote, get busy and get registered.

It's not a hard process, you can do it. Figure it out. Find somebody If you don't know where. The first place to start, Find somebody that can help you.

If nothing else, do a web search and you'll find out information on how to register to vote in your area. It's not complicated, it's easily doable, but you have to make some effort to get it done, so get started and get it done. You don't want to wait until the last minute, or you might miss the deadline.

Okay, now, how do we evaluate candidates? how do we decide who to vote for? Nobody's perfect, nobody's going to completely align with our vision. Some people are going to say, Well, I'm a Christian, and you're going to look at that and say, Well, you don't look like any kind of Christian that I ever thought somebody should look like.

All that may or may not be true. That is not helpful in my view. Many of that stuff, it's just much of that stuff, it's just distracting.

We don't want to be distracted. So how do we decide? Examine the candidates, look at what they have done in office. if they're an incumbent running again, look at what they say they will do if they are not an incumbent.

And then ask yourself this question Which candidate will lessen evil? You're not asking Which candidate is the lesser of two evils? Listen carefully, understand this is important. which candidate, by their conduct in office, will lessen evil.

So let me give you an example of that. One of the big issues of our time is abortion. Sometimes candidates will say, I am a hundred percent in favor of abortion. They don't usually use that kind of language, they're more subtle about that, but that's what they mean.

And other candidates will say, I'm pro-life, or some variation of that. Your choice, in my view, is to vote for the candidate that will preserve life. Because life is a gift of God and that lessens evil, it is the evil one, the enemy of our souls, that wants to kill and destroy. And a political candidate that says I'm in favor of killing an unborn baby is advancing evil, not lessening evil. So that's just one issue that you can think about.

There are others and always ask yourself, will this candidate by their policies and by what they will do when they are elected? If they are elected, will they lessen evil or will they advance evil? And I want to vote for the candidate that will lessen evil. I don't think that's a hard thing to sort out. You may struggle with that.

And if you do, talk to your friends who know the people in your area. Sometimes you know the candidates personally, sometimes I have, and sometimes that helps me sort this stuff out. It's not perfect because no candidate is perfect, but I can always tell which candidate will make decisions that will lessen evil.

And that is a very good thing because we are expected to overcome evil with good. Well, we're going to get into some other things and I hope to challenge you on some other levels. With some things from the Bible and some other thoughts from an event I attended last week. So you take a break, have a drink, rest up. We'll be back in a moment.

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All right, welcome back, I'm Pastor Rick Stevens and you're listening to Faith is. And we've been talking about some pretty important things and we're going to talk about some more very important things. And I want to give you a little window into my week last week. I found it quite surprising, some of the things that I have had the opportunity to be a part of. And I thought, Well, maybe I ought to catch you up on some of these things because it's just interesting. What God allows us to do when we're willing to do things, and when we step out, then God says, Okay, how about this? and then how about that?

So last week I had the privilege and you had to be invited to it. I didn't really expect an invitation, but it kind of worked out. To the Alliance Defending Freedom Summit, which is not far from where I live, about an hour and not quite an hour and a half's drive from where I live. And so I was able to attend parts of that summit for three days, it was absolutely phenomenal. Every time I've been a part of an Alliance Defending Freedom event, it feels like a revival. Because those people are so committed to Christ. And they give us such a helpful perspective on the things they're working on. Most people think of ADF Alliance Defending Freedom as a legal group, and they are.

They fight legal battles, defending our religious freedom and other types of things, and it was great. I want to give you some things that I learned there that we don't necessarily learn any other way than to go to things. So sometimes you need to step out of your comfort zone and attend some events that you might not have ordinarily attended. Because people will say things at events like that that you won't hear any place else. So I was able to do that. I had church responsibilities for two days out of town. And I want to encourage you to take a look at this.

If you haven't listened to Viewpoint, a magazine show that's aired on this network on Sunday mornings. It's hosted by Malcolm Outloud, and Malcolm invited me and another pastor to be on his program last Sunday. So if you'd like to hear what we had to say. We talked about the end of time and is this the end of time? And we gave some perspectives on that. You can look that up, it's gone to podcast now.

Obviously, the live presentation has passed, but you can find it on the website Americaoutloud.

News If you want to hear some of what else I had to say if you don't, stick with me here. And you'll hear some more about what I have to say, about some other things. But my week last week was really, quite interesting and quite insightful. But I want to start before I start talking about the specific things. I want to start by asking us to go to Genesis chapter one. Because I think there's a lot of foundational guidance that's given to us in the Book of Genesis, and this is one of those concepts that we find in Genesis Chapter one. Verse 27 I'm reading from the new Living Translation, not for any particular reason other than that.

I found that it is very clear, and I want to be very clear when it comes to the Scriptures, and particularly on this subject. Genesis, Chapter One, Verse 27. So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God, He created them male and female.

He created them, so that's a pretty straightforward statement. We've heard that before. That doesn't surprise most of us listening today. The question is, do you believe that every person reflects the image of God?

Now we have a fancy name for that. In studies of the Bible and theology, we call it the imago dei, the image of God. We recognize that the Bible says that God created us, people, you, me, all of us. And in ways that sometimes are difficult for us to grasp, we reflect his image. Now. You might look around at a group of people and say, Wow, if God looks like this, he does have a sense of humor.

All right, all right, all right. That's not what this necessarily means. It means a deeper kind of idea than that that we bear God's image, and it is a huge responsibility for us to respect that people reflect the image of God.

It's a huge responsibility for us to realize that that we, by what we do and who we are, we reflect the image of God. And so my question is, do you believe that every person reflects the image of God, the imago DEI? Now you might want to say, Well, I don't think that person looks very godly or acts very godly. That's maybe true, it's not what I'm getting at.

I'm getting at, Do you behave toward them with the recognition that they reflect the image of God? Regardless of whether you like what they do or don't do? That doesn't matter, what matters is, do you respect that God created them in his image, and, consequently, you treat them a little differently? That's important. So let's talk about some of the issues that came up at this Alliance Defending Freedom summit.

I was simply stunned by a number of things. And you meet some people, although not necessarily personally. I met a few people personally that spoke from the stage. But most of them, they speak, and then we're off to do other things and we never actually come across them. Many of them are out and around and you could have the opportunity to introduce yourself and to speak to them if you wanted to. And I did on a couple of occasions. But the first person I want to tell you about was a man named Ethan Heim. Ethan is a physician, a general surgeon.

He completed his training in general surgery last year, and part of his work took place at the Texas Children's Hospital, largest Texas children's hospital in the world. And he has become known as the whistleblower on what was going on there. You may have heard about this, or maybe remember a little bit of hearing about it if you didn't pay attention to it. That. He was accused by the Justice Department of of using personal information in violation of the law to expose what was going on at the Texas Children's Hospital. About a year before, the Texas Children's Hospital had announced that they were no longer participating in gender transition surgery.

That means they were never, no longer participating in turning boys into girls, and girls into boys. Surgically. Well, Dr. Heim knew that that wasn't true. Not only were they continuing to do it, but they had increased the number of cases that they were handling. And so he exposed the lie, and they came after him big time.

It was the day he was to graduate from his program, there at the at the hospital in surgery, about two hours before he and his wife were going to leave to the to go to the ceremony. There was a knock on his door and it was the Feds. And they were there to encourage him to change his tune, to pull back what he had said about the hospital, and he determined he would not. He believed that such egregious things needed to be exposed.

And as he said, in the auditorium, there for all of us to hear, the ballroom turned into an auditorium. He said. They knocked on the wrong door. And I say, Yes, that's right and good for you for standing up. You'll hear more about this. The lawyers, who have taken the case and are working on defending him, say it's a mess.

They fully expect him to be exonerated on all of that. But I wanted you to know it's. It's rather awe inspiring to be in the presence of people like him who are taking such a big stand and has everything to lose. They could put him in prison if he's convicted, he has much to lose. Well, the conversation around the whole gender identity issue, gender dysphoria and all of the ramifications of that continued.

There was a man there who spoke about how his daughter had expressed gender confusion at school and how the school hid it from him. A school district in Michigan hid that from he and his wife. And he went on to tell the story about how they've even been friends of the guidance counselor and become friends over all of this with the guidance counselor. And yet that was continually hid from him and his wife. Outrageous stuff goes on.

And legal battles are being fought over all of that. And you've heard all this stuff about the hormone blockers and all of the other very serious medical treatments with very strong drugs. That that young children are given in an attempt to turn them from a boy to a girl, or a girl to a boy. You've heard about all the egregious stuff that goes on. We heard the testimony of a young woman who had been through all of that and the horrors that that had resulted for her.

Physically, it was just heart wrenching. But there is good news on this front. There was a gentleman there, Dr. James Cantor, who is a clinical psychologist and a neuroscientist.

He knows something about what's going on in people's heads, and so he was telling us about the gender identity work that's been going on around the world. And as you probably are aware, people study everything, they study everything down to the nth degree. And so many studies have gone on over the years about this gender problem, you could say.

I don't think it's much of a problem, I think it's been made into a problem, but that's kind of a different subject for a different time. Nonetheless, many people have been working on this gender stuff, and there's been so much work that, after a period of time, certain studies began to emerge, called review studies.

These are the studies that examine all the studies and try to come to the conclusions about where the science is going on a certain issue, and in this case, where is it going on? Gender identity confusion that's been popping up so often among so many, particularly young girls, frankly, but boys as well from time to time. He made a statement that absolutely stunned me now. I believed it for a long time, I believed it was true.

But now he could say it in a different way. I've long believed that this medicalized intervention was inappropriate for kids. We shouldn't be treating them that way that is actually abusive. But now, you know how many times we've been heard follow the science, they've tell us you got to follow the science. Well, I'm here to say, in this instance, yes, we're going to follow the science. Because in these various review studies, and there have been several, and he cited them.

All of these review studies have come to the same conclusion No science supports medicalized transition. Did you get that? No science? Multiple review studies have confirmed no science supports medicalized transition. That, my friends, is very good news.

He used in reporting this to us, he used the word unanimous, that the studies are unanimous, that no science supports medicalized transition. That is just amazingly good news, amazingly good news. And in case you didn't get it, and I got it right away, and you probably did, too, this just doesn't happen.

There is never unanimous stuff when it comes to studies. They're all looking at things and they all have their particular viewpoint on things. I mean, studies just don't be, don't coalesce around a unanimous conclusion. In fact, I saw Dr. Cantor in the hallway the next day, he was standing there, nobody was talking to him.

So I said, Well, I guess I will. And I went up. And I said to him how stunned I was to hear him talk about this as a unanimous conclusion. And I said to him, This just doesn't happen, he says. No, it doesn't happen, but it did.

So I want you to take great heart. When you find someone caught up in the gender confusion of these days, make sure you protect them from medicalized intervention. There is no science that supports medicalized transition. It doesn't help the temptation to suicide.

It doesn't help anything. What he said was, Are you sitting down for this? This? This will be so obvious as you'll as you'll say, Duh, just like some of the rest of us did. What he said was teenagers are just confused.

They just need our help in getting through. Growing up, and I remember many years ago we had a, and we still do have a son. He was growing up, he's grown now. And we were wrestling, as as parents do, with all the things that are involved in raising kids, and particularly raising boys. And this very wise woman in our church had raised, I believe it was four boys, and she said one day, Well, sometimes you just have to get them through it.

And I thought, Wow, that's wise counsel, and that's what's true for these boys and girls who struggle with, struggle with the gender stuff. We just need to get them through it. They just need wise counsel. They need parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles, and people at church who will support them and help them understand these, oftentimes confusing issues.

They're just teenagers and they need help getting through it and understanding what's going on. And how. God loves them so much and created them special in just the way they are. We just have to get them through it. I thought that was such good news, I haven't gotten over that, maybe you can tell.

I hope I don't get over that. The science now tells us we don't have to hesitate. The Bible has always told us this. We didn't have to hesitate then either, and most of us didn't.

But now no one has anything to say to us to support this horrendous stuff. That's being done to children, really, all over our country and around the world. Not in Florida. We have laws that are protecting children here, and that's a good thing, but other places it's just not appropriate. And now we know.

Now we know more than we knew, even though we knew, because God reminded us. It also ought to remind us to take the Bible seriously now, when the Bible tells us something, we need to believe it, no matter what other people say. As a professor of mine said years ago, we can read the Bible with our feet up. Because God's going to turn out to know what he's talking about and we don't have to worry about that.

And I think that's very good news, too. Well, Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee spoke to the crowd. And I was so impressed by him. He comes across so genuine, and, by all accounts, he's a man of sincere Christian faith. And one of the things I wrote down that he said is he said to God. One time, he said, Lord, I'm going to put all my hope on you.

And I thought, that's a pretty big statement, you know? Because he was going through some things and he went through some personal things in his life, if you know his life story. And he realized that when it came time for him to consider running for governor, that he realized that being governor would wreck his life. But he reminded us that sometimes God calls us to take courage, like in Joshua 1.8, here's a man who's a governor. And he quoted The fruit of the spirit from memory. How about that?

That's pretty good, isn't it? He's a humble guy and he said so many things that we needed to take into consideration. But here's one of the things that he said. He said We need increasing resolve and lessening timidity.

Increasing resolve and lessening timidity. I thought, Yeah, that's right, good for you. Well, one of the days was given to a look at the current state of affairs as it relates to abortion. And you've heard me say that I believe abortion is a moral evil and we should do everything we can to stop it.

Not only does it kill babies, but it does such great harm to the mothers involved. And when you look into it, if you haven't, look into the damage. It does to mothers and I think fathers, although I don't think we're hearing as much about the damage to fathers, but it certainly damages mothers. But there are some helpful things related to the abortion problem. And one of those was said to us by Kristen Wagner, who's the Alliance Defending Freedom CEO, president and general counsel. She said. Quote Life is better protected in law today than any time in the last 30 years.

Well, that's a big statement, better protected in law than any time in the last 30 years. End of quote? I thought that was very encouraging. Now it doesn't mean it's all over. We're fighting an abortion battle in Florida over an amendment to the state constitution.

Doesn't mean we can sit back and say we're done, but that was very encouraging to hear her say that. Another speaker, Ryan Anderson, talked about the Dobbs decision, Remember the one, the decision that vacated the Roe ruling of about 50 years ago? And he said, I thought this was so, so interesting.

He said it kind of this way, I didn't get the exact quote, I couldn't write that fast. But, he said, there are toddlers today walking, talking, reaching talking, throwing fits talking, scattering toys talking and all the things. And you get the idea, all the things that toddlers do. And isn't it glorious that toddlers do that, even though it is a trying and difficult time for parents?

Been there, done that. But I thought that was so encouraging that there are toddlers today alive because of the Dobbs decision. But he went on to challenge us and say we have a lot of work to do with. Convincing people that abortion is a moral evil. And he said something very challenging, he said People believe there should be three exceptions that allow for abortion.

We're not going to debate those exceptions today, but I just want to tell you, report and tell you what, he said. He said that people believe there are three exceptions the first is rape, the second is incest, and the third, wait for. It is my situation.

See, when it becomes personal. People find a reason that they want to pursue abortion. And they don't realize the horror that's about to unfold in their life when they make that choice. And so he said to us, you know, when you think about this issue of abortion, you need to ask yourself, what is your vision for women and children? Is your vision for children to die before they're born? Is your vision for women to suffer the horrors, physically of abortion, and mentally and spiritually, the trauma that results from abortion? We need to ask ourselves that question.

What is our vision? And it relates back to that first question I asked, Do you believe every person reflects the image of God? And if you do, that changes how you think about all of these things. The other thing that was very interesting and we need to learn more about this and pay more attention to this.

Do you have any idea what? The biggest influence on a woman is when she faces the decision of whether to choose abortion or to bring her baby to term? The biggest influence on women when it comes to choosing abortion is the baby's father. Think about that, think about the men who now live with the reality that they pressured a young woman to have an abortion, and what that means. That they were involved in killing that baby and in the trauma that resulted in that woman's life. Stunning, stunning stuff.

Well, there's plenty more, and I'm skipping over a lot of the things that I was thinking about. But I want to make sure we get to this last person who spoke on the final evening of the event. There, there was a banquet and they gave an award to a man named Oz Ganes. You may recognize that name, maybe not. He's been quite influential in a lot of circles, written a lot of books, and he made a few statements that were very interesting.

One of them is that we need to do what we do for an audience of one. Now. That relates back to Governor Lee's statement. Do you remember what I said that he challenged us with? He said We need increasing resolve and lessening timidity, well, when we do what we do for an audience of one. That ought to increase our resolve because we want to be faithful to God and please God. And it ought to lessen our timidity because we should be less reluctant to speak out.

Sometimes we are more reluctant, we just self-censor. We need to stop doing that, we need to do what we do for an audience of one. And he says, freedom calls for responsibility.

That brings out the best in people, and that's what we need for you. For me, we need to bring out the best in ourselves. Because we live in a land that is free, and freedom, as you know, always involves responsibility, always. I'll never forget when I was in Ukraine, and one of the Ukrainian teachers at a school we visit said to me when we were talking about that, completed my sentence. When we talked about liberty, she said, Liberty is freedom, and and she filled in the blank responsibility.

They understand that people everywhere understand that, and we need to understand that, he also said. Something very important that I think helps us to understand and you can think about this. I'm just going to put this out there. Maybe we need to talk about this more sometime. But, he said, we have to understand the difference between being principled versus being transactional.

Most of the reason you're disappointed with politicians is because they're transactional, you would say, but it's a principled thing to do. So. You need to do it, and most of the time, whether you like them or not, even the best of them.

Become transactional at some point, and that helps me understand. It doesn't necessarily make me happy, but it ought to help you understand as you sort out who to support and why. There's a difference between being principled, you're probably principled, but they're being transactional because of the world they live in, and it helps us make sense of it. Even though I don't like it most of the time, I want them to be more principled.

Osganess went on to say to us that we need to have no fear, but have faith in God. And that's been the theme of this program all along is to have absolute confidence in the trustworthiness of God. And we've occasionally mentioned that idea of fear, not being afraid, and we need to not be afraid. And I want to end with one other challenge. It comes from Ezekiel, Chapter 22, Verse 30. You will recognize it. This, in the new living translation, says it so well that I want to challenge us with this as we go forward from here. God, having surveyed the situation that is talked about earlier in Chapter 22 in Ezekiel, comes down with this conclusion.

I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn't have to destroy the land, but I found no one.

God is searching today for someone to rebuild the wall of righteousness, many someones, really, and you might be one. You can't do everything, but you can do something. What will you do to rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land? And notice that this idea of righteousness helps protect the land, and when we as a people turn away from righteousness, our land becomes vulnerable. That's clear in what God is saying here.

God says I searched for someone to stand in the gap. In that wall of righteousness, I added that of righteousness. So I wouldn't have to destroy the land. See, God doesn't want to destroy. He doesn't want bad things to happen, he wants people to stand up for righteousness, for that which is right and against that which is wrong. So that the land can be protected, that he can guard the land.

But God said, I found no one. Now, to be sure, this verse applies to a specific situation that was going on and the Prophet was addressing that. But it also clearly applies in the broader principle that God is looking for people. And he may be calling you right now, and if you hear his voice calling you to stand up for righteousness. I beg you to respond to that call and to step up and to stand up, and to rebuild the wall of righteousness in your community. That's what we need to be about, that's what we want to do, and I hope you will hear God's call and do your part. Thanks for joining us.

I'm Pastor Rick.