Freedom at Last

On this day, much is being made of the 250th anniversary of the formation of the United States of America. It declared independence on this day a quarter of a millennium ago. And what an incredible time it has been during the interim, not only for this country, the United States, but also for the British Empire, of which it separated. Much of the world has grown and developed in this time through many challenges and birth pangs, up until the day that we have today. One thing that has changed in the world from the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages and even the Reformation has been freedom. Freedom in the minds of people. Freedom of expression. Freedom of religion. A certain amount of freedom in politics or government, where individuals can contribute or be part of a democratic model, often modeled by the United States.

This independence from Great Britain was actually one of historians' descriptions of English Civil Wars. The first English Civil War appeared or happened in the 1640s, and that developed from something back around 1602 to 1604, which were some struggles in England between what the Parliament and what religion were actually responsible for and could control. Back in those days, about the time when this Bible was being written, there was a lot of oppression of people to conform either to the Catholic Church or conform to the Church of England. There were regular hangings on a daily basis in an afternoon time, which became sort of an entertainment spectacle in London. And if you disagreed with the Church of England on the one hand, you were insubordinate to the King, who was the head of the Church. And so people wanted to get out of there and go somewhere. And around 1640 then, there was a civil war. That's called the First English Civil War.

Well, in time, these issues were not settled, and as the British Empire began to expand in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially, some in the 17th century, as it began to expand, then it had other struggles, and in its colonies there were some issues, including in the 13 colonies in the United States. Some English citizens here did not feel that the Parliament and religion and some of the citizens' rights were being administered correctly. And this had built up, as it had through the last hundred or so years. And so it came to the point where a declaration of independence was a revolt among Englishmen from the Crown. Instead of being under the British Empire, it began with the words, one country.

And instead of being under the king, it was under God. And instead of being under a certain religion, it offered people the freedom of expression and the freedom to have a religion of their own.

Now, King George didn't like that, and there was a matter of trying to keep the colonies as part of the Crown. You know that story. But nevertheless, the desire for freedom, for a lack of control, is something that really began to resonate with people. What happened was, in the end, this gave opportunity for God's truth, for this Bible, which was printed under King George.

But shortly after he printed it, it began to be read in English, by the English. And they concluded that the Church of England was not the true Church, and thus he was not the true head. Which meant pulling back the Bible and beginning to persecute and kill people who read it. So people in various countries now began to feel this oppression. If you printed a Bible, you got killed. If you read a Bible, you got killed. If you didn't subscribe to your country's religion or the universal Catholic religion or the Pope.

There was a lot of persecution. In one place, people found they could go was to a more autonomous area called the Thirteen Colonies. And this has allowed us, down through the ages, or down through the last 250 years, to promote God's truth, if you wanted to, to live it, to teach it, to say how you felt about it.

It's been a wonderful opportunity that you and I have today to say in this world, what is truth? That has not always been the case. And as we know in Bible prophecy, that will soon not be the case anymore. Meanwhile, here we have a message going out of a kingdom that's coming, unlike any earthly kingdom, unlike Egypt or Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, or its revivals, unlike the British Empire, or what is considered often the Empire of the United States, or the Kingdom of the United States. There is another coming kingdom that you and I talk about that we preach. We might ask ourselves on this day as we look back and see the miraculous events that only God's hand could have done that enabled this country to exist.

And those events have just been incredible. At right the right time, just the moment when it should fail, some miraculous thing happened and the country went forward. Here today, we might ask ourselves the question on an anniversary as large as this, celebrated as big as this, is the United States of America, or is any country on earth a model of God's kingdom? And when we begin to look at it through that lens, things become a little bit uncomfortable.

You know, when you look at any country, and as we travel the world, we see some very nice countries today, and very, very nice people in them. And each of those countries has a certain establishment, a governance, a culture, and they're very nice.

Tourism is great. But if you peel back the top layer from any country, you see the history of that country and what it was built on, and some of the things that take place in the building and the formation of that country. And those things are not pleasant to look at. They're often minimized and tried to make small. And yet, we preach a kingdom of God that's coming.

Why is it coming? Why is it necessary? If all the world, and all of its nations, and all of its cultures are doing so well, why is God's kingdom needed?

In Revelation chapter 19 and verse 11, let's skip to the end and get a glimpse of why Jesus Christ is going to return. We look in verse 11 of Revelation 19. John says, "'Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And he who sat upon it was called Faithful and True and in Righteousness.'" Wait a minute. Faithful, true, righteousness. Is that what nations of the earth today have been built on? Faithfulness to God, truth, and doing right. Before we say, well, I'm of this, or I like that, or whatever, we should ask the question, why is Jesus Christ coming? He is coming on a horse to bring faithfulness, truth, and in righteousness to judge and make war. Something is not right that requires Him to come and to make war. Something is amiss with humanity that requires His intervention. If we go back to verse 1, we can see that after these things I heard a loud voice in heaven, the voice of a great multitude in heaven. Alleluia, salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God, for true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication. Here we begin to see these building blocks have not been right. They have not been right at all. And a journey back through the history of time pretty much focuses on some of the things that the Bible renders are in opposite contrast to what God's kingdom is. There will be a small separate group of humans at that time who were not part of those that He is coming to war against. We find this in verse 7. So these individuals joining Him in marriage have right and righteousness in common with Him. And they are in stark contrast to the nations.

You and I are part of those, and we will have lived among the rise and fall of nations along with our forefathers in the faith going back through time to Abraham and before. We have been in the kingdoms of this world, but we have come out of the kingdoms of this world, and we're not of them. Let's go to Hebrews 11 and verse 8 and go back to one of the foundational elements of the kingdom that God is bringing. Foundational element number one, Hebrews 11 and verse 8, By faith, Jesus said when He returns, will there even be faith on the earth? So by faith, by trust in God, Abraham obeyed when he was called. You and I have that in common. We trust God. We wouldn't be here on a Saturday. We wouldn't be tithing. We wouldn't be going to the feast. We wouldn't be looked down on as awed by the world. But He obeyed when He was called to go out to a place where He would receive as an inheritance. That would be what we would call modern-day Israel or Palestine, that Near East area. And He went out not knowing where He was going. But notice verse 9, By faith He dwelt in the land of promise. This is what God promised to His descendants. That land over there. South of Syria, north of Egypt, you know, a little bit west of Arabia. That was the land of promise. And He dwelt there as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with Him of the same promise. So the twelve tribes of Israel had the promise of that particular land. Verse 10, For He, Abraham, waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Ultimately, there will be a new Jerusalem, and Abraham will be a feature in the kingdom of God when Christ returns. But verse 11, we find that God created that nation of Israel. He didn't just take a group of people and say, Oh, I'm going to unfairly, you know, bless you. No, they didn't exist. God made sure they didn't exist. The Israelites would never have happened if it weren't for a miracle. And therefore, verse 11, By faith, Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age. Well past the age. You go back and look, it was so impossible for her to have a child that when she was told that she would, she laughed. The whole point was so that we understand that it was impossible. And then the angel said, You laughed. She said, No, I didn't laugh. Yes, you did laugh. Just to make sure we all knew that it was impossible. And then from her, verse 12, From one man and him as good as dead, Abraham was old, Were born as many as the stars of the sky and multitude, In Nuberal as the sand which is by the seashore.

So here we have then a formulation of a nation, of a kingdom with a group that's going to model that kingdom eventually to the whole world. And yet that didn't happen. Verse 13, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off. They were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

As we look at societies around us, how do you feel about the country of your origin? How do you feel about the country of your origin? This week, The New York Times published an interactive map of the United States of America. What's unique about this map is you can zoom out to see the whole country, or you can zoom in to see your street. And you can do this for the entire country. And what it shows is what the citizens living throughout this country consider their home country, their ancestry, where they're from, who they're of. And when you back all the way out, you see this colorful, almost a tapestry of nations represented here. People from all over the world. And as people like to sort of be together with their own kind of cultures, or locate in, say, a region with a climate that was like something like back home, you begin to see the layout here as people, strangers, and pilgrims who were looking for some sort of a place to be free and raise families. When you look at this map, you can go on to NewYorkTimes.com and look at it. It's interesting that from about Texas heading off to the west, and going up through California, and a bit of the states above them, the population mainly identifies themselves with Latin American culture. Above that, going up through Oregon and Washington, are English and German, or German English, depending on the community. It can be one or the other. Sliding across the top of the country, you begin to find some Scandinavians, maybe because they liked it cold, or they had some Alpine mountains. But there will be Scandinavian cultures that group up there. When you come over to New England, you'll tend to see, again, English and German until you come down to about Washington, D.C. Then from Washington, D.C. throughout the south, all the way to Florida, down through the Carolinas, across Georgia, across Louisiana, and into Texas, and up from there. The vast majority of culture identifies with Africa. Then coming up through the heartland, through the middle, you once again see English and German.

But what is even more interesting is start to zoom in on some of those areas, those states. Zoom in on some of the cities and the neighborhoods, and you find groups of people, like the Hmong from Asia. You find groups of individuals from Iran, wonderful families who escaped and came over and want family and peace and harmony within a culture that's not oppressive. And so many other nations are represented there. From China, you'll find groups or areas from, say, the Netherlands that like to live together. You'll find almost every country from Russia, from Italy. You'll find people from France. You'll find people from Australia. You'll find them all the way around the world, South America, etc., who have come and continue to come throughout the Middle East countries, who are forming and finding, trying to find a homeland that fits to them, something where there's peace, something they've heard where there's some paradise, something that they can call free. These, in the faith, verse 13, embrace them and confess that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, not just in their country, but on the earth. They really didn't fit well with all the civilization, all the culture, or what the Bible calls the world. Verse 14, for those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. Let that word sink in, a homeland. I don't know about you, but having traveled a lot and being in many different countries, you tend to feel that your own homeland, your own country, is something special, and most people do that. But at the same time, most people, when they're looking at their own homeland, as I do mine, see some issues with it. We see some things that we find it hard to identify with. In particular, when traveling into some rural areas, whether it's in rural Asia or rural Africa or other places, and you see the United States represented on television in bump and grind music. Or horrible movies of murder, of incest, of adultery, of fornication. And you see the U.S. pushing its pornography and its anti-God evolution. And some of the other things that this country has just become known for, financial greed. It's hard to have a strong identity with that. And people where you are are finding it hard themselves to find a strong identity where they are. And so, in verse 16, now they desire a better that is a heavenly country. And that is kind of where we are today. We can look back, we can see God's hand in so many elements of history. And really within some of the more positive developments that have happened in this age, particularly things that let the gospel go out. Like the internet, like television, like radio. But at the same time, we see these very things being turned against humanity and pushing against God.

We desire then a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. Like with Abraham, we look to a different city. And so God made a promise concerning the lineage of Abraham back in Genesis 18 and verse 17. Let's go back and follow this thread a little bit further. Genesis 18 and verse 17.

And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing? Since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. Now we know that the seed that will provide all the blessings is that represented in the coming kingdom of God through Jesus Christ. That seed, He will be a blessing, and all will be able to enter God's kingdom who come to Him. In verse 19, you could say, Because I have known Him in order that He may command His children and His household after Him, that they keep the way of the Lord. This is another marvel that we have today. Actually, a Bible. Everybody can own a Bible. Something unheard of down through history. And now, not just possible, it's actually recommended. It's supposedly the world's most purchased and owned and unread book.

That they keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him. God will do that, but it takes humanity to fulfill its responsibility.

So, God, through Isaac, gave Abraham a son or a grandson named Israel. Notice carefully in Genesis 28, verse 3. May God Almighty bless you. Isaac here blessing Jacob. May God Almighty bless you. And may you fruitful and multiply you, that you may be an assembly of peoples and give you the blessing of Abraham, that land and nations that are full of people as the sand of the sea.

To you and your descendants with you, that you may inherit the land in which you are a stranger, which God gave to Abraham. Now, as we follow this thread, it leads us to Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 1. Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 1. We may call this the blessings chapter, because it begins with, Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all of His commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above the nations of the earth. So this one people, God wanted to make into a righteous example that then would be above or a representative of a leader among all the nations of the world. And that is still His goal. Verse 2, That is how these blessings will come. Now, that sounded great. Miraculously created people. God's going to give them a land. He's going to bless them. But which peoples down through time, anywhere, have followed God so that He could bless them? You know, pick your favorite country. Pick your favorite history. Which group? Even pick the 12 tribes of Israel. When did they do that so that God could bless them? On the surface, again, nations seem nice. Just peel back the layer. Maybe go a layer deep. Well, there must be better layers. Let's keep going. Seems like with anything that's labeled profound, there are elements. There's history. And most nations that have claimed greatness have done so attributing it to their God, to their religion, their false God, or just themselves.

And yet, all these nations have their scars. And the United States sure has plenty of its own. None, none, have lived God's way since Adam and Eve walked out of the Garden of Eden as far as countries are concerned. Accordingly, here in Deuteronomy 28, you have 12 more verses here, up through verse 14. This is what we're going to... The blessings... You're going to read 12 verses of blessings. They're incredible blessings. Curiously, in verse 15, we have 52 verses of cursings. Not just non-blessings. Not just, if you don't, oops, you won't get those. No. 52 verses of cursings from God. Verse 15, But it shall come to pass if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today, that all of these curses will come upon you and overtake you. So, you know, God's not dumb. He does what he says. If we drop down to the last verse, verse 64, or towards the end, kind of summarizes what actually will become of them. Then the Lord will scatter you among the peoples from one end of the earth to the other. So we begin to see now that God was true. He was accurate. And when those people obeyed him, they were blessed. And when they disobeyed him up to a point, I will scatter you from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known, wood and stone. And among those nations you shall find no rest. That did happen. Like in Hosea 9 and verse 16, Ephraim, which was often synonymous with all of Israel, the northern ten tribes of Israel, it says, Hosea 9 and 16, Ephraim is stricken. Their root is dried up. They shall bear no fruit. Verse 17, My God will cast them away, because they did not obey him, and they shall be wanderers among the nations. And trying to track and trace where those lost ten tribes went, found them wandering and perhaps appearing here and there. But humans, humans want a kingdom. They don't just want to wander. Humans want a kingdom. And this paradise of the garden is something that I think seems to pop up in many humans' minds. We want to go to some paradise. We want to go to some place that's really nice. It's sort of free, whether it's for vacation or whether you want to move there or whether mentally you want to live there. It's kind of an escape concept, but it's a paradise of their own fashioning. In Amos chapter 9 and verse 8, God speaks of this kind of human kingdom, as it were. Behold, the eyes of the Lord are on the sinful kingdom. He was referring to the kingdom of at least the northern ten tribes at that time. Judah was still intact. But the eyes of the Lord are on the sinful kingdom, not the righteous kingdom, not God's kingdom. And I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Verse 9, For surely I will command and will sift the house of Israel among the nations, as grain is sifted in a sleeve. So, for the last, I don't know, 3,000 years or so, people have been trying to figure out where these tribes, the house of Israel, has been sifted among the nations. And there's a lot of study, a lot of thought that's gone into that. But during that time, any notice of them, any identity of them, has been about them warring, fighting, getting into some real kind of demonic religions and cultures. Very much involved in raiding and killing. Later on, piracy, mixing with foreigners, pushing the boundaries of lawlessness. That's just a dynamic people without God's law keeping them on a course towards right. If we peel back any layer up to today, you'll find that unrighteous mindset.

This anniversary, as I mentioned, has, by some historians, categorized in many different ways. And in one way, the English Civil War.

During the Civil War between Englishmen in 1770s, 1780s, which culminated in the mid-1780s, it became a lot more than just sort of a little fight over rights. It began to engage international countries. And the war that began in the colonies spilled out into an international contest with France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic joining the contest on one side, and then some other forces joining the English on the other side. And once it all settled out, the independence of the nation didn't come easily. Because after that war ended, the war of independence ended, the British were still here. They still had military forts in the United States, and they sided with the Indians. And tensions grew. And the British then began to push, and the Americans pushed back at them. The British would go out at times and capture American ships, take the sailors and put them in the British Army here in the U.S. We didn't like that. And so things grew to the point where America burned the city in Canada. We know it as Toronto. But the English retaliated by burning Washington, D.C. They burned the White House, they burned the Capitol Building. And in the war of 1812, all kind of bedlam broke out for a couple of years. Not a whole lot got accomplished. But in the end, we had some dramatic events as that war finished up.

One thing happened outside near Washington, D.C. We had a fort, and in our battle there, the British were winning so well, the American forces ran away. They even named them the Bradenburg Races, American soldiers running. They called them the Bradenburg Races. And one of the fastest runners of the day in that race was Francis Scott Key. Francis Scott Key was a lieutenant in the American Army, and he ran, and he got away. But he got on a British ship pleading for the life of one of his family's friends. And while he was pleading for the life aboard that ship, the British Navy just decided to pummel one of our forts that was there. And so they just started firing on it, fired everything they had. No return fired. They just bombed it, and bombed it, and bombed it, and shelled it all night. And Francis Scott Key was watching this, and he wrote words and put them with an Irish drinking song, a pub song, and developed what we call the National Anthem. Now, in that National Anthem, which has four verses, you have to go all the way to the end of the last part of the anthem, in the fourth verse, he wrote this as he saw the flag rise the next morning in Fort McHenry. The only thing that happened the next day was a flag came up. And so he wrote, And this be our motto, in God is our trust, and the star-spangled banner, in triumph shall wave, over the land of the free, and the home of the brave. And so here we have this convoluted thing of wars, and we would have a civil war after that, and all kinds of things take place down through time. What is free? What is freedom? What is the definition of freedom? The title of this message is freedom at last. Freedom at last. God, as we've read, offers blessings if we live his way of life. But humans want self-promotion, which is opposite to God's way of life. Adam and Eve desired freedom. We see in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 22. Then the Lord God said, after they ate the fruit, after this enlightenment came, Behold, the man has become like one of us to know. The Hebrew word to know means to ascertain or to advise what is. Man has come like one of us to ascertain or to advise himself in what is good and evil. Whatever mankind has done since has been outside of God, outside of the kingdom of God, the rulership of God, which is that word, kingdom, talks about the authority, the rulership. So ever since mankind advises or ascertains for himself what is good and what is evil without God. Politics, business, religion, look at the models, trace them back, trace them all the way back to their foundations. Where do they go? They go back generally to Babylon. Babylon, we might think of them as Greek, various things of governance. We think of them as Rome, Roman form of governance. We might think of them as corporations, Roman form of corporations, etc., etc. Even the religions, though, even those proclaiming to be Christian, they have little or nothing that actually comes from God's word, from God in the Bible. The UCG commentary says this, because mankind rejects good and vital things as wrong or unnecessary, and at the same time embraces so many bad and harmful things as good and acceptable, the overall effect of mankind's ongoing choice is all the pain and heartache that we see in the world.

God's way of love and respect for His laws builds peace and harmony and joy and concern for one another. It builds an integral working relationship among all people and God that is very harmonious and very easy to bless. But sin hurts. Sin hurts all of those relationships. And humans desiring freedom from this fabric of love and of joy and of assistance where every part is helping the other, freedom from that brings inequalities. It brings all types of restrictions from one person on to another. And this is built up over time. And so when the United States formed, it presented itself as an opportunity for freedom from this type of oppression. You could escape the direct control of oppressive governments or oppressive religions, and you could get out and be free to promote yourself, promote your family, or whatever. And so people not content under their country's conditions have sought places where they can escape to. And many came to this country, and it has provided a certain amount of freedom, at least for some. But once again, if you go back to those segments on the New York Times map, how many of them feel equal with the other segments? How many of them feel free? And when you go into those segments, you find there is still a struggle within. Martin Luther King once said, I have a dream. And it was a dream that came from a lot of struggle and oppression from one particular people, but he also recognized that came from many different people. And his dream was that all people, Jewish, people from around the world in every culture, every religion, every time, could be free at last. And that was a time when we shot our president, we shot our senator, we shot Martin Luther King. And things have continued to struggle. But God and the kingdom of God represent true freedom. Can you ever think of it that way? God doesn't force you into his kingdom. He doesn't require anything of you. He doesn't make you do something. God lets us be free moral agents, free to choose his kingdom, free to choose his way. Humans pursue their own self-centered versions of freedom, and that provides some sort of a relativism of morality, beliefs, truths, whatever. That kind of, I can do whatever I want and everything is sort of relative to this and that. But God is a God of absolutes, and humanity has not wanted to follow God's rule carefully and obediently. Instead, humanity has wanted to be free from the bondage of God's law. You and I probably know some people who en masse left this church years ago and declared that they were free. They felt a freedom. Freedom from God's law. They didn't have to keep God's law anymore. In Romans 1 and verse 28, this concept really appeals to all humans. It's part of our human nature. This isn't about one country or one people. Notice Romans chapter 1 and verse 28.

Even as they did not like to retain God and their knowledge. Just hold on a minute. Once in a while you'll hear the name God. Once in a while you'll hear somebody say something about God, like, God bless my country. Or, you know, may God do this? And that's all you hear. Meanwhile, they're just going on, not liking to retain God and their knowledge. God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. Being filled with all unrighteousness. Not just some. Being filled with all unrighteousness. Remember Jesus Christ's righteousness? The bride's righteousness? Filled with all unrighteousness. Sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness. You know, like I said, you just look at society wherever you go. And it is just in your face. Full of envy, murder. I mean, we have the capital, probably of the world, of children shooting children, people killing people. You know, it's just gone crazy.

Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, whispers, backbiters, haters of God. Haters of God. Violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things.

The result are the kingdoms of this world. Look at the kingdoms of this world. Jesus Christ is coming to be the king of kings, and He is coming to reign over the kingdoms of this world. He is going to supplant them with His own kingdom. In the meantime, humanity is about to encounter the result of all of this lawlessness. All these civilizations are gearing up. Everybody wants autonomy. They want freedom. And so they're getting weapons to protect themselves from tyranny from others.

More and more are getting atomic and nuclear weapons. You probably know that the one that the British Empire placed over the country of Iran, the first Shah, when they put this, as the citizens would call him, a puppet Shah in over their country. The puppet Shah, one of the first things out of his mouth says, great! The first thing we're going to do is get an atomic bomb. And they were like, no, no, no, no, no! Why did he say that?

Well, I think every country wants its own sovereign state. It wants its own protection. And so countries around the world, militarily, are just stockpiling. Look at Europe. What are they doing that for? Stockpiling it. They want to protect themselves. Iran wants to protect itself. And regime after regime after regime, it's come after their oil, come after this, come after that. And the world and the politics and the people at the top who are corrupt and abusing the people that are down below, and this just spirals into a mess.

A real mess. In the response, we hear more and more is a desire for one world kingdom. Do you hear this? The one world government. There is a great desire that the only thing that can solve humanity's problems, and they're right, is a one world government. With one ruler, one set of laws, one religion, and one ruler.

Now, that's not a brainchild of humanity. That's a brainchild of God the Father. And there's a contesting one ruled government that Satan is gearing up for this earth. You know, when humans with an unrighteous mind decide to control and be king, Machiavellian thoughts come to mind. Now, Machiavelli wrote a guide for effective dictators called the Prince. And in it, it says, in exercising political power, a ruler should give priority to what benefits his rulership, rather than what is moral. A ruler should not lag behind in the employment of violence, cruelty, and bad faith.

The ends justify the means. Fraud and deceit are necessary for a prince to use. A ruler should be excused for violence when its intent is beneficial to himself. Brute force and deceit should be used to exterminate political rivals, destroy resistant populations, and purge anyone who may attempt to replace the ruler. Sound familiar? It's actually kind of been a guide that people down through time have referred to. We see this in Revelation 13 and verse 1.

Interestingly, we don't read anything about this country. When we get into the very end times, we don't hear about the West. But in Revelation 13.1, here John said, I stood on the sand of the sea, I saw the beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads, seven iterations of the Roman Empire, ten horns, ten kings.

And on his horn, ten crowns. And on his seven heads, a blasphemous name. So there is one emperor, one person to worship. It's going to be commercially driven, largely it seems. Political, religious, military, entity. It's similar to the ancient structures of Babylon, media, Persia, Greece, Rome. It's going to be powerful, organized along that way.

And in verse 3, I saw one of its heads as if it had been mortally wounded. That's the fall of the Roman Empire. And its deadly wound was healed. It's had six revivals so far. And all the world marveled and followed the beast. Ah, this is going to give us, I don't know, freedom. It's going to give us life.

It's smart. So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast. Not about God. And they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him? Verse 7, It was granted to him to make war with the saints and overcome them. The authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation, and all who dwell on the earth will worship him. You know, this is where society goes. This is where the world goes. This is where the kingdoms of this world go.

Let's go to Mark 12 and verse 30, and let's see God's recipe for freedom. Mark 12 and verse 30. What we just read is in stark contrast to what God says will bring humans freedom. Mark 12 and verse 30. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

This is the first commandment, and the second commandment is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. So rather than all that oppression, control, and killing, and religious, and everything else, all of a sudden we have everyone contributing to wonderful lives, everyone building up as each part does its share across societies. Albert Einstein, I don't know, was, you know, he wasn't noted to be a religious man. He was a very smart man. He was very involved in science and deep thought and understanding a lot of deep things.

He published the book out of my later years in the 1930s. And in this book are some very fascinating insights that he gave. In chapter 4, which he entitled, Moral Decay, notice these words, The injunctions of the Bible concerning human conduct are accepted as self-evident demands for individuals and society. This country seemed to have those. Yet today we must recognize with horror that these pillars of civilized human existence have lost their firmness.

The quest for truth now has no justification and is not to be tolerated. Chapter 5, on freedom. The growth of the natural sciences with their great influence on thought and practical life leaves little room for religious sense and a serious weakening of moral thought and sentiment. Yet the moral imperative is the most precious possession of all mankind. And finally, in chapter 8, science and religion. From the 1700s it was widely held that belief should be replaced increasingly by scientific knowledge, the sole function of education.

Yet knowledge of what is does not open the door to what should be. The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish Christian religious tradition, which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations. Free and responsible development of the individual so that he may place his powers freely in the service of all mankind. The high destiny of the individual is to serve. If one holds these high principles and compares them with the life and spirit of our times, then it appears glaringly that civilized mankind finds itself at present in grave danger.

Albert Einstein, 1939. That was before the Second World War. You know, when you and I look at freedom, what freedom do we want? Well, what freedom should we want? I mean, I'm human like anyone else, and sometimes carnally we would want those things that the world pursue. Galatians chapter 4 and verse 23 simply states, but the Jerusalem above, remember that city that's being prepared?

Remember that capital city in heaven, heavenly Jerusalem, where God's throne is? This referring to the church, God the Father, Jesus Christ, and down through us. But the Jerusalem of above is free, which is the mother of us all. That's the freedom we are being engendered with.

The freedom of godliness, of righteousness. But that freedom comes with a steep price. It requires the ultimate price, the death of self. We all love self. Humans love self. And if we put that before God and others, we cannot be free. But if we will pay that price, notice in Romans chapter 6 and verse 6 what the apostle Paul speaks of here.

Regarding freedom. This whole chapter is about freedom. Romans 6 verse 6, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. Slaves of sin. For he who has died through baptism has been freed from sin. So freedom actually comes from repenting and being baptized and receiving God's Holy Spirit. The ultimate price, again, is the death of the self. The death of me, my, myself, replacing it with we, us, our, and serving children in the God's family.

Verse 20, for when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard of righteousness. There lies the freedom, honestly, that so many people desire and so much has been founded on. Freedom in regard to righteousness. Freedom, you don't have to necessarily do anything. You figure out. You and your religion and your culture and whatever you want, you're free.

Go out and do what you want. Free in regard to righteousness. Verse 21, but what fruit did you have in the things of which you're now ashamed? Look at the fruit that we're seeing around us. Look at the fruit in our own lives when we've stepped out of freedom in God's way of life to freedom from God's way of life. Verse 22, but now, having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, that's a choice. This is indentured servitude. This is, hey, I can't do it on my own, so God, I'm going to enter in a covenant with you.

We'll call it the New Covenant, where I'm going to die to my old way of life. You're going to help me this new way of life, and I'm going to serve you. I'm going to be your servant. In fact, I'm going to be your betrothed bride, and I'm going to serve you. And you have your fruit to holiness and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

You know, when Jesus returns and humanity that remains, whatever remains, struggles into the millennial period, and God's way of life begins to be understood by them. The Spirit comes into them. And miracles take place. Just absolute miracles start taking place within the environment. And a garden, a paradise begins to grow as they obey. People are going to probably yell, free at last, free at last! With God almighty, there's free at last for everybody, everywhere. Because we'll be free of Satan. We'll be free of the penalties.

You and I are citizens of a heavenly country, like citizens everywhere. We don't really fit. We're not always very proud of the countries of our lineage. They were formed. They were lived without God, without truth, without love. In Isaiah chapter 61 and verse 1, as we wrap this up, we find how real freedom will finally arrive for mankind. And it involves you. It involves you. You're an important component of it. All of those who consider themselves pioneers in a different way, those who consider themselves citizens of something they can really sink their teeth in, really identify with. This is who I am. This is what I want to be. This is what I'm up for. All of it. They pray to their God, Holy is your name. Holy is everything about you. Everything related to you is good. It's godly. In Isaiah 61 and verse 1, it says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Talking about Jesus Christ. This is a passage that he began reading when he stood up and was given the scroll or the book of Isaiah. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has appointed me to preach good tidings or glad tidings to the poor. Glad tidings to the poor means freedom from poverty and want. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, freedom from mental anguish. Imagine what people will have gone through when the millennium begins. Imagine what people in the second resurrection, as they come up to another life, imagine what they will have gone through. To proclaim liberty to the captives, freedom from all forms of slavery and oppression, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, freedom from those who are pushed down and restricted. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, that jubilee when everything gets released that was bound and removed, it gets returned. And the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, freedom from grief, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, freedom from illnesses and death, the oil of joy for mourning, freedom from unhappiness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, freedom from sin, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified, freedom from a false God, a false Father of this world, Satan the Devil. Imagine when they emerge, having all of those freedoms. Well, in conclusion, you and I have things to do now in preparing to assist Jesus Christ, to bring those freedoms with Him. We need to be people of righteousness now. And so, in conclusion, I'd like to read Galatians 5 and verse 1, which tells you and me, stand fast therefore. You and I, be resolute, unmovable, unmovable. Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. And do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Brethren, if you love freedom, if you love God's way, if you love liberty, if you love life, continue to repent from anything that God says not to do, and carefully observe all things that He says to do. And then you will live this life free from sin and death, and you will live free with God in His kingdom forever.