Omega Church with Ronnie Allen
August 15 Omega Learning 810AM Radio | Ronnie Allen
Well today in our studies we're going to continue reading from our book called The Rebirth of America. This book was copyrighted in the mid 1980s and it is something that I believe that we need to go over because sometimes I think that we need a real awakening and that's that's what is stirring in America now and we don't need to just you know hear the alarm clock go off and then hit the snooze button. We need to learn. In fact we're in a close of an age my friend and the more we learn Christ the more it's going to be beneficial for you as an individual and for the body of Christ. The body of Christ has been given an assignment by God which is the great commission of spreading the gospel. I believe with all my heart through my studies and through what I have read and studied through the years that America has been is a gift to the body of Christ to fulfill this commission in the last of the church age. The last couple of three hundred two hundred and fifty years or so America has done much to spread the gospel around the world and reaching many peoples both in foreign lands and here in America and the founding fathers had the enlightenment of the Word of God and the reading and the studying of the Word of God informing our nation. It had an influence on the formation of our nation. This did not the freedoms that we enjoy and the system of government that they instituted was not the idea of one man. It was the idea of God and it was manifested through many people coming together and allowing the Word of God to have a free course in their deliberations and debate in setting up these institutions. But when we deviate it and thrown out the very core, the very foundation of these institutions and then we expect the foundation has been gone and God is returning us back to it by the way. We're seeing here and as we study this we're looking again to this book and we're looking at a particular article written by John W. Whitehead and its entitled freedom of religious expression fact or fiction. We read yesterday where he goes over the persecution and the secular humanism is a religion itself by the way and in that religion system of secular humanism they do not allow any other religion to exist. They want to exterminate any other belief and it is a system used by communism. In fact it is the very foundation if you would of communism and one world rule or the government rules. The government replaces God. Our founding fathers insisted that God gave us these rights and that government was the servant not the master. But when there has been a eroding and an absence of God then the only other thing that can take place is man thinks he is God and there's this elite ruling class the technological elite that think that what you and I believe on Jesus Christ and the Bible that what we believe is just nothing more than ancient myth and it's just mythology and they don't want us to have any of it. They don't want it to have an effect whatsoever in society and because of that persecution has come. Now it was John Whitehead understood this when he wrote this article that persecution of Christianity is all around us. It's here today and it's prevalent in our society. However the word of God works. Listen to this he says in this article there's another side to the situation of religion and moral expression. The repressive efforts of many secularists are often aided through unknowing Christians themselves. Where they're intimidated by opposition or misguided by a faulty understanding of their Christian mission many live in self-imposed silence. Too many Christians have ignored them the mandate to manifest God's truths in all area of culture. Unfortunately many Christians have failed fallen prey to the to the roots that religion is a personal matter. Personal meaning that one expresses it at home or in church but had better keep it out of the public arena. Thus many have segregated their lives into the spiritual and the secular. I believe that's the number one problem. Family devotions, evangelism, Bible studies, Sunday church services and the light fall into the spiritual compartment. Every other area business, education, politics, etc is strictly secular. As a result Christians have privatized their faith and have withdrawn their influence from the politics, education and other vital areas of public life and that's, listen carefully, I believe that's the number one problem with the church and it has been. I believe Christians are waking up but is to absolutely divide their life into secular and spiritual and don't let one affect the other and in reality did Jesus come to just save one area of your life? Is all he care about? Is where you spend eternity after you die? Or did he say I will never leave you or forsake you? Or did he say in his word if you'll continue in my word you'll be my disciples indeed. He said you'd know the truth and you would be my disciples indeed. You will not know the truth apart from the word of God in that area of your life. So if you secularize certain areas of your life that means that God's out of the picture, how can you know the truth about a matter and operate in truth that would set you free in that area? So many of us have divided that and that's the intent of a secular society to where they get you, that attitude gets you where hey the most important parts of your life are secular and we'll confine all the other as secondary on one specific day a week. We got to wake up. Listen to this. This retreat from society has left the field open for the unopposed influx of secularists fault that is now entrenched as the dominant force in American society. As a consequence America is saturated with a system of arbitrary, arbitrary absolutes and philosophical relatives that have man at their center. Even now with many of our once sturdy foundations crumbling around us economic, political, academically, morally, the potency of the secular voice has yet to be right to be raised effectively. I believe, I believe that that is changing. I believe since the pandemic people have woken up to what has absolutely taken place through decades. Listen to this. We must recognize that Christ came to redeem the whole man and he is to be Lord of the Christian's whole life as such. We are to integrate God's teachings into every area of our lives. There should be no difference between the spiritual and the secular. No compartment is outside the jurisdiction of Christ's lordship. I couldn't have said that any better myself. Recognizing Christ's absolutes and all encompassing lordship not only in our individual lives but in the all areas of our lives should move us to fulfill his commission to make his teachings known in all of life's areas. This is the true meaning of evangelism. Jesus has also called us to be salt and life, light, to redeem our present world through the integration of God's truth. This is a mission many have solely neglected, indeed, of seeking to internalize the gospel, make its application relevant to the world around us. Many have hid their lights under a basket and shelved the Christian salt until it has lost most of its flavor, but the consequences are not irreversible. The solution to the humanistic crisis in America is for Christians to end their silence and the passivity and the activity of their convictions. We must boldly seek to express God's truth and is relevant to every area of our society. We must defend against every effort to suppress such expressions. We must remember that the great social reforms in earlier centuries were largely the result of religious revivals. These revivals were aimed not merely at saving souls but also at redeeming men's social environment. Simply put, early Christianity sought God at work in the whole culture, not merely in the hearts of men. This attitude motivated many Christians to fight doggedly for the abolition of slavery and other social reforms that testified to God's view of dignity of man. These Christians were determined to apply the principles of their faith to the practical needs of their cultures. Thus, faith and determination resulted in significant social improvements as well as in personal conversions. There is no reason to doubt that similar reforms are possible today. We have access to the limitless power of God. We also have the foundation to our nation's Christian heritage as reflected in our Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Christians should keep in mind that when it comes to expressing our convictions, the Constitution, according to the original intent of its framers, is on our side. Regardless of how others may invoke the First Amendment to restrict and subdue religious influence, the Supreme Court has affirmed that the Constitution's intent is not to expunge religion from all public society. Rather, the First Amendment dictates that the government must protect and accommodate religion, not be hostile to it. Thus, we have a constitutional formation for protecting outright efforts to censor our convictions since these indeed show hostility towards religion. It is imperative that the rights of Christians to express themselves can be carried into all public arenas or our freedom to speak at all may be lost. This includes public schools. Studies by youth organizations have shown that if a person does not trust in Christ by the time he is 18, odds are high that he never will. Therefore, if Christians give into secularist attacks and relinquish their rights to voice their convictions, then we may totally lose the opportunity to reach a vast segment of society with the truth of the gospel. We must protect the rights of religious parents to direct their children's education free from excessive government interference. The Bible states that parents are responsible for the education of their children. An allowing state improvement on that responsibility is a threat to family strength and liberty. Most important of all, we must boldly speak out against the horrors of abortion, aggressively defending the rights of the unborn child. Within the abortion, issue lies the total destruction of freedom as we know it. A government that will not protect human life will not in the end protect any freedoms or liberties. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Man, oh man, oh man. Now, here's the thing. You and I need to understand that Jesus came to save the whole man, not just part of us, all of us, every bit of us, everything we're involved in, redeem the whole part of man. This is going to require putting faith to the test. And he goes on to write right here, such efforts, however, will be accompanied by risk. And the examples mentioned at the beginning of this article were considerable risk to the comfort and well-being of people involved. Nevertheless, they stood their ground of their convictions, refusing to back down even when threatened with financial penalty or prison terms. In most cases, their faith and determination brought about a favorable change. For example, in the midst of legal delays and litigation that lasted nearly two years, David and James Henderson continued to picket the abortion clinic, protesting what they termed the horrendous and butt juristic slaughter of unborn human children. The threat of a $200,000 lawsuit was not enough to deter them. The Henderson's willingness to choose the right action over the safe and convenient action led to a positive results. Over several occasions, women decided not to go through with the abortion. They had planned to have that day and one source of statistics indicated that the clinic performed 100 fewer abortions in 1983, compared with the previous years. Furthermore, a Supreme Court judge upheld the brother's constitution rights to freedom of speech and dismissed all charges of liable and defamation. Now, let me stop here just a minute. We've seen in our lifetime now the overturning of Roe versus Wade, where the power is returned back to the states. That has been a decades fight. So listen carefully. There is good news, even though we have to see where we were and what we're facing. There is good news. It's time to stand up. We got the devil on the run and we need to be pursuing him. In the case of the Roman Catholic nurse who refused to work for an abortionist, when the state disqualified her from receiving unemployment compensation, she didn't passively submit. She sought the help of Christian attorneys who threatened to sue the state for violating her constitutional rights. At that point the state back down and restored her benefits. In the home education case, when Terry and Vicki Rameshiled were found guilty of violating Georgia's compulsory education statute, they didn't aquasist when faced with a heavy fine. They appealed the decision to a higher court, defending their parental responsibility to give their children a good academic and moral instruction, both of which they found lacking in public schools. The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that compulsory education statute was impermissibly vague and therefore unconstitutional, thus upholding the right of the couple to teach their children at home. In effect, the state learned that it does not have the license to regulate through arbitrary interpretations of the law. Wow. So we see some things happening even back then. This is the time to pursue. This is like when David killed Goliath and the armies of Israel started pursuing the Philistines. In conclusion of this article, I want to read this to you. When the apostle Peter was ordered to stop preaching and teaching about Jesus, he refused saying we must obey God rather than man, Acts 5, 29. Peter was jailed, beaten, and finally executed for his commitment to spreading the truth of the gospel to him and to the first century Christians, faith was not a personal matter, but something to be quietly confined to a church or at home. It was a God's universal truth given to redeem a crumbling world. We must be diligent in ensuing that Christianity is given an equal voice in the marketplace of ideas. It will not be easy. The closed system of secularism will logically attempt to exclude any mention of Christianity except to market. However, if Christians will consistently, without hesitation, proclaim their ideas in all areas of culture, they can be confident that the truth of Christianity will prevail in a truly open marketplace of ideas. Now, I'm reading this to you to help you understand that the writers, there have been many different writers in this book called "The Rebirth of America" and it's covering the same things that we're covering today except they foresaw this and many Christians stuck their heads in the sand and went along with absolutely thinking that your personal beliefs only affect you and nobody else. No, they are to affect you, but in every aspect of your life, because how can you spread the gospel? If you don't believe that God, Jesus, God sent Jesus to absolutely redeem the whole man. We can, listen, wherever Jesus is Lord, things change. Freedom is born. Peace prevails and the mercies of God are revealed. That's what our society needs. Our society is sick in case you don't realize it. It's sick. And the moral decline of this nation has absolutely come to a climax. If the church does not wake up, then guess what? There is no hope for America. The church is the key. We must live our Christianity, not talk about it. And it must be, we must stand up, give voice to it when it's necessary and absolutely tell of the goodness of God, how he's transformed our lives and how he can transform an individual, a family, a community, a city, a nation. America was destined for the church and the church should be protecting the freedoms that we've had to spread the gospel, not stick our heads in the sand. I want to just sound this alarm and wake you up. You cannot stand idly by anymore. And you say, well, I don't want to, I don't want to choose sides pastor writing. Listen, no choice is a choice. You got to choose to dedicate your whole life to Christ, your whole being, not just take it and put it in segments for a Sunday morning. It should permeate everything that you do and say, every decision you made, Jesus came to save you. He bought you with a precious blood, his own precious blood, redeemed you from an eternal damnation. And he wants to redeem our society from a destruction that's at hand. We can no longer stand by. So I hope this is an encouragement to you. Battles are being won. We've got the devil on the run. Now we must pursue with all of our might and must be filled with Holy Spirit boldness. Either we believe the true word of God or we don't. If we do, we must take action. How can we set idly by why our nation is destroyed? Thank you for listening to my comments. I encourage you to pursue that. Now, well, I want to give you right here at the very end. Some special guests will be here on September the 1st. It's a Sunday morning at 10 a.m. And then again, Sunday night at 6.30 p.m. Tommy and Elizabeth Odell. They have been our good friends. They've been missionaries around the world. They've taken the gospel into places. I don't even know. I never knew existed. They've been into some dark places and God's been with them and performed miracles. They've preached to tens of thousands at one time and had many campaigns where there's been over a hundred thousand people in attendance. Miracle healings were God touched and thousands were saved. Well, we have the privilege of them being with us on September the 1st. I encourage you to be here. I'd like to see people standing room only to hear them and being the presence of the anointing that God has given them. They're going to pray for the sick and we're expecting healings to take place right then right there. Jesus is stilled in the healing business and he will deliver. We're expecting people to get saved. We're expecting a real move of God. September the 1st, Sunday morning, 10 a.m. And then Sunday evening at 6.30 p.m. Come with anticipation, bring someone with you. And if you don't need healing, you bring someone with you that needs healing or to be saved. Right here in San Antonio, 3737 Roosevelt. Join us September the 1st. It's a Sunday morning at 10 a.m. And then again Sunday night at 6.30 p.m. Until next time, God bless you. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]