Here we go. Last week, we had a slide up there, President Trump and Kamala Harris, which basically had the word vote on it. Well, folks, you voted, and folks across the country voted, and folks in Wisconsin voted. I'll be straightforward. I was very concerned. I was watching the numbers like most of you last night. And if you've looked at certain screens, you could see 2016. Results 2020 results in 2024 everything was basically following the pattern of previous elections and It's like the swing states which included Wisconsin Pennsylvania Michigan and a couple others Whoo, it's like are we actually gonna get this or not? I was shocked when I heard Wisconsin was leaning to in the Trump direction. I was very shocked at Pennsylvania. Of course, most of you listened to all the news last night, but they're stating that about 700,000 individuals that they were planning on voting in Pennsylvania out of that particular group, only 200,000 of the 700,000 showed up, which tipped the scale significantly for President Trump's campaign. Bottom line is we all know the results now. It's absolutely irrefutable. President Trump will be reinstated as the 47th president. And why is that important to us? It's not about the politics. It is about what is going to be happening from a Christian perspective. What are the issues that basically were disturbing not just the Christian community, but the Christian conservatives and the conservatives themselves. So here's the things that we're now trusting the Lord and trusting this administration now to fix. The economy, the rule of law, national security, massive, massive number of terrorist cells that exist in America, our First Amendment rights. That's the one I really care about. If you don't have freedom of religion, If you don't have freedom of assembly, if you don't have freedom of speech, we got a problem. Uh, that's what, uh, the Christian church, of course, we need all of those first amendment rights of which many of them, especially with, uh, what happened during COVID and other things that can pop up, uh, could have absolutely decimated us. So I'm extremely thankful and again, I'm not here to disparage the other administration. What I am here is to say, I know the next administration is going to support these things. And I truly believe that, uh, the issue with globalism, huge issue, uh, the last, the current admin and current by meaning the, uh, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris administration, massive globalists. And, uh, folks, that's just not a worldview. That's a consistent with the Bible. When globalism takes over, it's when the Antichrist takes over. So we are strongly, and we, I'm including you by default. Now, if you don't want to be a nationalist, you don't have to be. But by default, the conservatives are nationalists. That doesn't mean we're white supremacists, Christian nationalists, like some of the nonsense rhetoric that's been coming out from those that are from the liberal side of things. We are nationalists, meaning we believe in America, and America's strength, and America's borders, and America having the, if you will, the resources to reach other countries with the gospel. That's all part of it. Globalism says we have a one-world ruler, which is exactly what is leading towards the future Antichrist. Well, folks, we're back on track again, starting in January, to get away from all this globalist agenda and move back to where America stands on its own, I think you'll find if, and I have no doubt, President Trump will have nothing to lose. He's got one term. He's not going to be running. He can't run for reelection. After that, you get two terms and you're done. So it's no whole bard. And so he doesn't have to play games. He doesn't have to spend half of his four years campaigning. He'll be there. And I mean, you just watch his work ethic and those that work with him. So I'm very, very hopeful. I don't know. Many of you were like me. I was about 10 o'clock and all the way through yesterday. I got to be honest, it's like I don't know how in the world they're going to pull this out. And you're watching the swing states and it's it's just like the numbers aren't coming in. You're hearing rhetoric, you're hearing people You will give their analysis what it's like until I see the the numbers. I'm just not buying it so about I don't know what time it was I went to bed around 11 11 30 and had my Little cell phone right there with the with the number app and I woke up. I don't know two three o'clock whatever it was and they were at 277 and I'm like okay, we can sleep now and the folks again And there are people that are like, well, why do you bring politics into the church? No, politics brings itself into the church. You can't avoid it. Every single one of us lives in America. What the American government does affects the Christian church dramatically, and it affects you as Christians. So again, there was such a strong, strong push To get the Christian community out to vote, I've heard statistics that this was the highest percentage of evangelicals that have ever voted in an election. And you saw some of the, I don't know if they would call themselves evangelicals, but the Mennonite community, some of the others, the Amish, they went to vote. They knew their rights were at risk. Yeah, Melba? Can somebody repeat that my ears aren't that good? Oh Okay, three thousand and nine out of what are there four thousand and some So it's the highest percentage of people that voted in Union Grove. So people took this literally dead seriously Alright, so bottom line the votes in we know where that's going If you got your Bibles again, you're gonna have to use the old-fashioned method today. So First Timothy chapter two. First Timothy chapter two. Again, the political rhetoric has been strong on both sides, the hate speech and all that kind of thing. But we need to go back from a Christian perspective. When we look at politics, yes, we're thankful that we have a conservative that's definitely more in line with our Christian principles than the current administration. But here's what 1 Timothy, what the apostle Paul exhorts us to do. 1 Timothy 2, chapter two, verse one. Therefore, Paul says, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. All right, so when we look at our government and our government leaders, yes, we can get excited and get punchy, but God says, listen, folks, okay, nothing wrong with pushing your issues. That's a constitutional right. In fact, it's your first amendment right. but we look at people a bit different than those that don't know Christ. Yes, we'll fight for what we believe in, and well, you should, and well, your agenda should be put out there, because again, a constitutional republic. I'm getting so tired of everybody, even the conservatives now, they won't say constitutional republic, they all say what? Everything's, we're not a democracy. And they're trying to change the definition of the word, obviously, to match their concept of democracy is literally, they're defining it as the constitutional republic, but it's an improper use of the word. The bottom line is, in our constitutional republic, what does God ask us to do? Doesn't matter if it's a democracy, a constitutional republic, a monarchy, whatever. In fact, I heard one individual, and I'm not gonna name him because I like him, But he was on talking about Romans 13 recently and some of you might have heard it and like, well, Romans 13 doesn't apply because they were talking about monarchies and we're talking about constitutional. I don't see any difference in the scripture. Scripture didn't say it's a monarchy, so therefore it only applies to one group of people. No, I think Romans 13 is very applicable and God does put people in authority where they belong, and God does handle that. So again, my point is we pray for President Biden, you pray for Kamala Harris, you pray for Donald Trump, you pray for J.D. Vance, you pray for the senators, the congressmen and women, and all those who have authority on down to your local authorities. Pray for them. Listen, if we, sometimes we get this, concept that they're up here and we're down here and therefore we can't talk to them because they have a different status. That's a bad way to look at it. They need Christ. Thank you. Can you imagine what could happen if the president, the vice presidents, more senators, whatever, came to Christ? You say, well, that's not going to happen. How do we know it's not going to happen? unless we go out and proclaim it. So it's like, boy, if you get the opportunity, exercise it. And of course, there's many that do. Of course, they like to get the folks that have the big names into their offices. Great, get a big name Christian in, let a big name Christian lead you to Christ. That's wonderful. All right, so let's keep praying for them. Why is this important? Once again, First Amendment. Hopefully I can read it because I'm looking at a small paper here. But Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievances. All right. So the American people Went to the polls and basically took their grievances out in the ballot. And, um, an unbelievable amount of folks decided to vote for, uh, the current or for, uh, president Trump and JD Vance. So all that is going to become a reality. So I sent out an email earlier today. If you're on our email list, you should have gotten it. Basically making a comment to this extent. From our perspective, and now President Trump, obviously, I'm not pushing, I can name names now. Everybody's worried about tax-exempt status, and, oh, you gotta be careful, and you can't say this, and you can't say that, and it's like, yeah, whatever, okay. You say, Pastor, I don't wanna lose our tax-exempt status. It's not whatever, it's important. Okay, anyway, I don't wanna lose tax-exempt status either, but, As you well know, I think the majority of us are very pleased with the way the election went. And what does that mean to me and you? It means this. God has given us four years of what looks to be an administration that will support the work that a church like Union Grove Baptist does. We will not have the government, at least from my perspective at this point, coming in and trying to shut us down, giving us unbelievable pushback on things that we may try to do and so forth. So I'm very happy, I'm rejuvenated. I'm like, okay, God, we've been praying for this. And we got it. Now what are we gonna do with it? Four years, I don't know what's gonna happen at the end of four years. And again, I'm assuming that God's gonna keep President Trump from the Iranian assassination team taking him out or some other group. God's been protecting him. And President Trump in his acceptance speech made reference to that. He said, many folks have told me that God spared my life so that I could be in this position. Well, I think most of us would say, yeah, I think you're pretty much on target there, Mr. President. So let's do the right thing. Let's be out there. Let's do God's work. Let's take advantage of the next four years. We don't know if we'll have another administration like this. I'll tell you, I was scared to death that we were gonna lose everything if this election went the wrong way. And I kept going back to Sodom and Gomorrah. I'm like, Lord, come on. You said you'd save Sodom and Gomorrah if you could find 10 righteous people. I can name 10 righteous people at Union Grove Baptist Church. It's like, there's hundreds and thousands of Christians around this country. I'm like, we're a little better than Sodom. Okay, we got a lot of problems, but we got more than 10 righteous people that aren't going in that direction. How about you give us four more years? Well, I think a lot of people prayed pretty much the same thing and God said, all right, folks, I'm gonna give you those four years. Don't waste them. Michael McCurry will be showing up here November 17th. We had Okay, last Sunday if you were here and most everybody was we were we were pretty we had about three different pews that were open Last Sunday place was pretty well packed out. We're gonna be adding chairs and so forth and this week, but That's a good thing and let's keep pushing. Let's keep bringing folks. We'll figure out how to seat them we'll get them in the door and We'll give them Good Bible teaching as well as the gospel. So let's not give up 1st Corinthians 15 58 Final admonishment therefore my beloved brethren be steadfast immovable Always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord all God's people said I mean when you work hard when you do the right thing when you're serving God and Your labor is not in vain. As tough as it may be sometimes, as little praise as you may get, the few pats on the back you may never get, God said, listen, you just keep punching. You just keep pushing. You just keep inviting folks to hear the gospel and you bring folks to church and you just keep doing the right thing and having a good testimony because your labor in the Lord is not in vain. God's given us four more years folks. Let's take advantage of it all right number two Israel of course as you know struck Iran back in the end of October so Just a little bit of an update from the Institute for the study of war and here's what's basically taking place Iran reportedly warned some Arab countries that it will conduct a complex attack on Israel in retaliation for the recent IDF or Israel Defense Force strikes on Iran. Unspecified Arab and Iranian officials told the Wall Street Journal that the upcoming Iranian attack will include drones and missiles and that some will have heavier payloads than those which Iran has previously fired at Israel. All right, so again, Taking a look at current events in the light of Bible prophecy, we know from Ezekiel 38 that Iran is a major player in the future. They are not going to be wiped out any more than Israel's going to be wiped out. But Iran apparently, and they've got 70 some missiles in different areas that are now staged, ready to fire at Israel. Will the Iron Dome and all the other different things that Israel has to shoot down missiles, will Israel basically remain unscathed? We do not know, so that remains to be seen. Western and Iranian analysts have noted that Iran could use medium-range ballistic missiles, which purportedly carry a payload of 1,500 kilograms and has a range of 2,000 meters or 1,200 miles. The Arab and Iranian officials also told the Wall Street Journal, I don't know how the Wall Street Journal all of a sudden got on their mailing list, but anyway, that Iran will use other weapons beyond drones and missiles and will include the conventional Iranian military known as the Artesh, A-R-T-E-S-H, in the attack. The incursion of the Artesh would mark the first time that it has attacked Israel. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has taken lead on attacking Israel up at this point. The Artesh or the other group would participate presumably because the IDF killed four Artesh officers in its recent strike on Iran. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reportedly told senior regime officials that the IDF strikes were too large to ignore. Folks, when Israel hit Iran, they denied that they did any damage. Well, of course, it's a little hard to cover everything up, again, Israel took out the major group of ballistic, if you will, radar detectors and ballistic missiles that would be used to shoot down the planes that would come into their territory. It's still, why they didn't work at all, how the 140 IDF planes that went into Israel managed to escape without one plane getting shot down, I mean, literally, it's miraculous. But they went in, everything that was meant to take those airplanes down, they shot them up before they were able to make use of them. So it's, I don't understand how it went that way, except to say God protected the IDF guys. The artichoke is some means of supporting an attack on Israel, such as one-way attack drones, decades-old combat aircraft and ship-launched missiles, though it remains far from clear that these systems would perform well against Israeli defenses. All right, two comments from Iranian leaders. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that Iran would take every necessary military weapon and political action to prepare the nation during a speech to Iranian students on November 2nd, just a few days ago. Khamenei emphasized that Iranian authorities are currently busy in these preparations. His statement could suggest his recognition of growing calls from Iranian officials to shift Iran's nuclear doctrine, specifically Khomeini's 2003 fatwa, or basically his edict, banning nuclear weapons. Now folks, one huge thing that Iran is going to be taking into consideration is there's a new sheriff in town in January. When President Trump pops in, The current administration, the Biden administration, what did they tell Israel when it came to shooting out the nuclear weapons in Iran? Don't you do it. And they didn't. Well, they did everything but so they are ready. So now knowing that the administration is going to be changing, will Israel potentially do the preemptive strike and attempt to take out the missiles? Maybe. Will they go after the nuclear facilities even before President Trump is in office? Maybe. So everything is a maybe right now, but this change in election, you can guarantee that the Iranian upper echelon are a little bit concerned about what's gonna take place now. One other thing, when you think about unsaved man's desire for power, you start and again I watch this stuff every day some of you may some you may not when you start to look at the hierarchy in Hamas and Hezbollah and you've got 10, 15, 20 different guys listed on a page and you look at the top and all the way down and there's a red tag on every single one of those individuals that says eliminated. There's a few of the leaders specifically in Hezbollah that said you know what guys I Think I'd like to yield my turn and let the next guy have it. I'm like smart move brother because as soon as you you decide to be the Leader the IDF seems to be able to find that it's amazing. Their intelligence is Excellent, and they just they've been eliminating all these people So we'll see what happens I Last person from Iran, and again, I'm thinking of him, I'm seeing him. If you can see my mind, you can see what he looks like. Yeah, okay, we're not into AI or transhumanism yet, so not going to work. Iranian Arteesh Navy Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Arani claimed that Iranian reconnaissance drones are surveilling 16 U.S. destroyers and frigates in the Middle East. Ronnie said the drones are flying within view of the naked eye to send a message to the United States that it is not welcome in the region. I think that's what they say game on. They may get away with it for the next month and a half or so, but it's not going to last long. President Trump has made it very clear he is going to attempt to end this stuff even before he gets into office. So I don't know again how he We'll attempt to do that, but if he does it his normal way, when President Trump was in power, he would call up the leader and say, okay, we're currently have blank amount of product coming in from your country. If you want it to get into our country without me adding a tariff that will make it untenable for you to send your products here, then maybe you'll consider stopping today. That's been very effective implementing the tariffs and that type of thing economic sanctions, and I'm very Convinced he will do the same thing again, and I know on one occasion he did send one of the leaders a picture of his home and It's like yes. We know where you live and Maybe you'd like us to come visit. So folks, it's war. These things are serious. So we shall see what happens. Again, Ezekiel chapter 38 makes it very clear. First six verses, just as a little quick review here. Now the word of the Lord came to me, Ezekiel saying, son of man, set your face against Gog, the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshach, and Tubal, and prophesy against them. And say, thus says the Lord God, behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshach, and Tuval. I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet. Gomer and all its troops, the house Tagarmah from the far north and all its troops, many people are with you. Again, when we're talking about Gag, we're talking about the leadership of this coalition. When we're talking about Magog, we're talking about Russia. When we're talking about Turkey, Mishek, Tubo, Gomer, and Togarmah make up current Turkey. Libya is still Libya. Persia includes modern day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. All major players in everything we're watching in the Middle East right now. Ethiopia includes Somalia, Sudan, and Ethiopia. So it's a major, major, major piece of God's prophetic program. All these things will come to pass. The one thing that must happen before Ezekiel's prophecy can come to fulfillment, and you say, must happen? Yes, must happen, is the rapture of the church-age saints. None of those prophecies can come to fulfillment until that happens. You say, well, why? I've heard so many other pastors say that it could happen at any moment, even before the rapture. Well, here's the major reason why it can't happen. You. meaning you are not part of the Jewish prophetic calendar of Daniel chapter 9 verses 24 to 27. All of these things we're looking at in the Old Testament prophecies are specific to Israel, not the church age. Therefore, the Gog Magog battle will not happen while the church age is in existence. The Antichrist coming on the scene and confirming his peace treaty, which will start Daniel's 70th week of the tribulation period, Daniel 9.27, cannot happen while me and you are still here. So once God removes the church age, saints, which could happen at any moment, nothing needed to make that happen, then all these prophecies will begin to pop into full filment. All right, I got about five minutes. I said I would start a little bit on the woke culture, and apparently America done woke up yesterday. So, pun intended. What does it mean to be woke? Now this came out October 29th in 2024 by Prophecy News Watch put this particular article together. So what does it mean? Now folks, just because Trump got into office doesn't mean the woke culture is going away. In fact, I'll guarantee you it's not going away. In fact, I'll guarantee you if you listen to Kamala Harris's concession speech this afternoon, which I did, she made it very clear that we are heading into darkness. but we're looking for the light. Well, okay. She used an analogy in one way. I'm going to use it another way. I'm looking for the light too, but it's not through the wall culture. It's not through socialism, communism, and Marxism. The light that we as Christians are looking to is the light of Christ. and the gospel and the Christian worldview. So 50% of the world is going to reject everything that President Trump is going to attempt to do, just like the conservative crowd was upset with what the current administration did. So you're always going to have this rub. But just a little bit of a reminder. Well, white woke is the past tense passive form of the verb to awaken. It came to be associated with racial politics after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014 and amid the Black Lives Matter movement. Black Lives Matter activists used it to describe themselves as having woken up to reality. In other words, and I mean this as sincerely as I can, my two closest best friends when I was in college were Ed Ellington and a guy named Jerry They both had significantly darker suntans than I have and they didn't have to go in the Sun to get it In other words, they were african-american black guys and we were best buddies So when I'm talking about black lives matter and those that follow that culture Let me see you in You can go on the internet check this one. Who did I work for for 15 years as his number two guy? That'd be Sheriff David A. Clark, Jr. He also had a significantly darker suntan than I have. In other words, he was black, African-American. I loved him then, still love him. Saw him several months ago and still loved the guy. Now, he was a hard guy to get along with for a lot of folks and he was tough. But talk about a conservative, folks. They don't get any more conservative than him. But anyway, that's another story. Bottom line is when I'm talking about the Black Lives Matter movement, I'm not talking about the African-American people as a whole. I'm talking about those just like we have white supremacists, you got black supremacists that do the Black Lives Matter thing, and they don't fall into norm. My point in bringing out Sheriff Clark and my other buddies is this. I didn't know that I was not supposed to like them. They're my friends, I work for them. I was appointed to my office by Sheriff David A. Clark. And now the woke culture comes in in 2014 and tells me I've been disparaging my friends. And I said, well, no, where did this nonsense come from? So it was made up nonsense and it's been taken literally by way too many folks to a horrible place. It has become a catch-all term for the left's ideology, and I define it as encompassing four different ideas, critical race theory, gender ideology, climate alarmism, and a preference for technocratic government. Woke activities believe that America is institutionally racist, was founded on slavery, and needs fundamental reform, if not a full revolution and overhauling of the current system. Folks, you and me, for the most part, it's like, what? We don't subscribe to that. We don't believe that. Well, folks, a great percentage of Americans do believe exactly what I'm telling you. They also view America as oppressing various groups, racial minorities, women, LGBTQI plus people, and others. They support transgender policies from allowing males to compete in women's sports to placing male convicts in women prisons. They also believe that the burning of fossil fuels is changing Earth's climate and requires immediate action to save the planet. So you, just based on what I just read here, most of you would say, Well, yeah, we do subscribe to all that. Well, the woke culture says, y'all naughty. You're bad people. It's bad, and you need to wake up. And they're pushing their agenda. Some of you in this room that are involved in the corporate world or work in corporations or government entities, you've had to take courses on how bad you are because you're a white person and you don't know how to properly Treat if you will different ethnic groups I've had to go go through that stuff back in the sheriff's office the county forced me to take it now folks I don't need to take it I love my black sisters and brothers the same as I do my white brothers and sisters or Asians or any other color Skin ethnic whatever it wasn't an issue until this woke nonsense came out and made it an issue Finally, woke activists support bureaucratic solutions to each of these alleged problems. Ibram X. Kendi, one of the leading figures in the anti-racism movement, called for an anti-racist constitutional amendment that would establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti-Racism, DOA, comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. All right, we're out of time, so I'm just gonna leave it at that. I'm gonna come back to this again next week. But just be aware, folks, some of this stuff to you is like, this is like absolute nonsense. How can anybody buy into this? And... All you had to do is watch some of the speeches in certain democratic conventions, or I meant to say conventions, and it's just all over the place. So, it's put up a barrier that does not need to be there. And I trust that, I know everybody in this room, at least as a whole, would say that's just nonsense, we don't buy into that. But folks 2nd Timothy Chapter 3 verse 1 Tells us exactly why this type of rhetoric is going on but know this Christian that in the last days perilous dangerous times and seasons will come and Whether it's the woke culture or the other different things that we mentioned here. We've got to be on our guard against it We gotta make sure that we don't succumb to it. And let me see. I think the easiest thing to do is just kind of be like Jesus who said, for God so loved the what? Yeah, you know, God so loved the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Is that what it says? No. For God so loved the world. That's every single person, every single race. By the way, If you're coming to our Genesis study on Sunday night, who were the first two people on earth? Adam and Eve. What other family did God create at the same time besides Adam and Eve? None. So in other words, we're all descendants from Adam and Eve. Why in the world then do we have all the different races and colors and differences and all that? Because at the Tower of Babel, Everybody got together and said, let's build an urban city. And God said, I told you to spread out, multiply and fill the earth. And the people said, no, we don't want to do it your way. We want to do it our way. And he says, well, I hate to tell you, you're going to do it my way. So what did he do? He confused the languages, made folks look different. And people just started gravitating to people that could understand them and look like them. And they took off to different parts of the world. And that's why we have the tremendous Divergence that we have today. Well, let's see after Noah and the ark eight people came out So I guess we're all descendants of one of the four families that were part of Noah and the ark, but are we all Are we all brothers and sisters literally? And we really are Just the way it is so The nonsense that, of course, the woke culture and all the others that subscribe to this stuff is just that. It's nonsense, it's anti-biblical, and that's why we need to love every person, for every person is a soul for whom Christ died.