Skip to content ReVersed - Chapter 11 - The Fine Line Between Governmentally Woke and Awake Jun 10 · 16 min ...more
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Dr. Jim Garlow is a lifelong pastor who most recently served in San Diego, California, and now leads Well Versed, a ministry dedicated to bringing biblical
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Biblical Power of Leaders' Prayers 0:10 Well, welcome. My name is Jim Garlow, and I'm welcoming you to part 11, chapter 11 of the book, Reverse from Culturally Woke to Biblically Awake. I wanna remind you that's, really part 2. Part0:22 1 was, this 1, Well Versed, Biblical Answers to Today Tough Issues, lays out the biblical foundations of 30 political topics. This 1 lays out the biblical foundations about0:34 60 political topics. Today, we're talking about chapter 11, the fine line between governmentally woke and awake. Gonna walk you through a history of some things0:45 here. In the 19 fifties in America, there was a sense that the country was moving rapidly after World War 2 into secularism. Dwight Eisenhower was the president. By the way, I grew up in0:57 North Central Kansas on a farm. 1st president I ever saw was Dwight Eisenhower when I was 5 years of age. His boyhood home was in Abilene, Kansas about, oh, an hour and a half or so from the farm I grew up on.1:09 I had the privilege of, seeing him as a 5 year old, then I was back there when I graduated from college, drove through the night to get there in time to attend the funeral services that were held there in 191:21 69. But, he sensed this secularism that was crowding into American life and American culture. And so they decided to try to take some steps to try1:33 to correct that at that particular time. 1 of the things that occurred was he was in the New York Presbyterian Church. It's New York Street and New York Avenue, rather, Presbyterian Church in1:44 Washington, DC. And he heard this sermon by Pastor George McPherson Dowdury. And he heard a talk that inspired him to think that we really needed to add under God to the Pledge1:56 of Allegiance. He called his friend, senator Frank Carlson from Kansas, and they talked about it. And the result is on June the 14th 19 54, he signed into law that the pledge of2:08 allegiance would include the words under God. 1 nation under God. By the way, when you say the pledge of allegiance, don't go 1 nation, pause, under God. Go 1 nation under God.2:20 There's not supposed to be a comma there. And then also recognizing the secularism, they decided to add the words, in god we trust, on our coins. And so we signed2:32 into law July the 30th 19 57. In god we trust became our national motto. In addition to that, there was the founding of what was called the National Prayer Breakfast. They originally2:44 called presidential prayer breakfast. A man named Abraham Verratti, he was out of Seattle, Washington, was quite influential influential in impacting members of of congress2:56 in spiritual things. And he began to talk with others, and the result was a young evangelist by the name of Billy Graham influenced Eisenhower. A well known pastor, Presbyterian pastor,3:08 pastor Richard Halverson in Washington, DC influenced him, and they formulated what was then called the presidential prayer breakfast. Later, it's called the, National Prayer Breakfast.3:20 Senator Frank Carlson, by the way, was well known. He was a good friend of Ike Eisenhower. Dwight Eisenhower was Ike Ike was his nickname. Dwight Eisenhower was actually lonely in the White House, and he would call his3:31 friend Frank Carlson from Kansas. Frank Carlson had been the governor of Kansas, and he became eventually senator in Washington, DC. He would call him and say, Frank, come over here. It's it's just lonely. So they had a3:42 very close relationship. I grew up on a farm, as I indicated, in north central Kansas. 4 miles from our farm was the farm of Frank Carlson. And when I became the youth pastor, even though I was Wesleyan member of the3:54 Wesleyan church, the Wesleyan church and the Baptist church had very wonderful relations. I became the youth pastor at the Baptist church and I started a a Billy Graham kind of crusade,4:06 in our, our football stadium in our small town, small rural town population, 6000 people or so. And I went to Frank Carlson, senator, and he then retired from the senate. And I said, senator,4:18 everybody knows you. They don't know me. Will you be the honorary cochairman of the Greater North Central Kansas Crusade? Then I was trying to start this evangelistic rally, to take place a 3 day event in the football4:29 stadium, which he agreed to be that with him. So I had a relationship with knew him and knew him and and thought very, very highly of him. He was 1 of the founders of the National Prayer Breakfast.4:41 Now in spite of the fact we added under God in the pledge of allegiance and in in god we trust in our coins and our national model and the founding of the National Prayer Breakfast, there were still evidences4:53 our our culture was slipping towards secularism. But there are some I wanna address with with with precision, if I can, concerns how something could slip in5:06 when we don't intend for it to. I call them woke airs. The National Prayer Breakfast is a really quite a spectacular event with incredible history, and it's spread around the world in many, many countries. But but there5:17 are there there's it's a precious thing when when government leaders come together to pray. I wanna just read to you from page 82, if you have the book. Page 82. Why is it5:29 important? Because the prayers of the leaders of the nation are very important to god, and they will have an impact on a nation. Hezekiah prayed for delivery from Assyria, and it miraculously happened in 2nd5:41 Kings. Moses interceded when the Israelites sinned against god and deserved wrath, and the lord was merciful, in Exodus 32. David prayed for god's blessing upon Israel, and his5:53 sons Solomon and the lord responded, 1st Kings 29. And Solomon prayed for wisdom to govern a great nation so that it will continue to be blessed in 1st Kings. The prayers of the6:04 mighty government leaders matter. Proverbs 29 2 captures this. When kings are righteous, I'd say pray, the nation is blessed. So bringing people6:16 together for the purpose of praying is extremely important. But over the course of time, these woke airs develop.6:28 And let me just touch on them very briefly. Woke error number 1 is if we pray together, we can go back out on the senate floor or the house chamber floor and vote however we6:40 want. Let me explain this because here's a democrat and a republican, and I've heard them say this publicly at the national prayer breakfast, several occasions. They're staying there together. So now we vote differently,6:51 but we pray together. Now does that make sense? The answer is no. Let me explain. If people pray together, authentically pray together, what is the purpose of prayer,7:03 and what does prayer do to a person? It brings someone into alignment with the will of God. The purpose of prayer is to not is not to present some kind of a Christmas lift to a7:15 Santa Claus kind of God. The purpose of prayer is to bring ourselves into alignment with God's perfect will. That's why when Jesus taught the disciples to pray or7:27 how to pray, he specifically said, thy will be done, where? Here on earth. Where? As it is in heaven. Thy will be done. It brings us into alignment with7:38 thy will, his will to be done here on earth like it is where? In heaven. The purpose of prayer is to bring ourselves into alignment with the perfect will of God. Therefore,7:51 when people pray, if it's authentic prayer to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they will come into alignment with his word. They won't8:03 then go out on the senate floor or the house chambers floor and vote opposite ways on those issues that are addressed within scripture. Now some issues are addressed in scripture. How you name a post8:14 office. You know, the Bible doesn't care about that particularly. But it does care a great deal about a number of issues. How you when you pray together means that you're gonna vote8:26 according to scripture. Let me pose a question. Now fasten your seat belt. This is a crazy crazy question. Can a prostitute be a Christian? Can a person who claims they're a Christian be a prostitute? The answer8:38 is, well, I suppose for about 15 seconds until they're convicted by the Holy Spirit and they realize this is not an option. What I'm doing, I've come in alignment with Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior.8:50 I can no longer do the things I used to do. Now it could be that a woman could function in prostitution for a duration of time and be oblivious for a short duration9:02 that this is wrong until the holy spirit convicts her, which would come pretty quickly. And that's impacted all of our lives when we came to Jesus Christ. Things changed. So let me broaden that now because9:14 there's fruit. You can tell whether a person is truly a believer. I have, an orange tree in my backyard, and I have a grapefruit tree in my backyard. The grapefruit tree always produces grapefruit.9:26 The orange tree always produces orange. I have no trouble mixing them up. Why? Because a tree produces after its own kind. A person who's a follower of Jesus Christ will produce after the kind9:38 of who they are if they're authentically in Christ Jesus. So a person won't continue to be in a prostitute and claim at the same time to be a Christian. You said, what's that got to do with government you were talking9:49 about? The answer is a lot. And that is, can a person be a follower of Jesus Christ and vote to rip babies apart in the womb? Well, they might for the proverbial 15 2nd10:01 for a time. Until they're sensitive to the Holy Spirit's conviction, they come in alignment with God's will. If they pray, they come into alignment with God's will. Is it God's will to tear up babies in the womb? It is10:12 not, ever. Will they will they say they're a Christian and then go out and advocate for homosexuality, same sex marriage, or transgenderism? No. Not an authenticWoke Error 1: Pray Together, Vote Apart 10:24 follower of Jesus Christ. They will not do that. So you can't make the claim that just because we pray together, that we can go back and vote any way we want. And that's 1 of the grand airs of the10:36 National Prayer Breakfast. I have heard it over and over. Attended to a number of them. It is not right. There's a 2nd 1, and that's to say, we're here in the spirit of Jesus. Now that sounds10:47 good because in the book of Acts, it actually has that phrase. It's a phrase I used to like. I kinda like the phrase, we're in the spirit of Jesus. 1st time I heard that, oh, that's interesting. But then I finally10:57 realized what that meant. Particularly when I started hearing Muslims say it, Buddhists say it, and everybody else say it, but they weren't conformed to the word, the will, the way of God. What does this mean? We're11:09 here in the spirit of Jesus. What gets lost in that? What gets lost in that is we do not have the Jesus of the Bible. What's the Jesus of the Bible?11:21 Born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, was crucified on the cross, died for our sins, buried, resurrected,11:33 ascended, gonna soon come to judge the world. That's the Jesus of the Bible. So we say, oh, we're here in the spirit of Jesus. Now if you're not familiar with what I'm11:44 talking about, this is not gonna make a lot of sense to you. But I just wanna see how how how easily something can become an error. We're talking about how it can go from truth to falsehood very, very quickly.11:57 And we can say, oh, we're all here in the, quote, spirit of Jesus. A Muslim say, well, I'm here in the spirit of Jesus. I've heard Muslims actually say at these events, well, the Bible and the Koran, they're the12:08 same. The Bible says this. The Koran says that. The Bible and the Koran. The Bible and Koran are the same. I've actually heard them say, well, I'm a Muslim. I believe in Jesus like you do.' No. No. You don't. A MuslimWoke Error 2: 'In the Spirit of Jesus' Fallacy 12:20 doesn't believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, resurrected, and is coming back as judge. A Muslim doesn't understand the nature of the sinless life, virgin birth, crucifixion, buried,12:32 resurrected, ascended, and coming to judge. So you don't come in the spirit of Jesus. Whether your Hindu says that or a Buddhist says that or anybody else, no.12:45 That, unfortunately, is a tragic error that has developed in in time. So what's what's the challenge of this? If you have a person praying to Allah, is Allah and12:56 Yahweh the same? Yahweh is used 6800 times. He gets translated Lord in your English Bible. But it's used 6800 times in your Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures. The word13:08 Allah is the name that Muslims refer to God. I recognize in Arabic that tends to mean just God. But is Allah according to the Quran and Yahweh according to the Holy Scriptures, are they 1 and13:20 the same? The answer is absolutely not. Allah, doesn't have a son. God, according to scriptures, has a son named Jesus Christ. Allah is distant, unrelated to the13:32 earth. Yahweh is providential. His hand shapes history. And so we don't have a moral equivalency between a Muslim and Christian13:43 praying side by side. They're not moral equivalents. And therefore, I resist this notion. We come in the spirit of Jesus. Actually heard 1 say at 1 of these breakfasts, why I learned13:55 that a Muslim doesn't have to become a Christian. What do you mean by that? We all we all have to come before Jesus. We all have to repent of our sins. We all have to acknowledge him as14:07 savior, as lord, as god. So coming in, quote, in the spirit of Jesus or just praying together can be, unfortunately, woke heirs.14:19 Because the Jesus we wanna talk about is the Jesus of the Bible. And what is the Jesus of the Bible? Virgin birth, sinless life, miracles,14:30 healings, crucified, buried, resurrected, died for my sins, buried, resurrected, ascended to heaven, and14:42 is soon coming to judge the earth. What's my goal in this chapter? To make sure we go from culturally woke to biblically awake.14:54 Let us pray. Father, please forgive us. Give us a broken and contrite hearts and tears of godly sorrow. We come before15:06 you repenting and asking for the failure of our culture, which calls good evil and evil good, and is in a state of confusion and chaos.15:19 Cleanse us from all sins and all unrighteousness. Restore our relationship to you as our 1st love so that we can honor you in everything that we do. Give15:31 us a gift of holiness once again, Lord, that we may have a heart towards you, that we may be drawn close to you, and father that your blessings can be known15:42 again and poured out upon our people and upon this country. We thank you father in Jesus' name. Amen.15:52 We hope you enjoyed the video. Thank you so much for watching. Hey, don't forget to check out this discussion questions that are attached. Have a fun time studying, and we will see you in the next chapter.In this video 0:00 Biblical Power of Leaders' Prayers10:20 Woke Error 1: Pray Together, Vote Apart12:20 Woke Error 2: 'In the Spirit of Jesus' Fallacy
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