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He's the source of our strength. Glory to God. Oh, what a joy to be in God's house today. We're so welcome. We're so thankful that you're here. We welcome all of you to Times Square church here in 51st and Broadway, right here in New York City. We also welcome all those that are watching from around the country and around the world. We want to say hello to all of those that are live with us. We want to say that you are part of our family. I hear from so many of you that that stop through New York City and say we watch online and it was so great to see you. Let me welcome here. We want to say hello. Watching live with us is Kenya and Mauritius, Madagascar, Uganda. We say hello to Ethiopia, South Africa, Philippines, Malaysia, India, Australia, New Zealand. We say hello to Europe in the uk, Northern Ireland, Netherlands, Hungary, Ireland, France, Romania. We say hello to Austria, Bulgaria, Poland, Ukraine. We're praying that God would stop that war. In Jesus name. We're believing for an end to that war. We say hello to Canada and it's always a joy to welcome First Nation people. This, this time. We welcome the Navajo Nation, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Panama, St Vincent and the Grenadines. Grenada, Panama, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. We welcome all those watching from around the world. Last service we had 49 states joining us. The one that was lagging behind, eventually joined during the service was Hawaii. It's always Hawaii. That's backslid and. But they make it in at some point. Nope, sorry, Hawaii. I, I love Hawaii. God bless you, but thank you. We welcome all of those watching from around the country and around the world. I want to remind you that this Tuesday is a special. We're calling the church to prayer and fasting on Tuesday, August 26th. That is this Tuesday. Our general overseer, my predecessor Pastor Carter Conlon, is going in for heart surgery. So we are going to stand in the gap for him. When we come back at night, we're going to have a prayer meeting. We asked our special guest speaker to pause. We said we're going to go into a time of prayer. I was making out the order of service and it starts, I wrote down, I said I'm opening Pastor Tim praise report that he will open up the service. The praise report, that all went well, that we're going to believe that. And so we have been praying that God would just work a miracle. I've been praying for Dr. Jesus and by between now and Tuesday, and if Dr. Jesus chooses to use Dr. Luke, then that's okay, too. But we're going to believe for just the miracle, so we thank God for that. Okay? So let me tell you as we finish this series, the 16th message. This one has been difficult for me. I've been sitting on this for three to four weeks, and I'm speaking the words that Jeremiah said. Jeremiah said. He said, if I want to speak no more in his name, he says, then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones. And Jeremiah says this. I get weary of holding it in. I've been weary of holding this in. And I have to. I have to speak this today. And it's very important. And I want you to keep these two things in mind before I read from Genesis 1. Keep two things in mind. I want to read to you two. Two quotes that I was reading. And I just. I've been holding on to these. First one is this. It's a great definition. Sin is thinking, I know better than God. So I disobey and do it my way. With money, time, sex, everything else. Look at that opening phrase. Sin is thinking, I know better than God. That's the first thing. Second thing is when we lay down those things, when we give it over to God, Listen to this. God never takes away something from your life without replacing it with something better. He will do that. God will step in and do that. Genesis 1 says this. God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female. He created them, and God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, behold, I've given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth and every tree which is fruit yielding seed. It shall be food for you and do it. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life. I've given every green plant for food. And it was so. And here's the most important part. And God saw all that he made. And behold, it was what? Very good. Very good. Today, as we're finishing our series, 1 billion starts with 1, which I want to tell you, I want to encourage you to go get. Grab that song off Spotify was such a joy yesterday when we knew it came out, Cindy and I, we have this. We have this. I don't want to say the words, Siri, out loud. Because then everybody's phone is gonna go off. But I. But we're sitting in the kitchen and I. In our apartment, and I just go, siri, play one billion starts with one. And I felt we just started worshiping right there in the kitchen. So you can do that and it'll be such a blessing. But it's a challenge to the church to win people to Christ. It's a challenge to us. When you choose to bring people to Christ from the clutches of hell, to bring people to Jesus, to heaven. There will be a fight to stop that. And today is not just the final message, but it's the most critical and the most controversial. Let me just say this. I'm not. This is not blowing smoke, but I just have to say this. Today. I think 20 people walked out on me on the first service. So I'm ready for you. I just. I just telling you, I'm just ready. So there will be a point that you will. You will hit a moment. You're going to go, I don't know. I didn't come come to this. We're going to stay on the scriptures. I just want you to know that we will stay on the scriptures. God. God is going to speak something and we're going to have to do it without fear. I want to talk to you because. And this is the fight. People are redefining the very good of Genesis chapter one. It's redefining. When God finished creating, he said, this is very good. And now we have inserted ourselves and are redefining the very good. And I want to deal with that. Genesis 2 is what we're going to deal with, means round two of a big fight that is happening today. There has been a fighting song that's on my heart. We sang it in the first service and I want us to sing it. I want us to sing it here. I'm gonna ask not to play anything because you're gonna have to find my note instead of me finding yours. Every time I try to do it, I mess things up. So without Ricardo, I'm here, just me and Jesus. So it was a song fighting. There was a fight that was going on in our nation, and it was a woman that wrote this song. How many remember this song? It's called Glory, Glory, Hallelujah. Glory. You got it. Glory, glory. Sing this word, his truth. Come on, sing that again. Glory, glory, hallelujah. Sing it again. Glory, glory, glory, glory. Sing that first verse with me. Come on, let's sing a church all over the World in the beauty in the beauty of the Christ was born with the glory in his bosom that transfig. I love this part. Come on, sing it. As he dies while God is marching. Come on, sing. Glory, glory. Come on, church. Glory, glory. Hallelujah. Glory, glory, glory, glory. Sing that second verse. Come on. He has sounded forth. I love this verse. He has sounded forth the trump. Swift be swift my soul be ju my feet. Come on, sing a church Hallelujah. Now, Father, I need your help today. God, I sat there in that first service, sat there between the services and felt the attack. God, of the enemy. God, I'm not afraid. I'm just tired. I'm tired of the mind battles to bring this out and tired. God. I saw it clearly in the scriptures over these last three weeks. Help me to articulate it with a clarity. I think of the words that I was reading by an old revivalist, Leonard Ravenhill, who said, oh, breath of life, come sweep through us. Revive thy church with life and power. O breath of life, come cleanse and renew us and fit thy church to meet this hour. God help us to meet this hour. Oh, God. Father, you have sounded the trumpet that shall never call for retreat. Oh, God. But you're asking us to move forward. And I'm asking you today, without any fear, with I pray, clear my mind. Give me the mind of Christ right now. The enemy that's telling me to be quiet, the enemy that's beginning to speak lies to my mind even as I stand in this pulpit. I thank you, God, that I can cast down every imagination and every high thing that exalts itself into the captivity of Christ. And I thank you that we can take every thought captive. Every thought captive. Now, Father, I'm going to ask that, God, that you would begin to empower me. Stiffen these legs. God, I just pray that you would put a cry in my heart and in my voice. Oh, God, let this come, Father, from a heart of love, compassion. But, God, let truth march on right here. You didn't place us here at 51st and Broadway to have church. You didn't place us here. Not to be a lighthouse. You didn't place us here, Lord God, just simply to have a church service. You have put us here, oh, God, to be a beacon, to be a light to speak truth. Oh, God. And while those around us may venture away, may those around us who want to begin to do everything else, we. We will stand on this word. We will stand on the word of God, regardless who's left here. We will be. We Want to hear the words that God, this is it. I just want to hear these words. Well done, good and faithful servant. That's it. So God, would you come? We need you. I need your holy Spirit. I need you empower me, Holy Spirit. Today I give you all the praise. I give you all the honor in Jesus name. And everybody said amen and amen. And before you sit down, it's the one o' clock service. I have to dismiss the call choir. And so while they are dismissed, I think the screen comes down. Would you greet at least three or four people? Just tell someone. Next you say, I think you're gonna have to buckle up for the 1 o' clock today. It's gonna get. It's gonna get intense in here. Thank you. I will start with a rocky history. Then I'm going to move to a tumultuous present and then I'm going to end with a glorious future. If you hear me out to the end, you'll understand why this is critical, considered controversial by why it is so important. It needs to be said. I want to give you something. I want to equip you. I want to challenge. I want to challenge this present culture. I want to challenge this present age with the truth of God's word. But I will start with history, move into the present and end by giving you something for the future. Almost 100 years ago to the month, a trial took place that would begin a battle for our children's faith and the soul of every student, at least right here, speaking internationally, at least right here in America. And it has spread in different parts of the world. It has seeped into all of the educational systems and it just seems to be part of the fabric. Its nickname was called the Monkey Trial. It was officially titled the state of Tennessee versus John Scopes was in 1925. It was a landmark legal case that centered on the teaching of evolution in public schools. John Scopes was a high school teacher in Dayton, Tennessee was prosecuted for violating at that time what was called the Butler act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools. The trial became a media sensation, was highlighted with a clash between biblical Christianity and modern science. This Tennessee law made it illegal to teach anyone the theory of evolution because it denied the biblical count of creation, Genesis chapter one. Scopes was a high school teacher in Tennessee. He was arrested and charged for violation of the Butler Butler act. And he admitted to teaching evolution in his biology class. The two lawyers made it really a little bit of a circus. Clarence Darrow was the defense attorney known for his Aggression and intellectual approach. He argued for the defendant. And then there was William Jennings Bryant, who was a three time presidential candidate, a politician and a prominent figure that argued for the for the importance of sticking close to the biblical account, to the Genesis 1 creation account. The outcome was Scopes was found guilty. But while the trial directly invalidated the Butler act, it did bring this issue of creation and evolution to the forefront and and to national attention and began to spark further debates. Fast forward six decades. The battle went on for 62 years and now has settled into our schools from elementary to university sciences and government. Creationism was effectively banned from being taught as science in public Schools by the U.S. supreme Court in 1987 with the landmark ruling of Edwards vs. Aguilar from a court case that was in Louisiana. We have seen creation attacked and men indoctrinating our children in science classes that it was a big bang instead of a big God that created it all. That battle is not simply the fight between creation and evolution. Listen carefully. It was a fight to extinguish extinct God from the minds of all people. It was to remove God. I grew up in a time. I heard people talking about that this weekend or next weekend is everyone's excited because college and NFL football is getting ready to start. I remember growing up and seeing a guy with a head of hair, multicolored hair, holding up a sign in all the football end zones. And with this scripture, John 3:16, how many remember seeing some guys in the end zone with that. But it was, it was a verse that was proper for that time because people understood what that verse was. But now over time, that verse has been removed from the minds and the hearts of the public. And really we need to put Genesis 1:1 there because we have to start from the beginning. We have to start that God does exist, that there is a beginning and it was done by God. The Genesis 1 fight. Bear with me. I say this in a sense in government and in our schools. It seems that the Genesis 1 fight is over. But there's a Genesis 2 fight that is now beginning to be in full battle mode. You weren't around in 1925 for the first battle, but you are present now for this one. And I need to tell you about this battle. I used to read Genesis 1 with excitement. I used to quickly go by Genesis 2 and get to Genesis 3 and realize the importance of Genesis 2. Round two of the attacks are in full battle mode right now. And I have to bring your attention to it because I needed to see this. I needed to have to have something truth from the scriptures to speak to it. These are powerful words from a West coast pastor who said our culture has accepted two huge lies. Two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must be afraid or hate them. That's lie number one. The second is that to love someone means you have to agree with everything they believe. Both are nonsense. You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate. And so today I pray that God would help me to begin. You'd understand. This comes from the heart of a pastor. I'm not afraid, but I want to make sure I say this. The only thing I'm afraid of is saying it without the clarity that God has given it. That I felt like God spoke to my heart. And sometimes it is hard to get it from the heart to the mouth. Sometimes it is difficult. And if there is anything that comes out that doesn't sound like Jesus, then it's probably me. But Jesus loved people but would not back off when he saw a lifestyle that he knew would end up in a dead end. I love you. That's why I want to speak this and why I need to equip you to speak to this. Genesis 2 fight that we are facing. Man went after the existence of God in creation and in Genesis one a hundred years ago. And now men are now starting the fight or in the fight of Genesis 2 right now. Because it's in Genesis 2 that you have the sacredness of marriage. And God beginning to say he made male and female, not a decision of people. God made male and female. I want you to listen to this. If you can remove God in Genesis 1, then it's easier to insert your laws in over society. When the world woke up after the pandemic, we didn't realize that when we woke up, we woke up to woke. And all of a sudden we started to realize we're part of a society that we. We didn't even know that. That there was a fight. Like there was no fight. We woke up to something that we're going, this is now becoming normal normalcy to us. That what we. That what we heard were just kind of on the outside is now part. When it was when we came out of the pandemic, we awakened to the woke and I was just shocked as we began to walk into this whole new battle of Genesis 2. But it's not just Genesis 2. It's a battle of Genesis 1, 2, 3. It's a battle of the beginning. My children attended. And I don't think this is all. But this was in their school. When we first moved to New York, our children attended a Catholic school for a few years and we felt like we couldn't get into. We couldn't afford some of the private schools. So we thank God for the Catholic school. So we had a Catholic school or the public school. And it was there that I said, okay, what do we do? And I asked God and God spoke to me and said, it will be easier to correct bad theology than a poor worldview that you can deal with that. And I was good with that. I can deal with things biblically. And so I had my children in a Bible class and they were being told by a priest that Genesis 1 through 3 is myth and allegory. Didn't take place. But the writer Moses borrowed it from the cultures all around them that the Genesis 1, 2 and 3 all the way to the flood were stories from other cultures and, and didn't happen. It was myth. Genesis 1, the evolution versus creation fight. Genesis 2, the gender and same sex marriage fight. Genesis 3, sin versus environment fight. If they can make an allegory, then you realize that it's not truth. There. One man said it like this. Ken Ham said, now if the book of Genesis is an allegory, then sin is an allegory. The fall is an allegory. The need for a savior is an allegory. But if we all descendants of an allegory, then where does that leave us? It destroys the foundation of all Christian doctrine. It destroys the foundation of the gospel. So here we go. Let's jump into this, right into the present as we begin to deal with this stuff. Genesis 2 deals with, you could see it there, it deals with gender identity and same sex marriage. Man is trying to create not only a new beginning, but. But he's also trying to create a new beginning when it comes to someone being born. A new beginning of the universe, a new deciding factor for gender. Folks, I'm just telling you. Genesis 2 is where God declared what marriage is. And Jesus affirmed it in Matthew 19 and quotes even Genesis. Listen to Jesus. And he answered and said to them, have you not read that? He who made them at the beginning, he. He made them male and female. He made them male and female. God did not a choice. God did. The message version says it like this. Because God created this organic union of the two sexes. No one should desecrate his art by cutting them apart. And they shot back in rebuttal. Society is shooting back at what Genesis has to say. Society, culture is shooting back at what the beginning, how God has stopped, established this as foundational truth. G.K. chesterton from the UK said it like this. Once you abolish God, the government becomes God. And this is so important to recognize. In fact, he goes on to say, the true soldier fights not because he hates what's in front of him, but because he loves what's behind him. Folks, I'm fighting because I know what's behind me. The authority of the scriptures are behind me. The truth of Genesis is behind me. Folks, I'm just telling you all everything else. All these people one day will all be gone. But the Jesus said this. Not a jot or tittle, not anything from this word will pass away. You can put a label and say you're fundamental, you're by. All I can say is this. If you want to put a label on me, just say he believes the Bible. That's exactly the label that I will receive. Listen, Genesis 2 is whether God assigns our gender or man assigns it. The Debate is split 50, 50 now in America, from the beginning, marriage is going to be a top priority for God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning, he made the male or female God created. God made. That's the common denominator. God was in charge. God did it. So, folks, here it is. Listen to me. Buckle up right now, here it comes. If there is no God, then there is no truth. And if there's no truth, then there is no sin. And if there's no sin, then there is no hell, which is a penalty. The removal of God is the removal of truth, the removal of responsibility. That's what happens. And so to remove these things, this call it allegory, to call it mythology, is to begin to assign everything to you is to remove any type of accountability. I'm reading a book right now. It's a 400 year old book. It's called the Letters of Samuel Rutherford. Spurgeon considered this book the closest thing he said to spiritual inspiration from a. From a human, from somebody, from a person just writing. He says it's not scripture. But he says, I see it that way. And I'm reading it because of two lines in its introduction. He was a pastor of a small church in Scotland. Samuel Rutherford was. They said when he would preach, he wasn't even. He didn't have a good voice. Even his sermons weren't well put together. But he says he was one of the most moving preachers of his time. When you'd heard him speak, he said sometimes he'd be this little man would be at the pulpit. And when we speak about Jesus, he said sometimes it looked like he was gonna flip, lie out of the pulpit and. But this is what it said. I want you to hear the introduction of this book. This is what it says about this man. It said he lived at a time that men went to prison for their spiritual convictions and even suffered martyrdom. What are to us, theological distinctions were actually life and death in his day. That if you took a stand, you were going to be in a fight. If you stood on scripture, you were going to be fought against. Today, whether they want to fight on social media, whatever. I've learned that it's usually this. I want you to listen to me for a second. That. That I'm. My lesson that I've learned is from Daniel, chapter three. Over these last few years, when you take a stand, like those three Hebrew boys, I've learned this. When the he three Hebrew boys in Babylon said, we won't bow to your laws, Jesus didn't show up in their defiance. Jesus showed up in their fire. That there are going to be moments. Listen to me, Jesus. Listen to me carefully. Taking a stand will draw attacks. The consequences from standing on that truth will bring heaven down to be with you. That you will not be alone. As I speak, I expect the fire to be turned up. But I think, thank God. I know Jesus will be there. I know Jesus will be with us. Truth compels me to stand regardless of the consequences. We may, we may, we may feel the fight here. Who knows? But all I know is this. Christ is with us. Why do you say that? Because here are the attacks. Let me just give you the attacks. This way. Genesis 1. Attack is this. There is no God. So I decide what the foundation is. I decide the foundational story. I decide where it all began. I decide I. From a classroom, from a test. I decide what the foundation is. I decide what our story is. Genesis 1. Attack. If you remove God, then man decides what the story is. With no empirical evidence, he decides what the story is. Genesis 2. Attack. There is no gender. So I decide who I am. It was said on Facebook now there are 59 different genders you can choose from. 59, folks. Let's just be clear. He created them. Male and female. Genesis 3. Attack. There is no sin. I decide what truth is. Let me give that to you again, because some of you missed it. Genesis 1. Attack. There is no God. I decide the foundation. The foundational story. Genesis 2. Attack. There is no gender. I decide who I am. Genesis 3. Attack. There is no sin. I decide what is the truth. So here it comes. Don't miss this. So, in essence, our society is saying, I am God, I am sovereign. We decide what. What is truth. So just as Genesis 1 became banned and law, it can't. And it can't be taught to our children. The same is about to happen in Genesis, chapter two. I'm just telling you this is a fight. I don't even know if you know this. There is a law. I speak this to those who are watching around the country and around the world. There's a law right now in New York City that I have to use whatever pronoun anyone wants me to use of them or I could be fined. That's the law. There are new churches popping up all over this city and around this area. I was listening to one new preacher who's preaching on First Corinthians 6 Listen to this. And she read the chapter, but would not read the passage that challenged her lifestyle choices. And these were her words. She says, the reason why I skipped this passage is I call it the yikes passage. And Paul is just being a jerk. Those are her words. Can I just help her? And help us. Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself. Men reject the Bible because it contradicts them. That's what happens when you find this book that has outlasted all of us. Listen, one of the. One of the. When you read a verse and you come across, you call yourself a Christian. And if you read a verse that contradicts you, you have to ask yourself the question, who wins? Who wins the fight? Do you just push that aside? You to go, no, this is God's truth. This is the eternal truth. This is the Bible, the word of God. We're. Right now I'm just finding out. I just received this about our tsc, social media and some of our platforms, and this is what they said. They've been canceling our videos and we had to appeal, and the administrator sent us that. Over the past few weeks, we have received notifications from, and they mentioned the places we're deemed not eligible to appear in the platform's main feed. In response, we have submitted appeals for all the affected videos. All of them were approved, confirming that our content does not violate the community guidelines. The situation has affected the initial hours of the video, the performance. It has disrupted the consistency of our posting schedule. Some cases, approval after an appeal has taken up to two days. They're trying to minimize, they said, the impact of the videos. And I read the violations that they said it was first violating cultural norms. Cultural norms. I've had people. And think about this. I've had people say to me, with our 15 YouTube channels in different languages, they said, why are we spending so much money on that? Don't you know that YouTube now does its own translation? That if you put the. Put it up there, all you have to do is hit a button and YouTube translate, look @ me, folks. Look at me. I don't want them translating us. I'm just telling you now. So. So those that are going, like, why? Why are we spending the money? Because we need the truth to go out. I can't have people, I can't entrust. I can't entrust this to anybody else but people that know the truth of God's words. So when we're beginning to translate it, whether it's in Hebrew or whether it's in Italian or whether it's in Spanish or French, whether it's in Mandarin, whatever it is, we want people to speak the truth, not begin to bring it down to cultural norms. Satan knows the power of a testimony. And so what he wants to do is to bring it out and say that someone being delivered of something, we don't want that put up there, because then if they're delivered, it must be mean that it was wrong. And that doesn't go with us on our cultural norms. But I'm here to tell you is that the enemy knows, according to Revelation 12, that it's the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony that brings defeat. Over that, I have to tell you this. I heard one testimony was just sent to me yesterday to Pastor Tim on the last night of prayer and fasting, just before my zoom room closed, a man came in for prayer. He was laying on a bed sideways, using oxygen to breathe. I could barely hear him through the oxygen mask. And then I noticed his name, and it hit me. This was Christopher. You shared his testimony a little over a month ago about how he prayed that God would deliver him from alcohol. Then one night while drunk, he fell, broke his neck, and he was paralyzed. But he's a Christian now. Christopher told me that on that Tuesday night after you shared his testimony during the Sunday service. Listen to this. That he shared that service with his physical therapist, who shared it with his daughter, who got saved. She shared it with her friend. She got saved. She shared it with her dad, and he went to rehab to get things right in his life and be set free. It's the power of a testimony. It's the power of God's word. And we don't want to water it down. We want God's truth to march on. Hallelujah. Church is at a crossroad. Men are caving in. Churches are caving in because they don't want to lose finances, they don't want to face the furnace and they don't want to lose friends. I'm just telling you, it's those three things. Listen to me. Leaders, we're afraid to speak. We don't want to face the furnace, we don't want to lose friends, and we don't want to lose finances. Let me help you and give you my opinion. I don't care. Let me just tell you that. I really don't. If I have friends that go, we don't believe that. Fine. God bless you. Goodbye, number two. Well, you're going to get a furnace. They're going to come after you. They're going to attack. I know. There's a fourth man in the fire. That's not a song. Listen. Listen to me. That's not a song I sing. It's a truth. I believe. I believe there is a fourth man in the fire. I believe that if we go through it, Jesus is there with us and people want to threaten with finances. I preached something some years ago and some new person said, call the church the next day and say, I want my tithe back. Because I disagreed, and stop payment on the. I don't. Do you think the church closed down? Our. Our provision comes from him. It comes from him. So let me be clear. That's why we're afraid. That's why the church is at a crossroads. We need a Jeremiah. We need a Jeremiah church. Israel was in a dark time. God was forsaken and a nation was backslidden. The enemy was at the door. A prophet arose named Jeremiah, and Jeremiah writes this prophecy. Jeremiah was actively prophesying and writing his people the kingdom of Judah. They weren't yet in captivity. Babylon, though, was close. Babylon was about to come in. And Jeremiah's ministry during this crucial period as he was saying, we've got to come back to God. We gotta come back to God. The people that attacked him most were the religious people. They're the ones that came against them, the political leaders and the religious people. And Jeremiah stood alone. In fact, he says just before Babylon was to come in, he says to them in Jeremiah 8, 16, you won't see it on the screen, but Jeremiah said, you're gonna hear this. When you hear the sound of the horses snorting, and the ground rumbling. It's too late. Then he said, the fight is now over because you've been given a warning. He says, when you hear the horses, the fight is over, folks. I'm telling you, the horses are coming. The snorting is not far away. And we have got to be a church that stands. God didn't put us in New York City to just sit here and sing songs. My goodness. Come on, enough. I rejoice with the choir. I rejoice every time we're led in worship. I rejoice with all that God's doing. God means a lighthouse in this city. I'm just telling you. Enough. Enough of this. What about the furnace? What about the finances? What about our friends? Enough. I just want to be pleasing to God and say, God, let us have your spirit. So our society is at a critical spot. We're redefining the very good of the God of Genesis, the very good. When he comes at the end of Genesis 1 and says, I look at all my creation and say it's very good. And now we're trying to redefine God's very good. That phrase very good emphasizes the perfection and harmonious completeness of God's creation, especially after the creation of humanity. It's not just a simple evaluation of good, but it was a strong affirmation that everything is functioning as it should. Everything is fit together in complete and beautiful way and doesn't need man's editing, it doesn't need man's touch up work. God said, it's very good. Why touch very good? The Hebrew word good implies order, proper function, beauty. Very good implies to encompass the totality of creation, including humanity. And here we go. Here it is. Jeremiah asks four critical questions to his nation. There are four why questions. Why? He asks four of them before the enemy comes in, before the horses came in. He doesn't ask what, but he asks why. There's a difference between asking what and why. There's a difference between asking what is happening to our country or why is it happening. And it's because of this. What is happening identifies the problem. Why is this happening? Goes to the root of the problem. It's a question that goes to the core, goes to the condition why, says enough of Band aids. We need to renovate. We need to do what God wants us to do. Jeremiah sees his nation in disrepair, in a nation that needs revival. So the four questions he asked Israel should be asked to all of us. Whether you're watching it needs to be asked to the Netherlands. It needs to be Asked to England needs to be asked to the Philippines, to the. To the Dominican Republic. It needs to be asked over in South Africa. It has to be asked in to all of us. Let me give you the four why questions. Write these down. Here it is. And then we'll just, we'll just. We'll just touch on each of them briefly. Why? Number one is Jeremiah 8. 5. It's all in Jeremiah 8. Why is this people backslidden? Jeremiah 8. 5. Why? Number two, Jeremiah 8 14. Why are we just sitting here? Why aren't we doing something? Why? Question number three, Jeremiah 8. 19. Why have they provoked me? Why have they provoked me? To anger. And Jeremiah and why? Number four, Jeremiah 8. 22. Why has their health not been restored? Why has their health not been restored? Let me take each of those. Let me just take them briefly. The challenge to Jeremiah's nation should be a challenge to all of us. Why number one, Jeremiah 8, 5. Why is this people backslidden? Listen to these words. Why? Why? Why has this people slidden back Jerusalem in a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit. They refused to return. I listened and I heard, but they don't speak what's right. No man repented of his wickedness, saying, what have I done? Everyone turned to his own course. And then Jeremiah says, what you've done is your most knowledgeable people of the law. The scribes have written laws that have rejected the word of God. People assume that just because the majority votes, just because a law is passed, seemingly it means that God. God approves it. God. God doesn't operate on the majority. God is true all by himself. He is true. Okay, and this is gonna let me offend everybody. I'm on a roll. So let me just get everybody. God is true. Even if you're a Republican and don't agree with things, God is true. If you're a democrat and don't believe in it, I'm just telling you it's not a republican truth or a democrat truth. It is a biblical truth is what it is. Let's be clear about it. He says, how can you say we are wise? How can you say we are wise and we have the law of the Lord when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely. The wise will be put to shame. They'll be dismayed and trapped since they've rejected the word of the Lord. What kind of wisdom do they have? He says, so now they've made up their own laws and what happens is they have superficial healing for everybody. Listen to it, he said, they heal the brokenness of the daughter of my people, superficially saying, peace, peace. And there is no peace. Folks, I'm just here to tell you, if you want peace today, it is found in one person. It is found in the Prince of peace. It is found in Jesus himself. There is nothing else that can bring the peace of the soul, peace of the mind, than Jesus himself. Why number two, Jeremiah 8:14. Why are we sitting here? King James says it like this. Why do we sit still? We're afraid to move. We're afraid of a backlash. He says, we're afraid of the persecution. We're afraid to take a stand. Because once you take a stand, you stand above all the other heads. You're the one that takes the arrows, that takes the hits that come in, be that online or in front of a building. It's so easy. Anyone who stands first will take the hits first. And here it is at 61 years old. I'm standing. I don't care. I don't care what anybody else says. As I stand, I expect the fire to be turned up. But I also know Jesus comes to the fire. Why? Number three, Jeremiah 8, 19. Why have they provoked me? Why have they provoked me? Why have they put me? If you read Jeremiah, chapter eight, he says, these people will come in and they'll take all this stuff and dedicate godly things to the sun, to the moon. They'll add it to all the stuff that they're doing. See, America didn't abandon God. We've just added him to everyone else's God. They call that pluralism. It tolerates Christianity, but it doesn't let Jesus become exclusively the way, the truth, and the life. Let me say that again. It tolerates pluralism, tolerates Christianity, but it doesn't let Jesus be the way, the truth, and the life. Christianity becomes just another person's personal truth. And we have provoked the true and living God to anger him because we live in a nation that have allowed other gods to share his glory. And he will not share his glory with anybody. Why number four, Jeremiah 8:22. Why is their. Their health not been restored? That's when the leaders have to take a stand. God challenged the spiritual leaders a few chapters later, and he says, the Lord replied, stop this foolishness and talk some sense. He speaks to the leaders and said, only if you return to trusting me will I let you continue as my spokesman. You are to influence them, not let them influence you. They will fight against you like a besieging army, but they will not conquer you. For I am with you to protect you and deliver you, says the Lord. I will deliver you from wicked men and wrestle, rescue you from their ruthless hands. Hallelujah. Now here we go. This. You're not going to believe this, but this is the truth. This is the conclusion. Here it is. We're finishing, but it's long. It's a long conclusion. But I want, I want, I want. Willie, why don't you come here? Here is the main point. Let me tell you what all this is. Let me tell you what the Genesis 2 fight is. Here it is. It's identity fraud. It's identity fraud. We are fighting for the image of God on young people. We are fighting for the image of God on men and women today. We are fighting for those who have been created in the image of God that God has chosen to say, this is who you are. You have been created in my image. Don't let laws, your emotions or your mind. Take it out of my hands and put it in your hands. What we're doing is. And we're trying to put the decisions in broken people that can't make those decisions. Why not let God, who is true, loving and able make those decisions for us? This fight started a long time ago. The battle is just as real today. Satan has attacked the mind. The fight in your mind says you are different in God and you are God. And that what you want to do is you want to redefine what's very good. You're fighting against what's very good. It's a fight for your identity. You know, I was reading something on identity fraud. Do you know that one third of us that are sitting in this room have had some type of identity stolen? Here's what it says. It's when an unauthorized person gains access to your private assets. Let me say that again. It's when an unauthorized person gains access to your private assets. Wow. Talk about. Because that's not just financially, that's spiritually. It's when an unauthorized devil comes in and says these things. That's not that I know you. I know you were born this way, but this is what you really are. They say the most susceptible to identity fraud are children, minors, college and young adults. Oh, my goodness. The identity. To deny God's existence is to have identity stolen from you, who God had made you to be. I was reading this article on a group of young boys from World War II. They called them the Gestapo boys. I just want to read this to you. Sometimes people would kind of jump in, going like, Are you trying to say the government's not. No, I'm not saying. It's just the story is fascinating. The Gestapo boys, that I didn't know this, that hundreds of thousands of children between the ages of 12 and 13 were taken from their parents all over Europe and put into camps to be brainwashed by Hitler and the Nazis. The SS soldiers, they would go in. I read that they said In Poland alone, 200,000 boys were taken from the parents, taken and brought into these camps to be brainwashed. And after the war was over, these children found that most of their parents had be killed. They were parentless and they were homeless. But they were released from these. From these indoctrination camps, but they didn't have anywhere to go. And so they found these large number of boys who were right in the middle of indoctrination, roaming from city to city, slum to slum, until humanitarian groups got these boys and they put them in 10 cities. And they wanted to do their best to bring healing to them. They were frightened. And they said the thing that they kept noticing was that they couldn't sleep at night. They would be screaming. The nightmares would be devastating. They were frightened. Until one man. I said, I think I know the answer. These boys have always lived with an uncertain future. They didn't know what was gonna happen the next day. They didn't know if they'd have parents. They didn't know if they would live. They didn't know if they would even have a meal. And now we're wanting them to have peaceful night of sleep. And he says, these boys don't even know what tomorrow holds for them. They shouldn't have to face these kind of battles at their age. And this is what the man did. He said, we're gonna feed them a big meal every night, and when they're going to bed, we're gonna give them a piece of bread and tell them just to make sure you have breakfast in the morning. You're not only full now, I'm gonna give you tomorrow's provision so you can sleep knowing tomorrow is taken care of. He said, those boys went to sleep at night because they knew that bread said, I have a future. I can wake up the next day. And folks, I kept thinking to myself about this, of what we have put our children, what we have put this society through. We have taken away what tomorrow is, and we've allowed these questions, these. These things to indoctrinate their mind. And here's what I started to realize. I started to realize that we need that bread, the bread of life every single day in order to live. Jesus said, give us this day our daily bread. And when you're starving, you'll look for food anywhere. But I'm here to tell you, your looking can stop today. Jesus said, I am the bread of. Of life. He who comes to me will not hunger. Hallelujah. I want to restore your identity today of who you are in Christ, of what God thinks about you. The battle of Genesis 1 is to remove God so others can define you. The battle of Genesis 2 is to make you God and you can decide who you are. Culture is trying to put definition in our broken hands when true identity can only be gotten from the One who made us, loves us, redeems us, transforms us, and brings us into heaven. Your identity is not from you. It's not from a government. It's not from a book. Your identity is what God thinks about you and what God says about you. Folks, I want you to keep this in mind. I want to tell you right now, this is how we're going to close. How does God feel about you right now? Let me speak to you whether you're a Christian or not a Christian. You could be sitting here as a Muslim or a Jew. You could be an agnostic and an atheist. I have good news for you today. Let me tell you how God feels about you right now. Whether you're a Christian or not, here's how he feels about you. Number one, he made you in his image. Thank God said, let us make man in our own image to be like us. Number two, you are God's masterpiece, For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do good things. He has planned for us long ago. Just when you think God doesn't notice, he crowned you with glory and honor. David says, when I look at the night sky and see the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you set in place, what are mere mortals? That's us. That you should even think about them, that you should care for them. Yet you made them a little lower than God and you crowned them with glory and with honor. You are created in the image of God. You are his handiwork. You have glory and honor upon you. He ordained the days, and he thinks about you with precious thoughts. It says in David, says in Psalm 139, you9 eyes saw my unformed body when he's in the womb. All the days, all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. And then he says, how precious to me are your thoughts, oh, God. How vast is the sum of them. If I were to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. God loves you and thinks about you all the time. Hey, good news. He will never reject you. Hallelujah. Whoever comes to me, I will never drive out. He doesn't want anyone to perish. He's not willing. He says he's giving more time for sinners to repent. He loves this world, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. Whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And he loves us so much that he sent His Son to die for us. But God demonstrates His own love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Oh, who are you? He loves you so much. He can make you a new person, regardless of your past. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. All things have passed away and all things become new. Then will he forgive me? Me? He longs to forgive you. But if we freely admit our sins, when this light uncovers them, he will be faithful to forgive us every single time. Hallelujah. And he accepts you right now. Romans 15:7. Accept each other, just as Christ has accepted you, so that God will be given the glory. And here's the good news. He hasn't gone away. He is waiting. He never stops knocking on the door of your heart. Behold, I'm standing at the door, knocking. If your heart is open to hear my voice and you open the door, I will come into you, feast with you, and you with me. All you got to do is open up your heart. You don't have to get fixed up to come to God. You come to God just like you are. He'll take it from there. Hallelujah. Don't define yourself. Don't genderize yourself. God's already done it for you. You're his creation. You are his pride. He loves you. He's thinking precious thoughts about you right now. Oh, hallelujah. Hallelujah. Can I just. I have to just say this. Stand. Stand with me. Stand with me. I have to. I have to say this. Listen, it's not just unbelievers that go through this. It's believers that. That don't go to sleep with bread at night. How many know that the enemy attacks that mind so hard and so viciously? How many have felt those attacks that just keep coming, like, literally while Ricardo was singing, I literally held my head. I'm going, I am the righteousness of God in Christ. God, you are with me. You are for me. Not. I'm sitting right there. Don't ever sit in that situation section. It's very, it's very dangerous in that section. I'm sitting there. I just, I'm going like devil. There's a whole bunch of other rows. Go after them, but not me. It's always me. It's always me. But I literally, I held my head. I'm going, these thoughts, God, these thoughts. I need your help right now. Right now. And folks, you know, when it comes, it comes at nighttime, the enemy goes out. So can I give you some bread to hold on to? Can I give you. Listen, I'm gonna go through this fast. I'm gonna go through it so fast that I'm gonna be huffing and puffing. But I worked out yesterday. So I'm gonna give you these words so fast. I'm gonna give you 30, 30 slices of bread from scripture. This is 30 slices. Okay, get your get ready. 30 slices of bread. When you're doubting who you are, that I had to continue to quote down there. Romans 15:7 says, I'm excited. Accepted. John 15:16. I'm chosen by God. Galatians 4:7. You are free. First John 1:9. You are forgiven. Second Corinthians 5:17. You're a new person. John 1:12. You're a child of God. Genesis 1:27. You're made in God's image. First Corinthians 3:23. You belong to Jesus. Romans 6:4. You've been given a new life. Philippians 3:20. You're a citizen of heaven. First Peter 1:5. You're protected by God. First Corinthians 12:27. You're part of what God's doing. Romans 8:38. God loves you no matter what. Zephaniah 3:17. God is with you. Psalm 139. He sees you specifically. Isaiah 43:4. Precious to God. Galatians 3:13. You've been rescued by God. Jeremiah 29:11. God has an incredible plan for your future. First John 5:14. God listens to you. Philippians 4:13. God will give you strength. Romans 8:17. You're an heir. Ephesians 2:19. You're part of God's family. First Corinthians 6:19. The Holy Ghost lives inside of you. Psalm 23. God will take care of you. John 15:11. Jesus gives you true joy. Ephesians 1:3 says, you're blessed. Galatians 2:20. 20. God gave Himself to you. John 1:39. God understands you. Exodus 19, 5. You're treasured by God. And Colossians 2, 10. You are complete in Christ. Hallelujah. You look at your neighbor and say, you just got 30 slices of bread. 30 slices. Eat that tonight. I needed that bread. I needed it there. I got them to put it up on the screen the first service. They were so good in getting it up there because I didn't plan on speaking on it. We needed that bread. When we first got married, Cindy and I, we lived in a difficult area. It was dangerous in Detroit. And right. Right there in the second row in the first service was my former associate pastor from Detroit. They were in town to celebrate their 30th anniversary. And he shouldn't even be there. Shouldn't even be alive. Some of you know his story. He lived one block over from me. Someone broke into his house and stabbed him 38 times. 38 times he was stabbed. He was sitting right where you are, where these missionaries from Israel are just sitting right where you are. 38 times. He's got, I think it's six to eight feet of scarring on his body to remind him, God is a miracle worker. God is a miracle. He was sitting right there. He. Now they. When he was sitting there facing the man that stabbed him 38 times in. In court, they said, we'd like you to give a victim statement. He said, absolutely not. I'll give a Victor statement. A victor state. And I heard it, and he did. We walked him through that. But I watched the man, not only God, begin to write all those 30 slices of bread. He needed 30 slices every moment of his walk after that tragedy. And he was sitting right there. And I remember, you know how God's using him now? He takes. This is a man that was this close to death, this close to death, and he was sitting there. God uses him on death row to minister to prisoners whose life is about to be ended. And he's the one who walks them through all the way to salvation. He says, listen, God's going to take you to heaven. And he's walking. He's walking. Murderers. To Christ. To Christ. And we lived a block from each other. Our houses were in the same position, three houses in. He was three houses in. It could have happened at our house. I wasn't even there. It could have been Cindy and the four kids. And Cindy was having dreams every night that someone was breaking into our house and killing all of us. What do you do? What do you do with that? Look at me. Get the Bread. Get the bread out. Get the bread. And we did. We found a slice. In Proverbs 6. OMG, we found slice. And I'm telling you, some of you need to take this slice of bread. I'm gonna give you a free slice. How many of the enemy has attacked your dreams? Did you raise your hand? I'm giving you a free slice of bread. Here it comes. Because we were going like, I bind you, Satan. I bind you, Satan. I bind you. And God goes, no, no, no, don't bind Satan. I'm gonna ask you to bind the word. Here it comes. Watch this. Proverbs 6. 20. Here it comes. Here's your slice of bread. My son, observed the commandments of your father and do not forsake the teaching of your mother. Here it comes. Here it comes. Next verse. Bind them. Don't buy the devil. Bind the word of God on your heart. Okay, leave that verse up there. Look at me for a second. So you know what we started to do every night? We started to bind the Word. We would read the scriptures over our lives. Every single night. We took a slice of bread when the enemy was going, like, you're not going to wake up tomorrow. You're not going to wake up tomorrow. You're not going to wake up tomorrow. I'm sending murderers. I'm sending. And all of a sudden we just sat there and go, oh, God. Oh, God. So he bound the Word to us. Okay, you ready for this? Here's the good news. Let me tell you what happens. Here it is. This is amazing. Here it comes. You ready? When you walk, they will guide you. When you. Oh, Jesus. When you sleep, they will watch over you. And when you awake, hallelujah, they will talk to you. That word, it became. I'm just. I don't know any other way to put it. We read that word. And as we would read it, it was like a canopy over us. It was. It was. It was like. It was like that. These missiles could not get in as we read the Word. I said, God, that's your word. Proverbs 6. 22. It says, When I sleep, that word will guard me. It will guard my mind. And folks, I'm telling you, that's why the last thing to do at night is not check social media. Don't look at TikTok, Tic Tac. Don't look at Facebook, Instagram. Put the word over your heart. Put the word over that bedroom. Hallelujah. It's God's word. It's what God does. If you fight with God, I'm telling you, you can either fight against God right now, who's starting to knock on your heart, but I'm telling you, God can change you. I have to read this last thing you keep saying. I know what you're saying. You're going. You keep saying it's the last thing. This is too good. Because I have to tell you a story that, that universities won't tell you. On how it ended on the first fight, on the Genesis 1 fight. The man that started the fight, Charles Darwin. It is the end of the fight. Charles Darwin called his theory natural selection and the survival of the fittest. This is unbelievable. It said that in Darwin's study of the development of man, he went to South America where he found a race of men so low in the scale that they were little more than animals. In Darwin's mind, with all the interest and thoroughness of his scientific mind, he studied these people. Their minds were those of. He said they were like undeveloped children. Their bodies were diseased, their surroundings and living conditions were beastly. And according to his theory, ages must pass before they could even rise to the level of civilization. And years after, Darwin went to that South American city again, a visit, those people in which he had so much interest, and to his amazement, he found them transformed. They were clothed, they could read and write. They had schools and churches and were taking their places among the civilized people of the Southern hemisphere. Okay, here it comes now. You ready? Get ready. And then this is what was in his journal. Here it is from Darwin's journal. Get ready for it. He said, there is something I had omitted from my calculations. It was God. He said, the missionaries were there. They messed up everything for me when they showed up with God. Listen to this. God had touched the men and women and they had been born again. What naturalist selection could not have done in a thousand years, God accomplished in two decades. That's a good point to lift your hands and say, thank you, God. You can work miracles. Right now. We lift our hands right now. Some of us are under such attacks right now. We're under such attacks right now with our hands lifted up. We're just saying, God, we need bread, we need bread. For those that don't know God, maybe some are sitting here, agnostics, atheists, some from different religions, and God, we're just here to say you need bread, you need bread. You need the bread of life. You need the bread of life. And oh, God, I'm just praying, I'm praying that this is a day where they just receive the bread of Life today. Not a church, not me, not these words, but just Jesus today. God. Would you work a miracle? Just work a miracle just for a moment. Would you just put your hands down? We are closing. We're gonna close. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna blindside you. I'm not gonna. I just want to get this. Some of you are. Your minds are under such assault, just with every head bowed and every eye closed. The mind is under assault because the heart is such a valuable spot that the enemy wants to go after. If you can get your mind thinking this way, you just succumb to it. If you're under such. If the enemy is trying. Listen, this is beyond gender. This is just. If the enemy is trying to define you. These thoughts are trying to say, take your life. You're not even worth anything. I'm here to tell you God thinks innumerable thoughts about you. You are precious to God. If you're here today and say, no one loves me, I'm here to tell you this. I don't know your life, but I do know heaven. And there's a God that loves you so much that he sent his son. If you think to yourself, I have no purpose in life, I'm here to tell you you are the handiwork of God and he has planned good works for you. I'm here to tell you that there is hope for your future. I'm here to tell you that right now everyone has rejected me. I'm here to tell you there is a God that will not cast you aside. And all these thoughts are starting to come in and define you. And if you're here today with every head bowed and every eye closed and just say, I'm under assault and I want God to come in and change. If that's you, just lift both hands. Just. If that's you, just lift them right wherever you're at, lift both hands. I want to just close with this. I want to just close with those hands lifted up. Just say God, come, come, God, I need you. I need you right now. Just ask him. Just say God. All the. All those slices of bread that I was hearing about God, I can't face tomorrow unless I have your truth. I can't face tomorrow. I don't need another superficial healing. I don't need another superficial healing. To my brokenness like Jeremiah talks about. I need you to work deep into my soul today. The answer is not in Times Square church. The answer is not in the denomination, nation or a religion. The answer is in Jesus. The bread of life. He is able right now. Just receive. Just say, God, I receive you. I receive the bread of life. I receive. The Bible says that those that begin to acknowledge and receive Jesus, the bread of life shall never hunger again. You won't hunger for identity. You won't hunger for somebody to define you. You won't hunger for somebody, something else to make you valuable. You are already valuable. You are in the image of God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. So God, today we choose to not let people, laws, governments redefine. What God said is very good. You said, it's very good. That's enough for me and Father. You look at these precious men and women, these, these husbands, high school students, these college students, and you look and say, you've been created in my image. You've been created in my image. Take those decisions out of your broken hands. Turn it over to me and God. Change lives today. Change lives today. Let this be a life changing moment. Because that 1 billion does start with 1. There's one life being changed can change. A dorm room, a college campus, a community, a nation, even God. Work miracles here today. Work miracles here today in Jesus name and everybody said Amen. Amen. Amen. Thanks so much for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this message and be sure to subscribe so you can receive new messages each week. Visit TSC NYC for all the latest info on how you can see. Stay connected. Also, don't forget that you can follow us on social media on all major platformsquare. Church thanks for tuning in today. Have a great week.