to enter his gates, to lift our hands and bless the Lord. It's time to praise the Lord. It's great to see you this morning. We're gonna dive right in. So let's lift our hands together this morning. Let's invite the Lord, posture of worship, praise. Lord, we just thank you for what you're gonna do today. Jesus, we give you all honor, all glory, all praise. You have the name that is above all other names. Lord, we honor you in this place, mighty God. Would you be glorified, magnified, lifted high from these people, from the saints. Lord, we honor you this morning. We give you all the glory, the honor, and the praise. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Everybody said amen, amen. Come on, let's worship today. It's the sound I love to hear. It's the sound of the Savior's robes. He walks into the room where people pray. Jesus, Jesus is sound of His peace. My soul to say, let's sing that verse again. Jesus died, Jesus prayed, rooms in stay. Come on church, holy shout, holy shout to the Lord. Jesus, we lift you high. Jesus, we lift you high. We lift you high. Would you say hallelujah church? Come on, say hallelujah. He is worthy to be praised. He is worthy to be praised, amen. Amen, hey, you may be seated right where you are. You may be seated, you may be seated. It's so good to worship in the house of the Lord, amen. Amen.  Thank you so much for worshiping. King Jesus with us this morning. If I haven't had an opportunity to meet you, my name is Tim, and I serve as the Richelon Location Pastor here. But if you're here for the first time, if you will be so kind to take a moment and a seat back pocket in front of you, you'll see a communication card. Take a moment, fill that out, hold on to it. And at the end of the service, you can make your way to Radiant Central. We have some amazing volunteers who are there to greet you and also give you a gift to show you that we appreciate you being with us. Church, can we welcome our first time guests and returning guests? Amen. Amen, amen. Hey, another thing we're gonna be doing as we talked about Envision Weekend, giving you next steps so you can become fully formed disciples, truly matured in Jesus Christ is baptism. So everyone say next week. Say it again, say next week. Next week, we're gonna have baptism. If you've been saved, if you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, but you have not been baptized, this is your next step. And you can sign up online, you can go to Radiant Central as well. We will love to help you register. Today in the news, we have an amazing story of someone who took the next step in obedience to Jesus as she talks about her baptism. So next week, we want you to be baptized.  All right, I wanna invite our ushers to make their way forward as we receive our tithes and offerings. Just to remind you two ways to give. You can give if the buckets come, before you can also give safely online at radiant.church slash give. We serve a God who gives good gifts and we're reminded that we give back to him cheerfully, joyfully and willfully. So I'm gonna pray for us and we're gonna continue with our service. Father, again, we love you. We praise you. We thank you for the gift of today. And we ask you now that you'll prepare our hearts not only to give to you, but also to receive your word. Lord, we are your people. You're the reason why we are here. Jesus continue to be lifted up. We highly lift you up and would you draw all men to yourself today? It's in Jesus' name that we pray and everyone said, amen. Thank you for joining us. Whether you're with us in person or online, here are a few things that you need to know. To stay up to date on everything going on, head to radiant.church or follow us on social media at the Radiant City. Whether this is your first time here at Radiant, you've been attending for years or you just wanna learn more, Discover Radiant is the first step for you. In this short three-part video series, you'll dive deeper into who we are, learn more about our history and find out how you can get more involved. To get started and watch Discover Radiant, head over to our website at radiant.church slash discover. If you would like to give today, visit radiant.church slash give or drop an envelope into one of our offering boxes at any location. There are so many ways to get plugged in and grow here at Radiant. After service, head over to Radiant Central where someone from our team would love the opportunity to meet you, answer any questions and give you a gift. We're so glad that you've joined us today. Thanks for being here. My name is Kristen Riebel. My family and I have been attending Radiant for about three years. I was baptized as an infant and then did my public declaration of faith when I was about 10 years old. And that was real. I believed in Jesus, I had accepted him into my heart but throughout the years, I had a lot of ups and downs in my faith. Probably the greatest of those came when our daughter Maddie was born and she was born with a lot of medical complexities and special needs. We were in the hospital a lot over the next couple of months. She had RSV, started having seizures. All of these things were just hitting us, you know, over the course of several months. And then finally we got her diagnosis of 1P36 deletion syndrome, which is a chromosome deletion. And those first couple of months were dark and there was a lot of questioning. When you become a first time parent, you always have this picture in your mind that you're going to have this beautiful, healthy baby and that just wasn't the story for our family. And we found ourselves asking God, like, are you still good? Are you really, are you for us?  And I think in those times you can either turn towards the Lord or turn away from him. And we really leaned into our faith and our faith, I mean, Jesus was our rock during that time. That's how we got through those days. And I think a few years after that the Lord started asking me to get baptized again. And it was like, there were just a lot of excuses, like why God, I was already baptized, I don't need to do that. We're already so busy and things are tough with Maddie and I just, I don't feel like taking the time right now to do that, that type of thing. And we moved here and started attending Radiant and I started hearing him ask me that again, just will you get baptized? And this past summer, there were no more excuses and I went ahead and signed up for baptism and it was just awesome. And I think since that time, we've really seen so much fruit from that. We've seen growth in our marriage, in our family, opportunities to witness and even bring people to church with us. And so I think by taking that step of obedience it opened things up. It just, it was the next step in my faith and the Lord has really used that and has been so, so faithful in this season. How's everybody doing? It's great. Kristen's story is so powerful. Jane and I were on an airplane flying to, I think we were on our way to India and we landed in Amsterdam and her husband came out, he was the pilot on the Delta flight across the ocean. So there's nothing better than having a radiant pilot when you're traveling around the world. This morning, so grateful that our worship team and our whole team gave me a little bit of extra time today for the message that I'm gonna be sharing with you this week and next weekend that I had not planned on teaching. I had planned on doing some other things, but in light of what took place last Saturday, last Saturday, October the 7th, when Israel was brutally and horrendously attacked by the Hamas terrorists. And I was on my way traveling to Omaha, Nebraska to minister there and I felt very strongly at that time that things were going to intensify and that it would be necessary for me to bring a message, not just because it's something current, but because it is not only current, but it's biblical and it's very significant that we know the days in which we are living in. And so this last week, we ultimately, we had a trip planned to lead about 50 people from radiant to Israel, leaving I think in about eight days from now. And so obviously that trip has been canceled. Not only was that trip canceled, but I taught this week in staff meeting on what's taking place in Israel. And we took a short little clip of that and we posted that on social media on Facebook and on Instagram. And as of this morning on Instagram, we've had over a million views on that. And then on Facebook, well over a million as well. And what that tells me is that there are a lot of questions related to what's taking place, is it biblical and how should we respond? So I've entitled the message I'm gonna share of the next couple of weeks, Israel, Iran and the Rising Storm. And I'm going to begin this morning by answering six questions that a lot of people are asking related to Israel, Iran and the Rising Storm. And I'm gonna be reading off of my notes. I have my computer up here just so I can make sure that I see it, say it correctly, because I wanna be very succinct. I typically almost 99% of the time when I preach, I begin by teaching and reading a text and then exegeting or teaching and breaking down that text because the word is centerpiece. But this morning's gonna be a little bit different because I'm gonna build my message off of answering these six questions. And my hope is to help all of us, whether you're viewing online, whether you're one of our locations, we are part of Radiant or the larger body of Christ to give clarity and to give understanding and also some direction, not only about this situation, but how we respond to the season and into the era that we find ourselves today. So I'm gonna answer six questions this morning about Israel, Iran, and the Rising Storm of things that are taking place. So the first question that I wanna answer is this. What has brought this war about? This is a question that I've been asked several different times. What has brought this war about? Well, in general, what we have seen over the last 10 to 15 years is an increase in unprovoked attacks against Israel by the terrorist group known as Hamas. Those people, those individuals, this Islamic jihadist group, really there are three groups that you need to be aware of that are connected to the nations that are surrounding Israel in the physical realities of the nation of Israel. And those three terrorist groups, there's more, but these three are the main ones is Hamas, who's been front and center on the news. Another one in the north is a group called Hezbollah and a third, which is a minor group. It's not minor, but it's not as dominant in the news, which is Islamic jihad. So these three Islamic groups are groups that have embedded themselves within nations and communities surrounding the nation of Israel. What we've seen is an uptick over the last decade or so of unprovoked terrorist attacks because make no mistake about that's what they are. Missiles being launched, kidnapping's taking place. Well, this has just continued to increase. And specifically in the most recent days, the group Hamas that has taken over the Gaza Strip, which was part of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian people, a territory on the Mediterranean Sea that borders with Egypt. In every attempt to talk peace, to negotiate in good faith, Hamas has refused to come to the table in good faith with Israel. And in fact, they're unapologetically, and this is important for you to know, they're unapologetically founded and committed for one purpose and for one purpose only. And that is for the destruction of the state of Israel and the death of every Jew on the face of the earth. Now, a lot of people ask the question, okay, well, why can't there be peace there between the Palestinians and Israelis? There are a lot of reasons. One main reason is that especially in Gaza, the political structures have now been taken over by a terrorist organization. It would be much like any nation, whether that be Syria or any other place, that has ceded their governmental authority to like ISIS or to al-Qaeda. Hamas is in that same category. In their charter, Hamas, that was an organization that began in the 80s, right at the front end of their preamble of their charter is the declaration that we exist to see the destruction of the nation of Israel and the Jewish people from the land.  Even this week, one of the Hamas commanders when was talking about what was taking place currently in the area of Israel, specifically the Southern Negev, and the attack that took place that killed so many Israelis, somewhere between 12 and 1300 Israelis that were killed in this attack and many, many more that have been injured and kidnapped. The Hamas commander said this, this is not just about land, the entire planet will be under our law. There will be no more Jews or Christian traders. So for those who are on the West looking at this and saying let's make nice with Hamas, understand, you want to negotiate and make nice with an organization that wants to repeat the Holocaust. They are not looking for a two-state solution, they are looking for a final solution. They are looking to repeat what Hitler did in the annihilation of every Jew off the face of the earth and when they're done with the Jews, they're coming for Christians. Now understand when I say this, I'm not talking about every Arab, every Palestinian, I'm not talking about people who are Muslims living in the Middle East who long for peace, long for desire, are very sincere in their faith. This is a, we don't even know what percentage of Muslims per se in the Middle East or even in the Gaza or in the surrounding areas are extremists or jihadists. We don't know what that percentage is but even if it's a small percentage, you cannot negotiate with those individuals when they have control of the political apparatus. You see what is being manifested when you ask the question what has brought this about is it's not just recent, it's not just what's taking place over the last few years or even the last decades. What is taking place is part of something that is a greater ancient hatred that we'll talk about here in a moment that has actually manifested itself in amplified, accelerated in what the Bible refers to as the last days which I believe wholeheartedly we are living in. Which leads to the second question is if this is over Israel being in the land, what is Israel's right to the land and their pursuit of peace? Why, okay, why is Israel in the land to begin with and do they have the right to be there because maybe you've seen a lot of people saying, hey, these are occupying forces and we need to get the Jews out of the land. If we just got Israel out of the land, the destruction of Israel, returned it back to the Palestinians, then we would have peace. Does Israel have a right to the land? Well, number one, this has broken up into three things. There's the reality that is their historical right to the land. Number two, their political right to the land. And number three, their spiritual right to the land. Historically, there is no legitimate argument that can be made against Israel being in the land at least for the last 3,500 years. Those who say, well, Israel has not been in the land, they came back as interlopers, taking over as an occupying force that is a false narrative. Israel and Jews have always lived in the land, dating back 3,500 years. Long before there was ever an Arabian group of people, long before Palestinians were ever a thing. And I'll talk about that term Palestinian here in a moment. Archaeology confirms this. History, both biblical and secular history records this. Islamic history records this. All ancestry is confirmed that this is indeed the ancient ancestral homeland of King David, Solomon, and yes, even Jesus. Jews have always lived in the land. And let me make a statement. They will always live in the land. So what about the political realities? Because we obviously know there's a lot of nuance and this is complicated because we're talking about real people, right? We're talking about Jews who are living in the land since 1948, but we're also talking that there are Palestinian people of Arab descent, Israelis as well, that have lived in the land for a long time as well. And obviously there have been a lot of complex discussions over the years about how do we resolve this issue? Politically, the dream of Israel becoming a homeland for the Jewish people after 2,000 years was not birth after World War II, as has commonly been argued. The dream of the dispersed Jews throughout the entire world became a dream in Jewish leaders' hearts during the 19th century. It became known as something called Zionism. European Jews looking at the scriptures, looking at their Bibles, knowing the promises that God made, an unconditional covenant that he made with Abraham and his descendants, Isaac and Jacob, who became Israel, began to long to return back to the land. Palestine at that time, or the land that had been referred to as Palestine, was never a sovereign political entity or nation. So those who say, well, the Jews came back in the land and took it away from the Palestinians. Palestine has never been a sovereign state. It has always been a region or an area that found itself under the auspices and the control of empires, all the way back to Rome in the first century. And then we see the control of the Ottoman, Islamic empire that began around the sixth and seventh century. And then ultimately under British control in the late 19th and early 20th century. The British empire, which we all know controlled a lot of the world at that time, was ready to give the territory to the Jewish people as their ancestral homeland before the Holocaust ever took place in Europe. The Balfour Declaration in 1917 by Britain set things into motion for a potential two state solution right from the beginning with the land so that everybody, both Jew and Arab, were able to coexist together in the land and yet also recognize that the land had ancestral significance as a homeland for the Jewish people. And Britain, who had come under control of it after the defeat of the Ottoman empire, was prepared to do that. And every step along the way, the Arab people who were in the land rejected the idea that Jews should be able to return en masse. Now there were always living in the land Jewish people, Jewish colonies, but they were oftentimes found themselves in the minority when the conversation about allowing Jews to immigrate back into the land of their ancestry, of their covenant promises. Whenever that was brought up, the Arabs in the land rejected the idea of a Jewish homeland or a solution. In 1937, Arabs rejected the Pils Commission goal to establish a two state solution. This is before the end of World War II. The Arabs were presented it and they rejected it. Now keep in mind, they did not control the state, they were just living in it. In 1947, the Arabs again rejected the UN partition plan to create a two state solution. In 1948, after Israel by consensus of the United Nations was recognized as an independent state. And by the way, the United States of America under President Truman were the first state and the first president to recognize Israel as a state in 1948. When that took place, the surrounding Arab nations decided to wage war and to destroy this new nation. And in the process, they actually lost more land than the original partition plan would have given to them. Now, many people say, well, how in the world isn't it terrible that the Palestinians are put in these refugee camps? Yes, these refugee camps were never Israel's plan and Israel's not responsible for creating them. The surrounding 22 Arab nations around Israel were the ones along with the UN that came up with the refugee camp idea. And here's what they told the Palestinians, the Palestinian Arabs living in Israel in 1948 as well as in 1967.  And we don't want you to get hurt in the process. So move into Gaza, move into the West Bank, move into Jordan, move into Egypt. And as soon as we've, and up into Lebanon and as soon as we've wiped them out and defeated the Israelis into Jewish state, you can come back in and repossess the land. But when they came in like a flood against this new burgeoning state, Israel didn't just hold them off, Israel won the battle. And those that had left were not allowed to come back in and they were stuck. But yet those 22 surrounding Arab nations would not give them residency or citizenship. They kept them in refugee camps because they became convenient shields and tools to use on the political landscape of the international community. In 1967, Israel wins a miraculous battle against its Arab aggressors, conquering Gaza, the West Bank and Sinai. Israel's response, after they won this battle where every nation came against them during the Six Day War, here's how their response was when they won. Did they gloat? No. In good faith, they said, we're gonna give you back Temple Mount. And we're not gonna allow Jews to go onto Temple Mount and to pray. What were they doing saying? We're willing to negotiate. What did the Palestinians respond? They came up with the three no policy, no peace, no negotiations and no recognitions of the state of Israel. In 1979, Israel voluntarily gives back the Sinai as a show of good faith to Egypt. What did they gain out of it? Nothing other than a piece of gourd with Egypt. 1993, Israel recognizes the sovereignty of the Palestinian Authority over the West Bank and Gaza in the Oslo Accords. Palestinians give nothing. 2000, Israel offers Yasser Arafat official statehood for the Palestinian state in Gaza and 94% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as its capital. Palestine rejected the plan, starts the second Inafada of war against Israel. In 2005, Israel pulls out of Gaza, surrenders it to the Palestinian Authority. You know what the Palestinians did? They elected Hamas, a terrorist organization as their government and it turns Gaza into a terrorist state. In 2008, Israel offers Mahmoud Abbas, everything from the plan offered in 2000 and the Palestinians rejected. In 2010 through 2021, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets, initiated hundreds of terrorist attacks, built tunnels to kidnap and murder and has taken the billions of dollars that the international community has given for humanitarian aid that was meant for humanitarian purposes for the Palestinian people and instead used it to buy armaments and to use their citizens as a shield against Israel. Literally, Hamas has put all of their missile factories, their headquarters, their training camps and their intelligence apparatus in apartment complexes where citizens live because they know that if Israel ever has to respond to them, there's going to be casualties of citizens that will warrant and garner international sympathy and put pressure on Israel to back down. And then Saturday, October the 7th, Sabbath day, a high day, the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Hamas terrorists entering by air, by sea and through the gates, attacked in the early hours, the nation of Israel and murdered 1,200 innocent civilians as well as soldiers, kidnapped 150 of them.  There were over 4,000 that have been seriously injured and even kidnapped Holocaust survivors. Take them captives into Gaza. This is where things stand. And currently, the whole world has its eyes fixed on the nation of Israel. How will they respond? That's the political landscape. Well, the question begs us to answer is, well, does Israel, beyond the historical and the political reality, do they have a spiritual right to dwell in the land? As Bible-believing Christians, we should all affirm that God himself was the one who established an everlasting, which means unchanging covenant with Abraham, his son Isaac and his son Jacob, who became Israel and to their descendants forever and ever. Genesis 15 verse 18 says, on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, to your offspring I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.   And I will be their God. Now this is reiterated, this covenant is reiterated over 100 times in the Old Testament. When God makes a covenant with Moses at Sinai, it's a conditional covenant, which means I will do this if you will respond to me this way. It's a conditional covenant. God says to the children of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter four, he says to Moses, he says, if you possess the land, if you dwell in the land and you do right, then I'll be with you.  Those are conditional covenants, why? Because there was a covenant between two individuals. But when God established his covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, it was a unilateral covenant. It was a covenant that God says, I am establishing with this, regardless of what you do. And he called it an everlasting covenant and an everlasting possession. What does that mean? Well, last time I looked up in a dictionary, it means never ending, unchanging, unconditional. And so when people say, well, that's the old covenant, the new covenant has replaced the old covenant. No, the new covenant has replaced the old mosaic covenant that was temporary, but it does not replace the Abrahamic covenant. God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are as sure today and will be forever as they were on the day that he cut them. And if God forgets Israel and the covenant that he made with them, he said, let me forget my own name and the strength of my own hand. God, unlike every human being on this planet, is a covenant keeping God and he is faithful even when we are faithless. So question number three, what about the Palestinian people? Because obviously we're talking about human beings that Jesus died on the cross and loves deeply. What about the Palestinian people? We're not talking about Hamas at this moment. We're not talking about those terrorists who are demonically inspired with the spirit of Haman. We're talking about individuals who many of the Palestinians are Christians. There's a small minority among the Palestinian Arabs that are Christians that Jesus loves and they love Jesus. There are many in the Palestinian community that love Israel and pray for Israel. And there are many in the Palestinian community that hate Israel and hate Christians and are very, very passionate in their beliefs. And you know, here's the beautiful thing about Jesus is even those that hate him, he loves. What about them? Well, number one, we should have incredible compassion for them, they are caught in the crossfire. This is something that we need to be aware of that as we pray, we're praying, not just for the Jewish state. Somebody said, well, you just love Israel just because they're Israel, but they don't love Christianity. I don't love Israel because I think that everything that they do politically or nationally is right. I love them and I pray for them and I stand with them because of the everlasting covenant and the prophetic promises that God has attached to the people of Israel. And I also have deep compassion for the mom, the mother and the child and the father and the individual who has found themselves in the crossfires of this ancient hatred. There are many Palestinians. There are Christians as well as Muslims living in Gaza in the West Bank that want just to live their lives in peace. There are many also that have unfortunately been indoctrinated by demonic lies and narratives and been manipulated. Many of their children have been trained under Hamas and Hezbollah and Iranian propaganda because Iran is the power and the money behind what is taking place in Hamas. Hamas is nothing but a proxy for the Shia Muslim regime of Iran. And in their elementary schools, you think we have issues in our schools. The schools in Palestine, the schools in the West Bank and in Gaza are indoctrinating their children that Jews are apes, that they are subhuman, sound familiar? Who else did that in the 20th century? And that their highest call as Muslims to be faithful to Allah is to prepare their hearts to be Mujahideen and Jihadists and martyrs for the sake of destroying the Israeli regime and the occupying force. So they're training these children up. And you can see interviews where these children are like, I wanna grow up and I wanna be a martyr.  I wanna slaughter them. And unfortunately, many people in the Palestinian community have been indoctrinated and manipulated by this, much like we've seen in Afghanistan and in other places. Unless we think it's just an Islamic thing, we can look in our own backyard and Western civilization and see how educators have manipulated and indoctrinated an entire generation here in our own backyard. These are complex issues. And I want to advise and I want to counsel every single one of us. Number one, recognize that the enemy that we are fighting is a spiritual enemy. There are political realities. And war unfortunately is a part of the current present age that we are living in. Romans chapter 13 says that political powers and governmental authorities have been granted by God in this present age, the power of the sword to deal with evil doers. And unfortunately what we've seen and what we are going to see intensify over the next several days and weeks is gonna be hard to watch. It's gonna be difficult. It's going to seem inhumane on both sides. There's gonna be a lot of bloodshed unfortunately. And I want you to know that Jesus weeps over this reality. Jesus weeps over this. God's heart breaks. His desire is that no one should perish, but that everyone should come to salvation through His Son. But unfortunately we live in this fallen world where there are spiritual realities but there are also political necessities. And for a vast majority of the Palestinian people they have become prisoners. You might have heard this phrase. It's an open air prison. You're absolutely right. It is an open air prison but it is not Israel that has imprisoned them. It is the Islamic terrorists Hamas who are proxy terror organizations sponsored by the demonically inspired Iranians who as a political entity in an Islamic nation have declared that they will wipe Israel off the face of the map. You think the Bible has eschatology where there are beliefs about what the end of the world will look like. Iran who is a Shia Islamic nation under the Mullahs has their own eschatology. And Iran is so motivated to destroy the Jews because they believe as soon as World War III is initiated the 12th Imam who has been in hiding for 1200 years is going to emerge.  And you might say to yourself, that sounds crazy. It's crazy because it's demonic but it's a reality that we have a nuclear power in the Middle East that has that ideology and that theology that is just recently had $6 billion released to them and over the last three years has had sanctions against their oil removed. So that has equated to $60 billion that they are using to fund terrorism because their theology demands it. You see, they've become prisoners of an Islamic terrorist state just like Hezbollah under the influence of Iran. You might wonder where the name Hamas comes from. It's interesting. It's actually an acronym that stands for Islamic resistance, something along that type of organization. But it's also a word that has meaning in both Hebrew and in Arabic. Both Hebrew and Arabic come from a root language of Aramaic. And so therefore a lot of Hebrew words and Arabic words have similar sounds and meanings. In Arabic, which most of the Palestinians are, the word Hamas means zeal, courage. But make no mistake about it, the founders of Hamas also knew that the word Hamas had a dual meaning because it means something in Hebrew as well. In Hebrew, the word Hamas means violence. So every time a Hamas leader stands up and says the word Hamas to his own people, they hear zeal and courage. But to their enemies, that they have their heart set on destroying, every Jew in every Israeli hears violence. In Genesis chapter six, when Noah was alive on the planet and God was about to judge the earth, it's interesting, in Genesis chapter six, verse 11, it says that God looked at the earth and the earth was filled with violence. How many know that scripture? It says the earth was filled with violence. In the Hebrew language, it means the earth was filled with Hamas. It's interesting that Jesus in Matthew 24 says that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days leading up to the coming of the Son of man, that there's gonna be an increase of violence. Hamas I want to propose to you is actually a demonic spirit of violence that is aimed and centered at the Jewish people. It was then to wipe out the righteous seed that would bring the Redeemer into the earth under the days of Noah the righteous and in our day to wipe out the Jewish people so that the promises that were made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and David would never be fulfilled in the earth, which leads me to question number four. Does what's taking place today have biblical relevance? The answer is yes. It has biblical relevance because what we're seeing front and center on the world stage today is nothing short of what the Bible refers to as an ancient hatred. In the story of Esther, many of you may remember this story as you've read through your Bibles. Esther was a Jewish young woman living in Persia. And by the way, how many know that Persia in your Bible is the modern nation of Iran? Esther finds herself living in the nation and in the empire of Persia. Her uncle Mordecai has an encounter with a man named Haman. Haman, the Bible says in Esther 3 verse 10, 311. It says, so the king appointed a man named Haman who when he saw Mordecai at the city gates, Mordecai would not bow down to him and so his heart filled with violence towards Mordecai the Jew. So he goes to the king, the Persian king and he tells them that there's a group of people living in your land that are not good for your land that if we could get rid of them, we would have peace throughout the entire empire.  He's talking about the Jewish people. So the Persian king gives him, it says in chapter three, verse 10, 311. So the king took his signet ring from his hand, gave it to Haman, the Agagite, the son of Hamadatha, the enemy of the Jews.  This is the original Holocaust. And it's interesting that Haman who finds himself in modern day Iran under its emperor was described as an Agagite. Well, let me tell you who an Agagite is. An Agagite is a descendant of the ancient people, the Amalekites under Amalek who are the descendants of Esau who live in or dwelt in the southern regions of Israel in the wilderness in the Negev, exactly where the attacks took place on October the 7th. The Amalekites were the descendants of Esau who hated the children of Israel and were the first people to come out against Israel and to declare a war on the Israelites as they are making their way into the Promised Land. Something rose up demonically in the heart of the descendants of Amalek. And we don't know at what point that they hated the Jewish people and they're covenant with God and we're going to do everything that they could to keep the Jewish people from possessing the land that God had promised to them. And now a few decades later, one of the descendants, a man named Haman comes into contact with a Jew who refuses to bow the knee to a pagan king or a pagan authority and that violence, that demonic violence filled his heart again and he went about doing everything he could to destroy the Jewish people out of the entire kingdom. That spirit is still very much alive. That spirit is what manifests itself under Adolf Hitler. And you might say, well, he wasn't an Amalekite, he wasn't even a Muslim, he was a German European, short little guy with a little stash. But do you know who one of his close friends was? One of his close friends, I can't even pronounce his name, but he was the Mufti, the spiritual leader of Jerusalem. And he met with him on several different occasions to discuss their joint hatred for the Jewish people. And the Mufti of Jerusalem said to Adolf Hitler at the height of the final solution in Germany, once you've wiped all the Jews off of the European map, come here and do it here. That same spirit was at work during World War II. That same spirit is what was initiated in the wars of 1948, 1967, 1973. And it is that same spirit that inspired the creation of Islamic jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah, and is at work today. Haman was the first attempt at a Holocaust and this ancient hatred is the illogical, demonic, inspired hatred of the Jewish people. And I wanna make this statement to you so that you understand this very, very clearly. This ancient hatred will continue until the day of Jesus' return. It's not going anywhere. People who are like, hey, let's just make peace there. I just ran through all the attempts of peace. Here's what I will tell you that if tomorrow, if tomorrow, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian people laid down their arms and came to the table, there would be peace. But if tomorrow, the Israelis and all the Jewish people laid down their arms, there would not be one Jew left on the face of the earth. This is what we're dealing with. It's not rational. It's demonic. It's satanic. And it's ultimately going somewhere. And Matthew 24, verses 36 and 37, Jesus talks about the end of the age, a period of time just before His return. And He gives signs to His disciples who asks Him, how will we know when you're coming back? What will be the indicators, the signs, so that when we see them, we know to look because you're soon to return. And in verse 36 and 37, Jesus says, but concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man. Wars, rumors of wars, kingdom rising up against kingdom. Jesus said, when you begin to see these things, and what does He call them? He calls them birth pangs. He says, as in the days of Noah, this spirit of Hamas is going to increase. And you know what is most shocking about it? It's that the leader of Hamas, after they did this atrocity, you would think something this terrible, no matter who it was done on, whether it was in America 9-11, how many know that when our towers were attacked, the rest of the world rallied around us, flew the American flag, supported us? Our allies came to us and said, whatever you gotta do, do. But if you look at just the statistical proportions, if what happened in Israel on October the 7th were in America and you did a per capita equation, it would be the equivalent of not just 3,000 people dying on 9-11, it would be the equivalent of 40,000 people dying on 9-11. But instead, this spirit of Hamas doubled down and called for a global day of protest against Israel and Islamic rage. And so instead of support railing around Israel, some did, but in major cities of the world, we saw pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas demonstrations in the streets, even of Western cities. They've got pictures they'll put up here. These are pictures that took place of the protests.  Even in our own state of Michigan, which has the largest concentration of Middle Eastern people of dissent, this is Dearborn, Michigan, where there were massive protests against Israel within days of Israelis being slaughtered, babies' heads being cut off, women being raped, elderly being massacred. Instead of people showing empathy or sympathy towards them, they began to wave the flag of the very people who have set their hearts on Israel's destruction. And if you think to yourself, well, when Jesus said that towards the end of the age, it's gonna be like Noah, the spirit of Hamas, the spirit of violence and hatred and war that is gonna be centered on the Jewish people, that could never happen in our day. Wake up, smell the coffee, it's happening. This is not just about what's happening in Israel. This is not just what's happening in Gaza. What you and I are seeing is a rising global storm, a rising global reality that is manifest itself in anti-Israel sentiment, but is actually anti-Jesus and anti-God and is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy spoken of about the end of the age. It's even taken place in the church. One of the reasons why this message is so important here at Radiant in our city and hopefully even broader is because this spirit of anti-Israel, this anti-Jewish sentiment has crept into the church over the last 2000 years through what has been known as replacement theology. Replacement theology taught in all of our major seminaries embraced by most major denominations that led to much of the persecution of the Jews throughout the Middle Ages and during the Reformation is a dominant theology. And basically what replacement theology says is that the church made up of primarily Gentiles has now replaced Israel in God's purposes and plans. And because the Jews killed Jesus, God has written them off, they are under a curse, and there are no more covenant promises set for national Israel. They've just been cut off. And now all of the spiritual promises that God made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are no longer focused on the nation of Israel. They're now focused on Gentile Christians. Now we could say a lot about that. We could say obviously the Jews and Israel live in the land today in unbelief. There is only one method of salvation. There's only one name given under heaven by which men might be saved. It's the name of Jesus. There's no other way to be saved. We're not saying that Israel has a distinct covenant that they're saved without going through Jesus. But we're just saying that even though they dwell in the land today in unbelief, there is coming a global event in which the eyes and the veil and the hardness of heart that has been in part is gonna be pulled back at the end of this current age. And the Jews in their darkest moments are going to ultimately believe in Yeshua, their Messiah, and he is going to return to defend them and to fulfill all the promises that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Where is this going to happen? Well, Zechariah 12 says in chapter 12, verse two through three. This is an ancient prophecy. He says, behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples. We're living in that day, guys. Why is it that the whole world is focused on a 14-acre parcel of land called Temple Mount? This is where the dispute, why is it that the entire world, the United Nations, governments of man, the United States empire, I mean, we've got our aircraft carriers and military ships and our political leaders showing up to a nation in the Middle East the size of New Jersey. And yet all eyes are focused on there. He says, I'm about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples. Do you know that? There are 22 Arab nations, one Jewish nation. Well, why don't they give the land back to the Palestinians? Why don't the 22 Arab nations invite those Arab descendants citizenship into coming to their land? They've closed their borders. How come Israel won't allow the people in Gaza to get out? Israel's not stopping them. Hamas has blockaded them so that they will be used as a human shield. The surrounding peoples are almost all primarily Islamic and they are drunk on the issue and the controversy of Jerusalem. And then it says in the siege of Jerusalem at the end of the age will also be against Judah on that day, listen to this, on that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves and all nations of the earth will gather against it. Next week I'm gonna talk more about what the future holds globally for the church and for Israel and what are the signs that we are seeing in our day indicating the soon return of Jesus. It has so much to do with Zechariah 12. You read Zechariah 12 and you read Zechariah 14 and you see where this thing is going. Thousands of years ago, God prophesied that Israel would be taken out of the land and they would come back into the land at the end of days and that there would be controversy surrounding the state of Israel by all the surrounding nations and it would lead up to the return of Jesus. Where is it going? It's going to Jeremiah 31, time period that is referred to as Jacob's trouble or Jacob's distress. God has a controversy with the nation of Israel, he does and the controversy is their unbelief and God is ultimately going to win the day and awaken the hearts of the Jewish people to ultimately see him. Romans chapter 11 talks about all Israel will be saved. How's that's going to happen? God's going to ultimately deal with his elect people in a way at the end of days called Jacob's distress. It says in verse 23 and 24 of Jeremiah 31, behold, the storm of the Lord. Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest, it will burst upon the heads of the wicked. The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intentions of his mind. In the latter days, you will understand us. Church, it's important that we understand the biblical prophetic timeline, the prophecies and the days in which we're living in because God says he's going to execute and he will fulfill the intentions of his heart. And even though they didn't understand it in the days that Jeremiah wrote this, he said, you will understand in the latter times. Can I just promise you and tell you today, you and I are believers living in the latter times. And it's important that we know because if we don't know, ignorance will blind us and we will become deluded with the subtle, satanic spirit of this age that wants us to be influenced by the spirit of Haman. What's coming down the pike, Matthew 24, Jesus referred to what you and I are seeing in our day as the increase in the acceleration of birth pangs. Matthew 24, verse six, he said, you're gonna hear wars and rumors of wars. But then he says this, see that you are not alarmed. Pastor Lee, I'm freaking out when I'm seeing what's going on in the news. I don't like thinking about Bible prophecy because when I think about it, I realize that maybe life isn't gonna go on for a thousand years the way that it is, that maybe there are some things happening globally where this thing is coming to a climax. Jesus said that's absolutely true. He equates it to a woman who's giving birth and contractions are getting stronger, closer together. And as you begin to see these birth pangs, wars and rumors of wars, nation rising against nation, anti-Semitism on their eyes, Israel back in the land, surrounding nations being drunk on the subject of Jerusalem, attacks increasing, the gospel penetrating the nations of the earth, the church coming into an awareness of our role to provoke and to pray for the nation of Israel at the end of the age to see their eyes opened up to receive Jesus. Yes, we're at the end of the age. Yes, Jesus is coming. But he says, see that you are not alarmed because all of these are the beginning of the birth pangs. How many know that birth pangs are painful but they give birth to something beautiful? And the beauty that is coming is the return of our Lord. What a glorious day when every eye will see him. What a glorious day when Jesus returns and he pierces the eastern sky and his glory fills the horizons. And every eye will see him. And those of us who are alive shall be caught up to meet him, be transformed and changed. His enemies become his footstool and he establishes his kingdom on the earth and the throne of David and he restores the kingdom to Israel and nations begin to flood and the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth like the waters cover the seas. This is why we should not be alarmed. Question number six, this is the final one. How should we respond? Number one, pray for Israel. Don't just be an observer, pray.  Isaiah 62, God says, I've set my watchman on the wall and they will not give rest until I have made Israel and Jerusalem a praise in all the earth. God's calling the church to pray. Pray for them. Psalm 122, pray for Jerusalem. Number two, pray for the Middle East. Pray for the people of the Middle East who are center stage on this drama being played out. Pray for the weak, pray for the weary, pray for the lost. Pray for the dispersed, pray for the Palestinians. Listen, if God can awaken the heart of Paul on the road to Damascus, He can awaken the heart of Hamas commanders and soldiers in a moment of revelation and turn their hearts to serve the living God. Number three, become biblically informed. It's not enough to say, oh, I don't know any of that Bible stuff. I'm just trying to make sure that I can get through life and be happy and I love Jesus. Listen, you're not living in a time of peace. You are living in a time that the prophets saw but did not understand. But now they are leaning over the banisters of heaven and looking at this generation and this church and saying, you've got so much at your disposal. Understand the times you are living in. If you don't already, we have resources. I did an eight part study on signs of the times in the return of Jesus. Buy books, read your Bible. It's time to shut Netflix off and open the Bible. It's time to awaken our hearts to the time and the reality we're living in. And number four, prepare your hearts for the rising storm because this isn't calming down. This is ramping up. Jesus is coming. Say, well, when? Well, the Bible says we don't know the day and we don't know the hour, but we know the season. I used chat GPT the other day for one of the first times. And I asked it a question along the lines of, what are the statistical odds that Israel, as a nation would be defeated and dispersed in 2000 years later, return to the land? The odds are astronomical. I can't tell you how many zeros were after the decimal. And I asked it another question. What are the statistical odds of Old Testament prophecies predicting X, Y, and Z coming into reality? And the odds are exponential, almost impossible. Church, the Bible prophesied the days we're living in 2000 years ago. And if it was faithful to fulfill those promises, it will be faithful to indicate that you and I are living in a day when we should not be asleep, we should not be indifferent. We need to grasp the urgency of the hour. And if you are not right with God, today is the day to get your heart right with God because when the storm clouds rise and intensify, there's no going back. I want you to stand with me all across all of our locations wherever you're at today.  There's a very sober spirit in this message because it's the heart of the bride that says, Marinath, the Lord Jesus, come. You're the only peace giver. You're the only solution. You're the only savior. And Lord, today we pray for all those who are in arms away and we pray, let your promises be fulfilled today. Son of David, fulfill your promises. Come, rule and reign. But Lord, awaken our hearts. Today is not a day to play games. Today is not a day to procrastinate. Today is a day to realize that the way we thought the future is going has suddenly before our eyes been altered. And if you are far from Christ, if you've never made Jesus Christ your Lord and savior, it's time to do that before he returns.  And if you're listening to me today in any of our rooms and online, and you know you need to get right with God today is the day of salvation. And I'm gonna give you an opportunity right now, here in this moment. If you're listening to me and you know, you're faced with a sobriety of the hour. It's like, I want to be ready when Jesus comes. I want my eyes to be open. I wanna be free from my sin and my guilt and shame. I wanna zoom in and be ready for the return of the Lord. Jesus, save me from my sin and destruction. Save me from the storm to come. Forgive me, restore me all over the room. If you say, I need to get my life right with God today. I'm not playing games anymore. Today, Jesus, save me. I'm getting right with God today. I'm returning.  Say, pray for me and we're gonna pray together. The Bible says if we believe in our heart on the Lord Jesus and we confess Him with our mouth, we will be saved. Today, you've got to take a step. And if that's you, you know you're not right with God, but today you're saying that's me. Raise your hand all over the room and we're gonna pray together. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. All of our locations, just raise your hand. I see hands all over the room. You can put your hands down right now. I want one more thing. If you're here and you say, I'm a believer, I love Jesus, I'm committing my heart to pray for the nation of Israel and even for the people of the Middle East that they would, number one, be safe, but then they would see Jesus, the Jewish Messiah.   Just raise it all over the room. For those who raised your hand to receive Christ, I want everyone in this room to pray this prayer out loud with me. Say, Jesus, Son of David, Son of God, I believe in you, that you died on the cross for the sins of the world and you rose again on the third day. Come into my heart, save me from my sins. There's no other way, only you. And I repent and I turn away from anything that would compete with your Lordship. From this day forward, I'm a Christian, I'm a child of God, and I'm a watchman. Lord, open my eyes to see your truth in your word and to help me walk in the spirit, in the days I live in, in Jesus' name. Amen. And amen, amen. I'm gonna invite our prayer team to make their way up to the front. Next week, I'm gonna continue on part two of this. I've got about 18 hours with the teaching I wanna put into one hour. But here's the thing, it's available, it's in your Bibles, it's in the Word. It's time for us to zoom in. But today, if you just receive Christ, your next step is to tell somebody, and we wanna invite you. After we dismiss to come forward to one of our prayer partners and just tell them, today I got my heart right with God. We wanna talk to you about your next steps in following Jesus and make sure that you've got everything you need.  We believe in the power of prayer and that's why we need one another. So whatever you need, come and receive prayer. And everybody, you're dismissed. We'll see you next weekend. God bless you.


In rabbinic Judaism, there is a phrase, the Hebrew is a chumrah, humrah. The chumrah is a fence. The rabbis propose an idea of putting a fence around the Torah. So the Torah, of course, was the law, the first five books of the Old Testament what God gave to his chosen people, the law by which you were to live to be a holy and chosen people. But eventually, the rabbis developed traditions and other prescriptions to help people to not break the law, to say, well, here's this rule designed to keep one holy, but here are things that can lead up to that bad thing. You probably shouldn't do those either. Now, of course, there's a danger is when you set up these other rules, they can become legalistic and they can stray too far and impose heavy burdens on people. Our Lord warned the Pharisees. They lay heavy burdens on others that don't even put a finger to lift them. But on the other hand, some of it does make sense that you can have a law, but someone who always tiptoes right up to breaking it leads others into scandal and of temptation.  I'm grateful we live in a little housing community that has a community pool because right now it's like 187 degrees in Dallas, Texas. And my wife walks our kids over to the communal pool. So I love that, that we get to use a pool and I don't have to deal with maintaining it for the rest of the year. But if we had a swimming pool, also I don't want one in my backyard because I'm always constantly worrying what if my non-swimming kids are also very curious. So of course, if I was a responsible parent, what would I do? I'd put a fence around it. It's not foolproof, but it keeps my children from just one tragic mistake away from catastrophe, that they have to make a series of mistakes to ultimately do something that would have awful consequences for them. I have to climb the fence, have to break the lock. I put a fence around it for their safety to understand that they're not just one mistake away. And I find that there are people in the church who scoff at this very notion. They think that you can have the teachings of the church but then the way you live, there's no practical consequences of that that you can live in a way that directly contradicts and undermines that teaching and allows people who can't swim to tiptoe up to the edge of the pool and to suffer dangerous consequences from that. And what I'm referring to would be what some people call liberal or progressive Catholicism. I'm not talking about outright dissent. We're familiar with that. People who say, oh, the church is wrong on abortion. The church is wrong on female priests. The church is wrong on homosexuality and we're going to stand vocally against it. I actually have somewhat more respect for the outright dissenters. They at least, I know where they're at. It's plain and clear and they put their arguments forth and we have an engagement. What I'm more concerned about are those who would say, no, I am a faithful Catholic. I affirm everything that the church teaches. I affirm, though they won't say they necessarily agree, I'm not against the church's teaching. I agree the church teaches homosexuality is sinful. I agree that the church teaches that abortion is wrong. And you'll notice often when these people couch the language, they don't say, I think this is wrong or God thinks this is wrong. They'll say the church teaches X. And I think they'll say that about these fundamental moral issues out of the vain hope that, well, maybe the church will teach not X at some point. So I'll just tow the line for now and then say things that will lead to undermining belief in that. So for example, yes, of course, the church teaches that homosexual conduct is sinful. But what's wrong with having a gay teacher teach at a Catholic high school? What's wrong with that? Well, sure, the church teaches that abortion is gravely sinful. But what's wrong with voting for a candidate who is pro-choice or giving the Eucharist to a pro-choice politician? Well, what's wrong in these cases is that it creates something called cognitive dissonance in lay people that can confuse them and unknowingly cause them to get around the gate, hobble over the fence, and walk right up to the pool where they're unable to swim.  You're trying to squeeze them together. Like, you know, my kids have toy wooden trains that have little magnets on them. And a magnet, of course, has a north and a south pole, right? And if you try to stick, sometimes they'll attract. The other time you try to stick them together and they just won't do it. You can't. So you eventually realize, you know what? I can't make these fit. I have to get rid of one of them. And that can leave people to think, well, the church says homosexuality is sinful, but gosh, this gay teacher at my child's Catholic high school is just so nice and has been such a great influence. I can't get rid of that. Maybe there's something wrong with the church's teaching or we haven't developed that enough. And the examples go on and on. So I believe that this is more of an insidious threat in that it doesn't come right out and say the church is wrong, here's why. It says, oh, the church is correct, but what's so bad about this? Or what's so bad about that and leads to these things that can undermine people's faith without them really knowing it? Let me give you a few examples. One would be the first example I gave. You'll hear liberal Catholics and progressive Catholics be outraged when Catholic high schools, and you hear this, this always comes up in the news. Every May and June, when teachers contracts at schools are renewed or declined or these things happen, that you'll hear such and such Catholic high school fires teacher for being gay. And that's how the headline will always be, fire for being gay as if one's orientation, one's private dispositions made one unfit for teaching at a Catholic high school. And not for what is actually the case that one's actions were in contradiction to what the church teaches and leads to scandal for those little ones were being taught at those schools. Luke Janicki, who describes himself as a gay teacher at a Catholic high school writes an American magazine, he says, students receive a blunt lesson in what God's justice looks like when no mercy accompanies it. The practice of removing LGBT teachers must end in order for a dialogue to begin. Father James Martin says, the selectivity of focus on LGBT matters when it comes to firings is to use the words of the catechism, a sign of unjust discrimination, something we are to avoid. And once again, you'll find with liberal Catholics, it's very sneaky because there's a nugget of truth that is present there. It is possible to practice unjust discrimination against someone who has same sex attraction.  But actions are very different. People can be held accountable for actions and contradiction to the faith. And you'll hear other people say, oh, well, this is, it's discrimination or it's unjust discrimination. That's very key that the catechism uses the phrase unjust because when someone says to you, I can't believe that Catholic high school fired a gay teacher. That's discrimination that's wrong. Discrimination is not always wrong. Discrimination just means you pick one thing over another thing. Unjust discrimination is wrong. So for example, when a Catholic high school looks at an applicant for a teaching position and sees one applicant has a violent felony in their criminal record and another one does not, well, they will pick the one who is not a violent felon. They discriminate for a good reason. It's the having committed past criminal acts is relevant to your ability to teach at a Catholic high school.  And now others will say, well, how can this be? Do you have discrimination laws, for example, and even newer court interpretations have included sexuality, sexual identity, and orientation into anti-discrimination laws. How can these schools continue to discriminate in this way? Well, we live in a country that at least for now still promotes religious freedom. So you can't have, for example, radical feminists cannot sue the Catholic Church for the job of being a Catholic priest. Because of course it's not a job, but it's a vocation. But they can't do that because the courts have recognized that religions have the right to select their ministers free from government interference. If the government could tell a religious body who could or couldn't be its minister, well, as we see in some authoritarian countries around the world where this does happen, you would have religious freedom in name only. This was upheld in Hosanna Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church versus the Equal Opportunity Commission. And then more recently, that was in 2012, more recently in 2020, in our Lady of Guadalupe School versus Morrissey Baru, that the minister is not just the priest, the rabbi or the imam, a minister is anyone who is charged with sharing the faith and educating the faith in others within a religious body, which also includes teachers at Catholic schools. And this makes sense. And people will say, oh, well, what does it matter if the math teacher isn't Catholic and is a man married to another man? He's just teaching algebra, right? What does him being Catholic have anything to do with what he teaches? Well, it's never just algebra. Do you remember being in school that before the lesson start, your teacher will give an impromptu summary of what they thought about the news today or current events? You look to your teacher as a role model in Catholic schools. That's why I send my children to a Catholic school that makes sure that their teachers are ministers of the gospel. In fact, there are many Catholic schools that require their teachers to sign in their contracts. They're ministers of the gospel. And so they can be held accountable to for what the church teaches. Now, there are Catholics who agree with this, but add caveats to it. Father Matt Malone, who is the editor of American Magazine, he agrees, the ministerial exception makes sense, but then he goes on to say this, that churches, whether it's Catholic schools or a Catholic church hiring people, he says they should not exercise their freedom in hiring and firing in pursuit of indiscriminate purging of church employees simply because they hold unorthodox views or have made life choices that do not accord with Catholic teaching. That would be wrong. It would be a source of grave scandal for the faithful and for the country we seek to evangelize. Now, I don't think though that Father Malone really believes this. I've heard also Father James Martin says something similar that Catholic schools that fire teachers who are in so-called same-sex marriages that that's scandalous. You see here we shouldn't fire people just because of the quote, life choices they have made that do not accord with Catholic teaching. But would Father Malone say that for many other cases of teachers who are fired who live in a lifestyle that is incompatible with the Catholic faith apart from issues of sexuality? I can think of a case recently of a teacher who is promoting legal abortion on her Facebook and was shown the door. Good. Here's an article from Time Magazine in 2018 about a racist teacher that was fired from a Catholic high school. The article says a substitute teacher and coach at an all girls Catholic school in Maryland was fired because he works for a white supremacist think tank. Greg Conti who tweets on the alias Greg Ritter lost both of his positions at Academy of the Holy Cross for being associated with the alt-right. The principal of the school said prior to his firing he was successfully using an alternate identity in his work with this atrocious group. As for his potential impact on our girls, I conducted an investigation and determined there was no reason to think he negatively influenced any of the girls at our school. So notice what's interesting here. Here was someone who promoted racist views in contradiction to our faith but he lived in contradiction to the faith in a way that people at the school didn't even know about. But the school rightly saw that if you live in your life you are publicly contradicting the faith even if our students don't find out about it, well you cannot work here at a Catholic school but especially if your work at a school is publicly known you live in contradiction to the faith and is discovered by students. That's why the National Directory for Catechesis says all teachers in Catholic schools share in the Catechetical Ministry all members of the faculty at least by their example are an integral part of the process of religious education. Teachers' lifestyle and character are as important as their professional credentials. Frankly I think they're more important so but that is a discussion for another time. But you have individuals though who will create confusion around this. Father Martin will say, well if you fire a teacher for being gay, of course not just for an orientation, remember it's for an action. He says this, are you going to fire teachers? He says to be consistent, shouldn't we fire people for not helping the poor, for not being forgiving, for not being loving, for being cruel?  Of course I would Father.  Well of course no one is perfect. I'm going to be a bit saucy but as I get older and more tired and seeing the evil in the world and debating somebody a few days ago who said there was nothing wrong with absolutely horrendous things and other people on the internet defending him in that, I'm saying to Father, we're not saying Catholic teachers need to be perfect, they just shouldn't be perverts and I'm sorry I will stand by that because there are so many good people who strive to live in accord with the church's teachings who would be wonderful examples to Catholic students. So yes somebody who maybe didn't give their full tithe, they are not going to lead students astray. Now if they're teaching if they were blogging online about social Darwinism to let the poor die off, that would be a different story but there is something that's completely different here. Now Father Martin does have a stronger argument. He says well we don't, should we Catholic schools fire Protestants and Jews and atheists that work at the schools? Why do we focus just on one group that doesn't adhere to teaching? Aren't those theological issues just as important? I agree that they are and I would say that yes Catholic schools should not hire non-Catholic teachers. That's why the code of canon law says formation and education in a Catholic school must be based on the principles of Catholic doctrine. The teachers must be outstanding in true doctrine and uprightness of life. That's 803.2 and the directory of Cateches says to recruit teachers who are practicing Catholics who can understand and accept the teachings of the Catholic Church and the moral demands of the gospel and who can contribute to the achievement of the school's Catholic identity. But we don't live in an ideal world. Sometimes you may not have a Catholic, I agree, it would be unfair for a school and frankly in a lot of these cases being a parent I think what happens in Catholic schools this is what often happens. You have a principal who knows that a teacher lives against the faith, winks at it, doesn't think it's a big deal, maybe because the principal does the same thing and hires his teacher and allows us to go on for so long until the bishop finds out and needs to step in and looks like the bad guy. It's like at home where at my house I tend to be the more permissive parent. I let things go. Then like my wife comes in and has to lay down the rules.  You need to be able to lay down the law for them. I'm like, but they're so cute when they have all their otter pops. Could it be really so bad? Eating 10 otter pops before dinner couldn't be intrinsically disordered, could it? It's just imprudent. But that's what happens in these cases. So I don't fault, I think it would be unfair for a teacher to be hired who is non-Catholic and then being fired for that status when they were hired and with that being known. But if you have a teacher who's Catholic who becomes an atheist and publicly admits that, well, they're not a good example of an enduring faith for students. But of course, like as I said, the directory of Catechesis acknowledges that it's not an ideal world. Maybe there's no Catholic applicant who's able to teach math or French. So you might hire a Protestant teacher who's willing to at least not publicly challenge the teachings of the faith. But here it's also the issue that when it comes to issues like marriage or being in a so-called same-sex marriage, these are foundational social issues that cause people to reconsider the divine foundations of the faith to think, well, if this is good and the church says it's bad, maybe the church is wrong on this. That in these cases, it's more hiring a presbyterian to teach math is not like hiring a polygamist. It's completely different to the example that would be set for the students. I'll give you another example in this regard of confusion that takes place. In 2022, Robert McManus of Worcestershire, if you're from Boston, you'll know, you look at this word, Chester, no one saw this, Worcestershire, pack your car in the back, Worcestershire, go to Fenway Pack, all right. The bishop in Massachusetts stripped a Jesuit middle school of its Catholic status because they refused to take down a rainbow LGBT pride flag and also Black Lives Matter flag, something entirely different topic. I cover my upcoming book on liberal Catholicism, but let me just focus on the LGBT pride flag because you'll see Catholics who will say, well, I affirm the church's teachings on homosexuality, but you can also celebrate LGBT pride. There's no contradiction there. Cognitive dissonance, once again. Well, if I celebrate this and the church says it's bad, how can I really do both? Well, you really can't. And this is obvious in other instances. So Father Martin, once again, he says, Pride Month is mainly about supporting the fundamental human rights of the LGBTQ community, the right to live in safety, the right to be treated as equals, and the right to be fully welcome in society. So the idea is, Father Martin and others, you'll see Catholics online with rainbow flags saying, we're not saying homosexuality is a good thing when we as a Catholic have the rainbow flag. We're just saying people who identify as LGBT ought to be treated with respect and dignity. The problem is we certainly agree with that, absolutely. But there is a contradiction here because that flag, the rainbow pride flag, does not only mean a person should be treated with dignity. It has many other messages baked into it that are directly contrary to the faith. For example, one of the fundamental rights that the pride flag symbolizes is the right for people in a same-sex union to marry, a so-called same-sex marriage. That's one of the fundamental rights that that flag is symbolic of. And yet the church says that that is in direct contradiction to the faith. Pope Francis and Amoris LaTizia says the following, only the exclusive and indissoluble union between a man and a woman has a plenary role to play in society as a stable commitment that bears fruit in new life. That's why he goes on to say in paragraph 52 of Amoris LaTizia that same-sex unions, quote, may not simply be equated with marriage. So the argument here, and what Father Martin and others will say is, well, just because some people use the pride flag to celebrate things that are contrary to the faith, just because they use it to endorse some messages, it doesn't mean the symbol is off limits for Catholics who use it to endorse another message. But this is directly contradictory to what many liberal Catholics believe, because then they will turn around and say that there are some symbols Catholics may never use because they are used to support some evils. So just to recap what Father Martin says, just because you celebrate Pride Month doesn't mean you necessarily agree with what every person, every organization, or even every float in a Pride Parade has to say. All right, let me give you another example of a symbol that liberal Catholics would be aghast about. The Confederate flag. Well, the Confederate battle flag, I should say. If you're a student of Southern history, you'd recognize that the original Confederate flag looked too much like the Union flag. And so there is a lot of confusion that would be around with it. So eventually the stars and bars that we're familiar with in modern day controversy is the Confederate battle flag. It's to be a very distinct flag to go into battle. Well, that was eventually altered over time, but you know the symbol that I'm talking about. And yet in recent years, people have come to see that it's association. Some people say this symbol only relates to Southern pride and heritage. But other people will say, you know it is something that is unique and affiliated with the Confederacy and a movement to use force to defend the institution of slavery and racism. So in 2015, the National Catholic Reporter praised a young activist who took down a Confederate flag at a state courthouse saying that the flag represents for many a war to uphold slavery and oppose civil rights. After the death of George Floyd in 2020, the Catholic school in Alabama removed images of the Confederate flag from their mural in their lobby of their school. And now think about the argument here. Someone says, well, the flag, it doesn't mean slavery to me, it means something else. So why can we say that it's wrong? The counter argument is, well, no, it does mean bad things for at least some people. Therefore no good Catholic can be affiliated with this image full stop. And yet if you hold, if you were a Catholic, a liberal Catholic or any Catholic who holds that argument, that view for the Confederate flag, then you must hold that same view for the pride flag because it also was used to defend evil ideas like sodomy or counterfeit marriages. You can't say it only means that for thee, but not for me. Let me give you another example here, switching topics a little bit. Talking about the Eucharist and the issue of abortion, that you'll hear people say this, well, of course I believe abortion is wrong, but it's politics, it's politics to withhold the Eucharist from politicians who identify as pro-choice or vote in favor of legal abortion. You'll hear some people say you're weaponizing the Eucharist in saying that in when bishops withhold communion from politicians who actively work to support the legality of killing unborn children in the womb. And so how should we respond to this confusion? Because it does create confusion. How can someone say, well, yes, I certainly agree with the church's teaching on abortion, but somebody who defends legal abortion in politics and the law, well, there's nothing wrong with them. They can come and receive the Eucharist. Well, you can't really start holding those two ideas together. You're gonna have to jettison one of them. And you might end up saying as a confused lay Catholic, well, I guess abortion couldn't really be that bad. Maybe it's bad for Catholics, but it couldn't be that bad that we demand that Catholic politicians uphold this. I mean, should Catholics be imposing their views on others? No, we shouldn't be imposing strictly Catholic ideas of morality, but when you arrest a shoplifter at a store, they can't say you're imposing the seventh commandment on me. No, stealing and murder. These are things that people can know from the natural law are wrong. That's why the Gospel of Life from Pope St. John Paul II says that Catholics have a grave and clear obligation to oppose laws promoting euthanasia and abortion. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said, a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals. So when a Catholic politician, they cannot vote specifically for a law that contradicts the moral law and what is necessary for a just society. Now, John Paul II did say that a Catholic politician could vote for a less than ideal law on abortion. If their goal was to reduce evil, and as he says, as long as their absolute personal opposition to abortion was well-known, they could listen to support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done. So for example, a Catholic politician could vote for a law that bans abortion at 12 weeks if currently abortion is legal through all nine months for any reason. They're trying to limit an evil as much as possible. But imagine a politician who says, well, imagine people saying this. This politician, he doesn't personally lynch minorities. He just voted for a law saying that lynching should be allowed or that you can't outlaw it. He's never been personally involved in lynching. So how can you say that he shouldn't be allowed to receive communion? That's imposing one's faith. He's doing politics, that's different. We would rightly say that he is a racist politician living in direct contradiction to the faith and just what rational morality requires. In fact, in 1962, Archbishop Rummel of New Orleans excommunicated Catholic politicians who opposed segregation. Now, liberal Catholics do have a counter for this. They'll say that Archbishop Rummel, he only excommunicated politicians who opposed Catholic schools desegregating, not racist politicians in general. Father Thomas Rees says this, the only thing comparable would be if some Catholics started a movement to insist that Catholic hospitals do abortions. So Father Rees said that that has nothing to do with excommunication or at least withholding the Eucharist from a politician because the Eucharist can be withhold according to Canon 915 for those who persist and manifest grave sin. He says it'd only be comparable if there were some Catholics trying to make Catholic hospitals perform abortions. Gosh, it's not like there's anyone like that, Xavier Bacara, the Catholic Secretary of Health and Human Services, who tried to make Catholic hospitals do this until a federal appeals court, Franciscan Alliance versus Bacara stopped him in 2016. Right, there's nobody trying to do that. There's no one trying to make crisis pregnancy centers in California advertise abortion services until the Supreme Court in Nifla versus Bacara once again saying that their free speech rights mean that pregnancy resource centers in California don't have to advertise for abortion facilities. So in seeing all of this, the relationship that the church should have with political figures, the ideal relationship it should have would be the one that we can see between St. Ambrose and Emperor Theodosius in the fourth century. That Theodosius ordered his troops to massacre 7,000 men, women, and children in the Greek city of Thessalonica in response to a riot that had begun there.  So Ambrose demanded that the emperor perform a public penance before he could be readmitted to the church, which he agreed to. At Theodosius' funeral, St. Ambrose said the following, he stripped himself of every sign of royalty and bewailed his sin openly in church. He and emperor was not ashamed to do the public penance which lesser individuals shrink from. And to the end of his life, he never ceased to grieve for his error. So tie all this together. I started talking about offense. Let me end talking about offense. There is a rhetorical argument called Chesterton's Fence. You'll have people who will say, well, why do we need to do this? This is just backwards. You can't have a gay teacher at this school or you're not going to give the Eucharist to pro-choice politicians. Like this is just backwards. We have to be more progressive and enlightened. When these things happen, I recommend that you ask people who disagree, why do you think the church would have these rules in the first place? Chesterton said this once. He said, let us say for the sake of simplicity, offense or gait erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes up to it and says, I don't see the use of this, let us clear it away. To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer, if you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it. So the idea is before we get rid of something, one should be able to articulate why it is in place, why the fence is there, and why we do not need it anymore. So when someone says, I don't see what's wrong with a gay teacher teaching at a school, always control the emotions that can take place. I find what's best is to ask a question and to show the person's worldview contradicts itself. I don't see what's wrong with that. Okay, can you give me another example? Would you say that a teacher's personal conduct never makes them unfit to teach at a Catholic school? What about a teacher who is publicly defending racism or abortion or some other grave sexual sin that we as a community generally recognizes wrong? What would make someone unfit to be at a Catholic school if their life is lived in direct contradiction to the faith? Is that happening in this case? Or when it comes to the Eucharist and abortion and politicians to say, I would ask the question, is there any law that a politician would vote for that you would say would make them unfit to receive the Eucharist? I posed this example once to a liberal Catholic online, a prominent one who speaks, and I gave him this example. I said, imagine there was a politician who voted for a law that says it should be legal, it should be legal for ranchers to shoot illegal immigrants on site who trespass on their property. Do you think a Catholic politician like that should not be allowed to receive the Eucharist for defending the killing of innocent human beings? And he bit the bullet and said, no politician should be denied the Eucharist. And some people do that because they realize if you would refrain from giving the Eucharist and call that person to repentance in that case, why? Because they're defending the legal killing of innocent human beings. You're not even one step away from politicians to defend legal abortion. You basically are gonna stumble and fall right back into it. And it shows that the view is ultimately incoherent in that regard. So let us, as we go forth and we engage others who act in ways that confuse the faithful, that we who are grounded in the faith to pray that we are always grounded, that we are not, as Pope Benedict XVI said, tossed to and fro by the storm and waves of relativism in our world, but to be grounded in the faith and because we are grounded in the faith, it gives us a sense of confidence and calm demeanor to be able to ask questions of those who create confusion so that they and others can ultimately see how confusing their view is that seeks to undermine the deposit of faith. So thank you very much and I hope you enjoy the remainder of the conference.