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Strong Tower Radio

David Austin

Liberty & Security

Fresh manna fell to the ground as a gift from God while the Israelites were in the wilderness.

It was fresh from the ovens of heaven, baked by the master baker himself.

How the Israelites must have anticipated the taste and the smell of each morning's delivery Just like the Israelites you too can now experience the taste and smell of fresh manna Today you'll be listening to David Austin pastor of the Macmillan Northwoods and Sault Ste.

Our sermon today is Liberty and Security.

And before we begin, let's bow our heads for prayer.

Heavenly Father, you are amazing, and your love desires that we choose to love you.

Lord, thank you for giving us choice, and as we talk about that choice today, Lord, I pray that we would never lose sight of it.

They say ignorance is bliss, but that's not always true.

If you are ignorant that a police officer is just over the hill and you are not obeying the laws, the motor vehicle laws, it is not bliss when you have a blue light special behind you, red light, depending on which officer is showing up first.

So ignorance is bliss until you're caught.

Ignorance is bliss until truth weighs out.

For a parent to see a child who is ignorant of the danger, there is no bliss.

When you see a kid playing in the streets, When you see a kid playing in the streets, when you see a kid playing with a deadly viper, that actually happened at my elementary school in Wisconsin.

We had some kids thinking that they were faster than a copperhead.

But certain young men got some talking to about not being a terrible example to the younger kids.

Anyways, the bottom line is this, ignorance is only bliss for those who have not yet gotten caught, who don't know the opposite.

They don't know the danger of what they're in.

I wanna suggest to you today that the majority of our society is ignorant and therefore they believe they are in bliss.

There is less anxiety because they don't understand the state of the world in which they're at.

We have a blessed institution called the Constitution in our country that provides for freedoms that many countries do not have.

But I want to submit to you that if we're not careful, we're going to end up like the Dark Ages not too long from now.

A friend of mine, Lewis, was a constitutional attorney and he has retired.

He says that there's nothing left of the Constitution to support any longer.

He says there has been so many amendments and cases that countermand the Constitution that there is no longer a foundation to practice constitutional law.

There have been referendums by multiple states to modify the constitution and I'm not saying that it probably shouldn't be considered, but I don't believe that there is anyone left in this country with the level of education necessary to know, to modify it, that we would not lose some aspect of it.

The reading level of the Constitution of the United States is 29th grade level reading.

We don't have an educational system in place today that would educate the common populace to that level of reading.

We have so declined in our education today that We are not intelligent enough to modify the constitution and not lose something by it.

And yet with all the cases out there, we keep modifying it without touching it.

Lewis said in a presentation about 10 years ago that it's just a shell now.

It is the Constitution only in name because there are more court cases that countermand it than support it.

We celebrated not too long ago a holiday.

It used to be called Columbus Day, and now it's called something else, and I don't know why they keep changing the names of it, but it doesn't really matter.

Columbus is not the 1 we should be celebrating.

Neither is it whatever else that needs to be celebrated.

The United States today enjoys freedom because of the pilgrims.

The oppression of religion and state in so many other countries around the world caused people to look for a place where they could worship and govern according to the dictates of their conscience.

Freedom, religious liberty, liberty of conscience.

And even though some of them were looking for it and came here, they still didn't quite understand it.

But over the course of the years, they began to understand it.

And by the time the constitution was formed, it was baked in there.

Interestingly enough, many of the forefathers of our nation understood you cannot dictate who people worship or how they worship.

That must be left up to each individual to choose.

The first 4 commandments are up to the heart of every individual.

The last 6, that's only what the state should be advised with.

I wished we could say that the freedoms that we have enjoyed in the past have been untainted.

And it's no surprise, go with me to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.

2 Thessalonians chapter 2, starting in verse 1.

It says, now brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come." Now stop for just a moment.

Paul is addressing the worshippers in Thessalonica because there had been some confusion that Christ had returned to heaven and had already come back.

He's not, no, no, no, no, let me put this to rest.

He, it is not, no, no, don't have someone trying to quote us or quoting something else.

This rumor that's out there, it's not true.

Verse 3, let no 1 deceive you by any means for the day will not come Unless the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed the son of perdition Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped?

So that he sits as God in the temple of God showing himself that he is God Do you not remember that when I was still with you that I told you these things?

And now you know what is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.

Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way, And then the lawless 1 will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming." Couple of things there.

The promise was, is that there would be a decline.

So before Christ comes again, we should see a decline.

A lawlessness would increase not decrease.

Let me ask you something in the last hundred years have you seen lawlessness increase?

You know I've always wondered if you know I know it's not possible but if I could have a time machine, there's a reason why I shouldn't.

I'd wanna go back at least 50 years, but when I went back 50 years, I'd probably wanna go back another 50.

And then when I went back, and then I'd wanna keep going back.

But in the last 50 years, I'm nearly there.

And if you've lived longer than 50 years, it's changed even more.

And to be honest, some things have gotten better, but the majority have not.

Lawlessness, which was already at work in his time, would continue to do so until Christ was taken out of the way.

And then the lawless 1 would be revealed.

Go through the Dark Ages, That's really what happened.

The apostolic faith came, you know, with a big bang.

Christ died, the gospel went out to the whole world, and they took it everywhere.

Fast forward a couple hundred years, and the gospel is declining.

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Liberty & Security

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