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Jimmy Carter is the first president of the United States to ever have claimed to be a born
-again Christian.
But was he?
Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen.
My name is Justin Peters.
I hope that this finds you and your family doing well today.
I want to thank you so much for joining me.
President Jimmy Carter was laid to rest just yesterday as of this recording,
and upon his death about nine days or so ago, tributes poured in
from all across both the political and religious spectrums.
Jimmy Carter definitely did claim to be a born -again Christian.
He was the first president that we have ever had to use that exact terminology, born
-again.
Christian.
We need to talk about this, because there are some very serious and sobering biblical
issues, biblical realities that kind of come to head here.
So I want to look at what Carter actually did believe, and then look at what some
well -known evangelicals are saying about Carter being a true Christian,
and we need to consider this from a biblical standpoint.
So I want to begin by showing you about a two -minute clip.
This is from the WWUTT YouTube channel.
That stands for When We Understand The Text.
It's actually done by a friend of mine named Gabe Hughes, and I will put a link down below in the
description to his YouTube channel.
I'd highly recommend you subscribing to his channel if you've not already done so.
He does really good work and kind of tackles some really important big issues in just little two -minute
videos that are really, really well done.
So I want to show you this.
He did one on Jimmy Carter.
Watch this about what Jimmy Carter actually did believe.
At the end of 2024, former President of the United States Jimmy Carter died at the age of 100, the longest living
American president.
He was president for a single term from 1977 to 81, and was considered by many to be one of the worst
presidents in American history, though he was later celebrated for the humanitarian work he did after his presidency.
Upon his passing, he was lauded by many for being a faithful Christian.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said Jimmy Carter lived out his Christian faith and values with integrity and devotion.
Charlie Kirk of TPUSA called Carter a sincere Christian, and Christianity Today said that he
cherished a love for the Savior.
Are they sure about that?
Jimmy Carter voiced his support for gay marriage even before Barack Obama or Joe Biden.
He said,.
I believe that Jesus would approve of gay marriage.
I think Jesus would encourage any kind of love affair if it was honest and sincere.
But Jesus said, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?
And said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one
flesh.
A union between two people of the same sex is not marriage, and the Bible says homosexuals will not inherit the
kingdom of God.
Carter had been a Sunday school teacher in a Baptist church for decades, and he taught it was not necessary to believe in
Jesus to go to heaven.
In a quandary like that about people who don't know about Christ, what will be their fate, I'm
inclined to believe that they will not be condemned or punished by God.
But the Bible says whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
And Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father but by me.
If a man is to be praised for his Christian faith, especially when the day comes that he stands before God, he
must believe the words that Jesus said.
For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him
will the Son of Man be ashamed when we understand the text.
Does that surprise you?
Pretty eye -opening, is it not?
So what we learned in just that two -minute video clip is that Jimmy Carter was in favor of
quote -unquote homosexual marriage.
And I say quote -unquote homosexual marriage because there is no such thing as homosexual
marriage.
Homosexual marriage is as nonsensical as talking about a square circle.
It doesn't exist.
And I say that because God defines marriage.
It's His institution.
He created it.
He gets to define it.
Marriage is the one union between one man and one woman for one lifetime.
That is how God defines marriage.
So when two people of the same sex get quote -unquote married, they're
not married.
God defines marriage, not the United States Supreme Court.
But at any rate, Jimmy Carter was in favor of that, so much so
that he was out in front on that issue in front of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Dear friends, if you're to the left of Barack Obama and Joe Biden,
you're out there.
You're out there.
That is wildly liberal.
In fact, Jimmy Carter was the first president of the United States to have homosexual activists
come into the White House.
So he was very, very left -wing, very, very liberal.
So he affirmed homosexual marriage.
Regarding abortion, Jimmy Carter took a nuanced position
on abortion.
So basically, he said that he was personally against it, but he was not in
favor of overturning.
Roe v. Wade.
Friends, if you're not in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, then you're not personally against abortion.
Think about that.
Use that logic for anything else.
Well, I'm personally against the Holocaust, but I wouldn't have tried to stop
Adolf Hitler and what he was doing.
I was personally against it, but I wouldn't try to stop it.
I'm personally against slavery.
I mean, I wasn't on a slave, but if somebody else wants to, then who am I to say that they can't do
that?
How would that fly today?
You see the problem we're having?
So you can't have your cake and eat it too.
If you're against overturning Roe v. Wade, don't tell me you're against abortion.
You're not.
Abortion is the murder of children, of little image
bearers, and he was okay with that, despite what you may have heard that he
didn't like abortion.
He was perfectly fine with it because he didn't want to overturn Roe v. Wade.
So he is in favor of homosexual marriage.
He's in favor of abortion.
He was also, by the way, when it comes to creation, he
did not believe in a literal interpretation of the creation account in Genesis.
In fact, I'm not sure he took much of anything in Genesis, literally.
Ken Ham said this recently, that he actually had a conversation once with Jimmy Carter, and Jimmy Carter
told him to his face that he does not believe in a literal
understanding of the creation account in the early chapters of Genesis, does not believe in
the historicity of Noah's Ark, which was obviously after creation.
So he was very, very liberal.
He claimed to be a Christian, claimed to believe the Bible, but funny thing is, so many of these foundational
truths that the Bible unambiguously teaches, he rejected.
And the cherry on top, I suppose, is that he denied the
exclusivity of Christ.
Friends, we just heard that in that clip, in that interview that he did
with Al Mohler.
He denied the exclusivity of Christ, that Christ is the only way to be
saved.
And yet, despite all of these things, and there's more things that we could talk about, and we're going to, by the way, we're
going to at the end of this, I guess really the cherry on top is going to be at the end of this video.
But despite all these things, conservative evangelical Christians have come out saying that
they believe that Jimmy Carter was a true Christian.
Now they will admit that there were some serious issues, but they still think he was a Christian.
Al Mohler was asked about this in an interview, was Jimmy Carter truly a Christian?
And this is what Al Mohler had to say.
This was in response to a question that was asked to him like a radio program.
He said, I have to hope and pray, he replied, Mohler replied.
So I've had some personal engagements with the former president, he has mentioned me in four books, negatively, he's not
a fan of conservative resurgence in the SBC.
And remember, I got into the thickest controversy early in my life in Georgia, where I was the editor of the paper, which guess what,
Jimmy Carter's in Georgia and cares a lot about Georgia, da da da.
So Mohler described Carter as your typical SBC deacon in a more
liberal church.
Al Mohler has a reputation of being a theological conservative,
and yet he's really optimistic that Jimmy Carter was a true Christian.
Al Mohler knows these things about Jimmy Carter.
He knows that Jimmy Carter was in favor of homosexual marriage.
He knows that Jimmy Carter had a nuanced position on abortion,
which is pro -abortion.
He knows that.
He knows that Jimmy Carter denied the exclusivity of Christ, and yet he's
hopeful that he was a true Christian.
This is from an article written by Bart Barber, former president of the SBC
and pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Texas.
Bart Barber wrote this article, and to his credit, he
lists all of these troubling aspects about what Jimmy Carter believed.
He lists them, and he's very clear that Jimmy Carter was wrong on these things.
Seriously so.
These are not peripheral issues.
These are not minor issues.
These are fundamental issues to the gospel and to being a Christian.
Bart Barber talks about how Jimmy Carter was even interviewed by Playboy magazine.
Not that I've looked it up, but I'd heard that before.
That right there calls into question whether or not he was truly a Christian.
You're a Christian.
You're going to do an interview with Playboy?
Playboy asked him about his faith, his Christianity, back in the day, whenever this was.
I don't even know.
Jimmy Carter said that he has committed adultery many
times in his heart.
For those of us who are Christians, we understand the reference there.
Jesus says, I tell you the truth, if you look at a woman with lust, you have committed
adultery already in your heart.
So you don't actually have to do the physical act to be an adulterer.
Just look at another woman who is not your wife.
With lust, you've committed adultery already in your heart.
Carter, to his credit, admitted that.
And of that, Bart Barber writes this, his most important, referring to Carter, his most
important infidelity is this, even if others get more attention, Jimmy Carter believed
that people could be saved apart from trusting in Jesus Christ for salvation.
He tended to hedge his statements along these lines quite a bit.
Rather than just asserting that people are saved apart from the gospel, Carter tended to say that one, there's
wiggle room in what the Bible says, and number two, Carter preferred not to be judgmental.
And so number three, he chose to believe that people could be saved even if they rejected the
gospel.
He was wrong on his first point, which made him wrong in his conclusion.
Well, amen and amen.
To his credit, Bart Barber understands that.
But then Bart Barber says, you know what?
I think it was sincere.
I think Jimmy Carter really was born again.
I hope to see him in heaven.
Despite all of these things, despite knowing all of these fundamental
departures from basic Christianity, I mean, I'm talking Christianity 101.
Despite knowing all of that about Jimmy Carter, that Jimmy Carter denied the exclusivity
of Christ, Bart Barber says, I think Jimmy Carter was really born again.
Dear friends, if you can be pro -abortion, if you can
reject the Genesis account, if you can approve of
homosexual marriage, and if you deny the exclusivity of
Jesus Christ, if you can hold all of these positions and still be a Christian,
then what's the point?
What's the point of being a Christian?
If you can believe all those things, then everybody's a Christian.
If those things are true, if you can affirm all of those things and still be a Christian, then I
suppose that probably everybody on the planet is a Christian.
You've nullified, you've completely gutted what it means to be a Christian in the first.
Place.
So, it doesn't matter if Jimmy Carter said that he was a born -again Christian.
He denied by his actions, by his beliefs,
what he affirmed with his lips, and affirmed those things just at the most basic level.
I mean, just affirmed that he was a Christian, but he denied the fundamentals of the gospel.
I want to bring your attention to some passages of Scripture.
Let's go to Luke 9, verse 26.
Jesus says, For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be
ashamed of him when he comes into his glory in the glory of the Father and of the holy
angels.
Jimmy Carter was ashamed of Christ.
I mean, if you deny the exclusivity of Christ, you are ashamed of Christ.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man comes to the Father but by me.
Jesus didn't stutter on that.
He was not unclear.
You don't have to be a Greek scholar to know what Jesus was saying there, and yet Jimmy Carter
did not believe that.
He denied the words of the very
Savior, Jesus Christ, that he professed to follow.
He was ashamed of Christ.
He was ashamed of what Christ said.
And dear friends, if you're ashamed of what Christ says, you are ashamed of
Christ.
And if you are ashamed of Christ, Christ will be ashamed of you.
Christ does not allow people into heaven of whom he is ashamed.
Matthew chapter 10, verse 33, Jesus again, But whoever denies me before men,
I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.
Again, you don't have to be a Greek scholar.
Jesus didn't stutter here.
If you deny Christ before men, he will deny you before the
Father.
And Jimmy Carter denied Christ.
Oh, he professed to believe in Jesus, but not this Jesus, not the Jesus of the Bible.
Jimmy Carter was ashamed of the Jesus of the Bible.
The Jesus that Jimmy Carter served was this touchy -feely, kumbaya,
hippie Jesus, not the Jesus of the Bible.
He was ashamed of the Jesus of the Bible.
You know, dear ones, it's not enough to just say, I believe in Jesus or I follow
Jesus.
You've got to believe in the right Jesus.
You've got to follow the right Jesus.
For example, let's say you were talking to someone and you said something to the
person to whom you're talking.
You'd said, Hey, you know, you should check out this guy named Justin Peters on YouTube.
And the person said, Oh yeah, Justin Peters on YouTube.
Yeah, I watch him.
Oh, you do?
I didn't know that.
Really?
You watch Justin Peters on YouTube?
Yeah, yeah, I sure do.
You know, he's that preacher on YouTube.
He's got a YouTube channel.
He's a preacher and he's an evangelist.
And then you're thinking initially, Oh wow, okay, this person does know who Justin Peters.
Is.
But what if that person continued and said, Yeah, yeah, that preacher, Justin Peters on.
YouTube.
You know, he's got a really fascinating life story.
You know, when he was in college at Mississippi State and you're thinking, Oh yeah, yeah,
okay, this person has a right to Justin because Justin Peters did go to Mississippi State.
And then the person continued.
Yeah, when he was in college at Mississippi State, you know, he won the Heisman Trophy.
He was a standout wide receiver for the Mississippi State Bulldogs and you know, he's a preacher now and
he preaches the health and wealth gospel.
You know, he's really big on speaking in tongues and he teaches that it's always God's will to be
wealthy and you can be healed of whatever ailment you have as long as you have enough faith.
You know, and he's been to heaven several times, talks about his trips to heaven.
And you know, he really likes Bethel and Hillsong and
big supporter of Benny Hinn and you're thinking, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
We're not talking about the same Justin Peters here, right?
Same thing with Jesus.
You can say all day long, I believe in Jesus.
You can say all day long, you can even say I'm a born again Christian.
But if what you profess to believe doesn't match up
with the real Jesus, if what you profess to believe doesn't match up with what being a
born again Christian means, then there is every reason to call into
question whether or not you actually believe in the Jesus of the Bible, whether you actually are a
born again Christian.
Just like if someone was describing me to you as a Heisman trophy winner and someone who's
a wild eyed charismatic and shuttles back and forth between heaven and earth and preaches the prosperity gospel, you're like, Whoa, I
don't think we're talking about the same Justin Peters.
Same thing with Christ.
Jimmy Carter professed to believe in Jesus Christ, but what he said he
believes about Jesus Christ does not represent the Jesus of the Bible.
That's a different Jesus.
Matthew chapter seven, verses 21 through 23, again, Christ speaking, not everyone who
says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is
in heaven will enter.
Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, in your name did we not prophesy and in your name cast
out demons and in your name do many miracles.
And then I will declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you who
practice lawlessness.
Is that unclear?
Jesus says not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into heaven.
So Jimmy Carter may have professed to believe in Jesus, but not the right Jesus.
He denied the Jesus of the Bible.
He may have professed to love Jesus, but did Jimmy Carter truly love
Jesus?
No, he did not.
John chapter 14, verse 15, Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my
commandments.
He did not obey Jesus.
John 14, 21, Jesus said, he who has my commandments and keeps them is the
one who loves me.
Not just the person who claims to love Jesus with their lips, but who
actually obeys his commands.
Jimmy Carter did not obey the command of Christ.
He denied Christ.
1 John 2, 3 -4, and by this we know that we have come to know him if
we keep his commandments.
The one who says, I have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the
truth is not in him.
How do you know you have truly come to know Christ?
Well, it could not be more clear if you keep his commandments.
Now, no, this does not say, if you keep his commandments, then you will come to know him.
Then you will come to know him, love him.
No, if you truly know Christ, if you truly love Christ,
then you will keep his commandments because his commandments are not burdensome.
Not easy, but they're not burdensome.
It's not a burden for me as a Christian to obey the commands of my King.
I want to obey the commands of my King.
I want to obey the commands of my Savior.
He gave his life for me.
He saved me from the wrath of God.
He saved me from hell, which I deserve, and so it's not a burden to me to obey the commandments
of Christ.
It doesn't mean it's easy.
It's not easy, but it's not a burden.
It's not like, oh, I've got to obey Jesus today.
Oh, sure wish I didn't have to.
No, it's not a burden.
We do so joyfully because of the magnitude of what Christ has accomplished for us
on.
The cross.
And so, dear friends, it's not enough to just say, oh, I'm a Christian.
I believe in Jesus.
I have no doubt.
I mean, Jimmy Carter absolutely professed to believe in Jesus.
If you were to ask Jimmy Carter, do you believe that Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead?
I have no doubt that Jimmy Carter would have said, yes.
But the demons also believe those things.
There's lots of lost people, tons of lost people, who intellectually
believe the basics of the gospel, who would intellectually believe in the deity of Christ and His death
and resurrection.
They believe those facts like I believe that, I
don't know, Mount Everest is the tallest.
Mountain in the world.
You know, I believe that intellectually.
You can believe those things intellectually and still not be born again.
And the final thing that I will say, kind of like the unfortunate, sad, and
tragic cherry on top is, of all things, Jimmy Carter's
favorite song.
This song was sung at his wife Evelyn's funeral earlier this,
well, last year, 2024.
And it was sung at his own funeral yesterday by
Garth Brooks and Tricia Yearwood.
Jimmy Carter's favorite song is Imagine by John Lennon.
Undoubtedly, you have heard the song.
You probably know the song.
Most of you probably know the lyrics.
It's one of the most famous songs in the world.
Just so we're clear here, here they are.
Imagine there's no heaven.
It's easy if you try.
No hell below us, above us only sky.
Does that sound like the lyrics of what should be a Christian's favorite song?
Actually, it's not easy for me.
I cannot imagine that.
Sorry, I can't imagine that.
I cannot imagine that there is no heaven.
I can't imagine that there's no hell below and above only sky.
I can't imagine that.
I don't believe that.
Why?
Because the Bible tells me that heaven is real.
This was Jimmy Carter's favorite song.
Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and
no religion too.
No religion.
Just imagine how wonderful it would be if there was no religion.
This was a Christian's favorite song?
Dear friends, if atheists had a national anthem, this would be it.
Dear friends, lest you think he just kind of liked the tune, was a catchy tune, maybe kind of relaxing, you know, kind of
an easygoing, kind of maybe kind of drained some of that stress away.
No, let me show you some quotes from Jimmy Carter, what he really believed about this.
Song.
This is from an article posted today, January 10th, 2025 at The Nation.
How John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Imagine became the refrain of Jimmy Carter's funeral.
So when asked about his favorite song, he said this, my favorite is Imagine.
When I go to a strange country, Cuba and other places in some of those nations, Imagine has
become an unofficial national anthem.
If you go to Havana, for instance, you'll see a statue of John Lennon, he said, referencing the
memorial in Havana's park, John Lennon Park.
Friends, Cuba is a communist country.
It's communist.
So yeah, I guess I am very unsurprised that they have a statue of John Lennon there, who was
also a communist.
And a professing atheist.
This is Jimmy Carter's favorite song.
He admires that, that they have a statue of a professing atheist in a communist country.
He thinks that's cool.
He continues, when we go to a folk performance or a symphony concert or to modern American music, they
always play Imagine.
And it's one of my favorites, just personally.
If you listen to the lyrics closely, you'll see that it's against religion.
It's against national boundaries.
It's against nationalism.
It's against jingoism.
But the impact it has on people is profound.
Carter is very well aware of the point of this song.
He says it's against religion, and that is one of the reasons it's his favorite song.
Does this sound like, does this sound like a Christian to you?
The article continues, in his later years, Carter's appreciation of Imagine was much in evidence.
When Georgia Tech students surprised Carter and former First Lady Rosalyn Carter, I said Evelyn earlier, I'm sorry, Rosalyn,
Rosalyn Carter, with a rendition of the song in 2017, the former president rose to his feet
and led the applause.
He rose to his feet and led the applause at the singing of Imagine.
Imagine, I cannot, in my wildest
imagination, imagine a scenario in which a
Christian, a true born -again Christian, would say that this song,
which is unambiguously anti -theistic, forget about just being anti -Christian, it's
anti -theistic, that's my favorite song.
Not in a million lifetimes.
And it was sung at his wife's funeral, and it was sung yesterday at his own funeral.
Dear friends, Jimmy Carter, I have no doubt, to meet
him, to talk to him, very affable man.
I never, I take that back.
I actually did meet him briefly one time.
I was on an airplane flying into Africa.
He happened to be on my plane.
And Jimmy Carter, he had this little thing, it was known Jimmy Carter would do this.
He would go around and he would go up and down the aisles of the plane and shake people's hands.
It's just one of the things he did.
And I happened to be on one of those airplanes when he did that.
So I briefly shook his hand.
It was a long, long time ago.
And there's a couple hundred people on the plane, you know, so it's just like a passing thing.
I have no doubt he's a very nice man.
He worked for Habitat for Humanity up well into his 90s.
He would go out and work building homes with hammer and nail.
And you've probably seen some of these pictures and videos of him doing that.
I have no doubt he was a nice guy.
But dear friends, this is not a man who was changed by the gospel.
This is not a man whose heart of stone had been replaced by a heart of flesh because you can find
billions of lost people in this world.
Who are also nice people and who will also do nice things for others.
You don't have to be a Christian to do nice things.
You do have to be a Christian to stand on the exclusivity of the gospel
and to take stands that are in agreement with scripture, even when those stands go
wildly against the prevailing winds.
Jimmy Carter was out there in the front on homosexual marriage, even when most
of the country was against homosexual marriage.
Most of the secular country was against homosexual marriage.
He, as a quote unquote Christian, was in favor of it.
I mean, back in the 70s, I remember watching Sanford and Son back in the 70s, and Sanford and Son
would mock homosexuals openly on Sanford and Son.
Jimmy Carter was in favor of it as a quote unquote Christian.
All of this to say, dear ones, when men who should and I think do know
better come out and affirm Jimmy Carter as a Christian, you
are so watering down what it means to be a child of God.
You are so watering down what it means to be a Christian.
You are telling the whole world that you can be a Christian
and be in favor of homosexual marriage, be in favor of abortion, and
deny the exclusivity of the gospel.
You can be a Christian and deny Christ at the same time.
I heard it said that the quota for weak Christians is
already filled.
I'm weary.
I expect this kind of compromise from Joel Osteen
or Rick Warren.
I expect it from them.
But men who know better, dear friends, if Jimmy Carter was a Christian, everybody is.
It has no meaning.
You know, go back in time and tell some of the early Christian martyrs that it's
really not a big deal that Jesus is the only way to be saved.
No big deal.
Go back to go back in time to Justin Martyr and tell Justin, hey, Justin, you know,
I know you're about to be executed for your faith in Christ, but hey, man, you don't really have to take this stuff that serious.
It's not a big deal.
You can be a Christian and still deny Christ.
It's OK, Justin.
William Tyndale.
Oh, man, you're about to you're about to be burned at the stake.
Yeah, you don't really need to take this stuff all that seriously, William.
Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley.
Hey, guys, here you are tied to a stake, both of you together.
And you're going to be burned alive just because you you're standing on the authority of
scripture and salvation by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.
You know, it's it's really not that big a deal, guys.
Just just compromise.
It'll be OK.
This is you don't need to do this.
And if you do, you're just what a fool you are, because, you know, you can deny all of these things and still go to heaven.
What a joke.
Being a Christian means something.
Being a Christian means you have the old has passed away.
All things have been made new.
If you're a Christian, you have new desires.
You have new affections.
A Christian is not ashamed of Christ.
A Christian is not ashamed of the gospel.
Jimmy Carter absolutely was.
And that is not a Christian.
I don't hate Jimmy Carter.
I disagree with practically everything he every position he took politically.
That's not the point of this.
I don't hate the man.
I feel sorry for the man because Jimmy Carter found out about a week and a half ago
that the Jesus that he believed in is not the Jesus of the Bible.
So was Jimmy Carter a Christian?
Well, Jesus said, you will know them by their fruits.
And Jimmy Carter, the president of the United States, to a watching world for
50 years, presented to the world a different Jesus
and a different gospel to billions, billions
of people.
You tell me if you think that is a true Christian.
And when we say that a man like that is a true Christian, then we are
participating in his evil deeds.
And it's time for men who know better, who know what the Bible says about what being a Christian
means.
It's time for men like that to have the courage to stand up and say, no,
sadly, tragically, Jimmy Carter was not a Christian.
If you're watching this and you're not sure that you are a Christian.
Well, the Bible says, examine yourself to see if you're in the faith.
Has there ever been a time in your life when you've been convicted by the Holy Spirit of God that you are a sinner, that you
have broken God's laws, the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments?
Thou shalt not lie.
All of us have told lies, myself included.
Thou shalt not steal.
If you have ever taken something that does not belong to you, you're a thief.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
But Jesus said, if you look at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery already in your heart.
Go through the laws of God, the moral law of God.
All of us have broken God's laws thousands of times.
We have sinned against God in word and in deed and in thought.
And just like when we break laws on earth, there's a penalty to be paid, how much more so when we break the laws of God.
But because we have sinned against God, who is eternal, the punishment of that sin is also eternal.
And if you die in your sin, you'll very rightly and very justly go to a very real place that the Bible calls hell,
where the worm will not die, the fire will not be quenched.
There will be wailing, weeping, gnashing of teeth.
The full undiluted fury of God's wrath will be poured out on you for all of eternity, and it will never end.
That is the bad news.
That is what your sins have earned.
The wages of sin is death, eternal death.
We've sinned against an eternal God.
The punishment is also eternal.
And no amount of good works can help you.
No amount of working for habitat for humanity.
You could work sunup to sundown every day of your life and
not in your works, the Bible says, are as filthy rags,
filthy rags before a holy God.
You have no righteousness on your own.
I have no righteousness on my own.
We must have the righteousness of someone else, and his name is Jesus.
God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to this earth, who lived a perfect life, truly God,
truly man, the God -man, one person with two distinct natures.
Jesus had to be the God -man because only man deserves to pay
the penalty of sin, but only God can pay the penalty of sin.
And so Jesus, the God -man, willingly gave his life on the cross.
His life was not taken.
He gave it.
This perfect person offered his perfect life as a perfect sacrifice to perfectly
satisfy the perfect wrath of God, died on the cross three days later, bodily raised from the
dead, proving himself to be who he said he was, God in human flesh.
On the cross, Jesus bore the wrath of God.
He took the punishment of the sins of his people, and he satisfied that
wrath and was bodily raised from the dead.
The only way to be saved is to place your trust in Christ.
Lay your works down.
They will profit you nothing.
But if you will repent of sin, turn from your sin and place your trust in Christ, he will save you.
He will save you.
You will pass from death to life.
All things passed away, behold, all things will be made new.
You'll have a new heart with new desires, new affections.
You will have a heart that beats for the glory of Christ.
You will affirm Christ, not deny him.
You will proclaim Christ, not be ashamed of him.
And sadly, Jimmy Carter was ashamed of Christ.
He was ashamed of the gospel.
The apostle Paul says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto
salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also to the Greek.
And real belief, biblical belief, fleshes itself out in a
changed life.
Someone who will give his life for the gospel and for Christ.
So in closing, I have no hesitation at all to say that
Jimmy Carter was not a Christian, barring some literal
deathbed conversion of which I am not aware and have no evidence to believe.
I mean, barring that, from what I know of Jimmy Carter and what he
affirmed all the way up until the end, in fact, while I'm thinking about it,
Jimmy Carter, one of his last wishes, desires, he said that he wanted to vote
for Kamala Harris.
He wanted to make it long enough to vote for Kamala Harris.
This is a woman who is wildly against everything
that the Bible teaches.
You could not have a woman who was more anti -Christian than Kamala Harris.
And he wanted to live long enough to vote for her and he did.
Tragic.
This is not a Christian.
It changes people.
It changes their convictions.
All right, dear ones, we need to stand on these basic biblical truths.
Thank you so much for watching.
Until our next time together, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of his Holy
Spirit be with you all.