Laborers' Podcast- Did we attain Winthrop's dream?

Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast. Thank you for joining us and being with us. Tonight we are going to look at a sermon slash speech by John Winthrop who sailed the ocean blue in 1630. Stay with us. Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast which.

Is a part of the Truth in Love Network. Join us as together we strive to grow up together in all things into Christ. Subscribe and follow the Truth in Love Network on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and iTunes.

Now let's join our.

Laborers for tonight's broadcast. How's it going brothers? Well. Good. Did anybody notice a new intro video? Looks very nice. We've got a new outro video as well. Hope you'll like that one too. Tonight I'm gonna talk about John Winthrop and that famous speech that he had.

But anything new with you guys? Tyler has got a lot going on with his church and he's super involved there in this transition that's going on. In general, Tyler, tell us what's.

Going on. Well a few years ago, this is before I was received into membership at my church, they came under the conviction that they were putting too much into maintaining a building and not enough into missions and outreach and so the elders got together and talked about it and prayed about it and they sold their building.

So the church, we're a homeless church, we share a building with another Baptist church in our area and we've been able to put much much more funding every month into missions. There's probably about a half a dozen or so missionaries that we sponsor, we support, we've sent out, things like that.

There's a several continents and the next step in just kind of the way we do things weirdly at Hope Chapel is we've made the decision to pull out of the sanctuary and so we are in the process of moving our service and all of the bells and whistles of that into the Fellowship Hall.

So every Sunday we're gonna be lining up chairs in the Fellowship Hall, we're gonna have corporate worship in the Fellowship Hall in the same place where we would do a potluck. It frees us up to have more time because we're not worried about getting out of the sanctuary in time for the other church to come in.

So we're a little more free to do whatever the Spirit is leading us to do, whether that is have an hour-long prayer meeting on a Sunday morning because we have had times where we've dropped the sermon altogether and spent the whole service in prayer.

You know, Matthew 18 came up, things like that. We're a church that will drop everything in prayer. And so we have a little more freedom to do some of those things and to better one another, as you say, to use it as a verb.

We're a bit more dialed in that way. Yeah, praise the Lord. It's exciting. Yeah, and I'm always.

Encouraged to see and hear your updates and and how you're involved. I mean, praise the Lord, it's really amazing. And Elias, you divulge how much you want to divulge. It's up to you. I don't want to put you on the spot.

No, no, you're good. Here's what I've been thinking when it comes to your situation and what you've been working through there where you are and with us in our group. This is what has come to my mind, as I think in some cases there may be pastors and there may be podcasters that feel like there's got to be this facade, somewhat of a mask, that says those people who are in front of me needs to see and hear someone who has got it all together, has reached a level where they are firm in all their theological convictions.

Or if they see me as a podcaster, you know, representing my views and they see me waver, they see me change, then I'm not gonna be as credible. I feel like there's folks out there who feel and believe and present themselves that way.

I think it's okay. I think it's okay to to communicate that we're just like everybody else. We don't always have it all together. We are still growing and learning. We have not reached the pinnacle of Christianity, and so there are going to be changes that need to take place in my life theologically, in my character, in all aspects of my life.

So in general, whatever you want to divulge, you're welcome to do so, but you're growing and you're learning and developing. Yeah, definitely. So obviously I made a live on my channel. In fact, Dan was with me when I made the announcement.

So obviously I recently came or came out as a Reformed Pedobaptist, and so obviously I shared on my live. So yeah, so I shared on my live that me and my wife were going through the, you know, in the Word and going.

I told my wife previously a couple months ago, I was like, I want to go through why we host the Covenants as Reformed Baptists. You know, let's go into the Word, let's go into prayer. We can look up commentaries if that's needed.

Obviously, I explained to my wife, hey, I know I'm in contact with Presbyterians, Reformed Baptists, so I can ask certain questions. So obviously that happened. And Tyler, he was one of the one of the Pedobaptists I seek counsel with at times.

So yeah, I recently became a Reformed Pedobaptist. I'm still Reformed covenantally, in Soteriology as well. And I did share on my live too, I'm going into more of a Reformed Anglican. And obviously, I think I used J .I. Packer as a really good inspiration in that.

But yeah, so that's pretty much what's going on. My wife, I don't know if I shared on the labors, but my wife is pregnant. She is due in November, late November. And so that is our first child. And it is a boy, so I'm very blessed for that.

And it's great because I told my wife, I after this one's born, I would like a little girl. Now I want a girl, you know, I want to be a daddy's girl where, you know, where, like, yeah, it's just like, she's like, wow, you're already thinking about that?

And this one's not even, you know, arrived yet. And so, yeah, so I'm very happy with that.

Well Elias, was the change in your theme music intentional as well? Because it seems you went from hip-hop to Gregorian chants in your YouTube here.

Actually, in the description when I picked those, if people aren't familiar, I picked a group of guys. The description says Scottish men singing, what's the song? Oh, so it's not even Anglican music. It's Scottish, yes.

It said Scottish men singing Rock of Ages. Rock of Ages, yeah. Let me holler at Josh for a second. Josh has come out as a new podcaster. Yes. You give the title and tell us what it's about and tell people where they can find you.

So, the.

Podcast is going to be called the Reformed Rambler Podcast. The name has a few different meanings, but right now I've got a Facebook page that you can go. Like, I've not put any content up yet. I've got a videographer coming out next week to shoot some video to make a intro video.

So, once I get that ready and get everything set up on the back end, we'll start doing some content. But I will be on the Rambler Reformed. I might have said that backwards. We switched it. We made one and then we switched around.

So, it's the Rambler Reformed Podcast. If I said that wrong, I apologize. I've got a Facebook page. There will be a YouTube page. And then hopefully we will have the audio version on your podcast apps as well.

That will be the goal. So, hopefully that'll be up and running. Get some content put out in the next two or three weeks. There it is. Right there. There we go.

There we go. Boom. And now, drumroll, the leader of the Reformed Rambler Podcast posse, the original, the OG. Pastor Claude Ramsey, my brother, how are you doing? Doing good. Doing good. I'm so glad. What's new with you, brother?

Just staying busy.

That's it. I mean, I get up in the morning and the first thing April says is, I want you to get up and go out and work in the yard all day. I know it's your day off. I don't want you to get down there and sweat.

No, seriously. That's not it at all.

You're exercising dominion, Claude. Yeah. You're dominating and bringing God's.

Kingdom into your lawn. Yeah, I believe it. That's what Big John says every time he goes hunting. He says he's letting the animals know who's boss. I'm telling you what, the birds are just stupid. They don't run from you or anything now.

You can hee and haw at them and wave and scream. They just stand there and look at you.

There were six in my front yard this morning. Did you chase them? My dog did. It's so funny. We have dogs and they still show up.

The owl trick doesn't work either. I'm proud of that. Let's jump into the topic tonight. We're going to be talking about John Winthrop. He had a speech that has traveled through the centuries. Mostly political leaders have drawn out that phrase, that famous phrase from his speech.

John Winthrop, he came over from England. He was a Puritan, part of the Puritan movement, and he sailed over in 1630. He come over with 400 people, and then by the time all said and done, there ended up being 7 ,000, 9 ,000.

I can't remember. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he was a governor there and a lieutenant governor there for a bunch of years, but he had this idea. He wasn't a preacher. He was more of a political leader, but he was a leader, I guess, spiritually as well to the people, but his political speech, his spiritual speech to them as they were coming over to America to establish and to work this new world in the Massachusetts Bay Colony area.

The speech title is A Model of Christian Charity, and he had a vision. He had a plan, a way that he felt like these people should live when they come over here. Of course, they were battling the Anglican Church.

They had their struggles with the Church of England over there. That was more political, though. They couldn't get it straightened out over there.

The whole Church of England was political.

John Withers did see that Christianity should influence, that Christ is Lord of the Church, society, and the government, so he saw a connection there that there shouldn't be this great separation. The part of the speech that's so famous is the City of the Hill section, which he quotes from Matthew 5, verses 13 and 14.

I'm going to try to get this correct. I think it was John Adams writing to Thomas Jefferson. He mentioned it to him. I think Abraham Lincoln alluded to it in one of his speeches, maybe the Gettysburg Address.

Didn't MLK refer to it as well?

Maybe. I'm not sure. JFK did in his speech. Ronald Reagan did in his speech. They say that Trump possibly alluded to it in one of his speeches, and Barack Obama mentioned it in one of his speeches. So politicians, former presidents, have pulled this quote from John Withers, who was quoting Matthew 5, verses 13 and 14.

But I kind of wanted to ask the question, what was John Withers using that quote for? Is America supposed to be a city on a hill? Basically, those questions that we want to ask about anything, is it used in context?

Would it help if I read the quote that you put in our notes from that speech? Absolutely. Just as a starting point? That's right. So Winthrop writes,. Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck and to provide for our posterity is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.

For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities for the supply of others' necessities.

We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience, and liberality. We must delight in each other and make each other's conditions our own. Rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together.

Always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work. As members of the same body, so shall we keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us as his own people and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways so that we shall see much more of his wisdom, power, goodness, and truth than formerly we have been acquainted with.

We shall find that the God of Israel is among us. When ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when he shall make us a praise and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations, may the Lord make it like that of New England.

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.

And very quickly, here's the exact quote from Matthew 5, 13 and 14. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Okay, so let's let's begin at the top. Are we as a church and as Christians and I'm kind of, I'm kind of basing these questions off Winthrop's dream.

Are we being liberal and charitable and are giving to be meeting the needs of others?

So by the needs of others, are we talking about within the local church community or at large?

I would assume he's speaking more at maybe at large in a sense of locally, even in a town sense. I think when I was reading some of some of his writings, he was talking about the fact that there was going to be normal society structures like there's going to be the rich and there's going to be the poor.

So I think he was taking consideration all of society. But in the context of the speech, I believe he was. So he he understood his audience to be Christian. But I think that he was reaching out to them as they were going to be developing this society.

So it may also have included. Possibly the entire community. I think I'm working. Let's ask both questions. I'm the. How are we doing amongst ourselves and how are we doing reaching out to the world? All right.

I've not been here a while. I'll go ahead and speak. I think we let the passes go first.

I concur. And I'm waiting for John or little. No, is it Jonathan Foster? I'm waiting for him to say, well, well, let me push back on that. So maybe we'll have to channel him. So as far as this first question goes, are we, as a church and children and Christians, liberal and charitable, charitable and are giving to be meeting the needs of others.

So I am an advocate. We are advocates at Reformation Baptist Church of number one, we've got to be wise stewards of what God has blessed us with and going to the idea of being a wise steward. We we look at it and we approach it in this way that it's in the local context primarily.

Now, certainly there we have folks regularly come in off the streets up and down Chapman Highway during evening services primarily. And we do what we can to help them, to get them on their way, to feed them, to, you know, give them bus tickets so they can get to where they're they say they're needing to get.

But to on the flip side of that, to make a determination that a local church is going to help an entire city is a, I would say, a big undertaking and an undertaking that is not wise in that, that the church itself has members within the congregation to which we are supposed to focus our attention and our energies on.

So since this is what we're about, and I think all of you can give your thoughts on this question, since this is what we as the laborers, the Truth and Love Network, I feel like this is what we're about, kind of going based on Claude's statement there, you've got the SBC who, you know, a long time ago decided we as Baptist churches, we are going to associate, we are going to pool our money.

OK, that's that's one way to do it. But then we also have the the invisible, the Christians in different denominations. What what is the best way for us to to tackle the needs of others as the as God's church, maybe coming from different denominations?

I mean, what do you what are your thoughts on? Because I appreciate what Claude was saying, and I really lean towards that way because you can only do what you can do. Correct. We we can't guilt ourselves or anybody else to go to go beyond what they can't do or can't give.

And you can't give to everybody. That's it. And you've got to be good stewards. So have you ever thought through what what we could be doing, you know, kind of forward thinking? Kind of good. Mind you, you know, the apostle said where, you know, not everyone's hand, everyone's feet.

Um, and Claude's right. You know, the church itself, it's, you know, it's primarily focused on its congregants. Now, obviously, I'm pretty sure, let's say, like, you know, if I was a member of Pastor Claude's church and I wanted to me, myself personally wanted to get involved in somewhat of a community outreach, let's say for the youth and make it somewhat and really put more of a biblical.

What's the word I'm looking for? Like maybe some biblical classes is a word of curriculum and have some sort of curriculum that gives the gospel to the community in some way. I'm pretty sure, you know, Pastor Claude wouldn't have a problem with that, you know, where, like, you know, it's me as a member.

And obviously, in some sense, it's a missionary work in some sense. You know, we're trying to go out and proclaim the gospel to the community. Whereas, that's the best way I can see it is if there is, you know, members, individual members going out into the community itself.

Yeah. Can I jump in real quick? Absolutely. Yeah. So, I agree with what both of the other brothers have said thus far. If you read through 1 Timothy, in 1 Timothy chapter 5, Paul gives Timothy criteria for enrolling widows to be financially and materially cared for.

It says, you know, don't enroll them if they're under, what is it, 60 years of age. I think they need to get married again. They need to, they're young enough, they can put their life back together. Also, if they have adult children, those children need to be encouraged, admonished, to care for their parents, to make some return to their parents.

This is pleasing in the sight of God. So, even the Apostle Paul recognizes that there's only so much resources. It doesn't matter what part of town a church is in. You could have a church of 5 ,000 people in the most affluent city in America.

They still don't have infinite money. You still have to allocate and prioritize certain things. And I think, biblically, feel free to push back, biblically, that emphasis should be on the people in your congregation.

That's why church membership is so important. You are covenantally bound to one another, so that should be your priority. But just being a member of the church doesn't guarantee that you're eligible to be floated along by the church budget, right?

So, there are stipulations put in place in Scripture as to who is eligible to receive that kind of care. When it comes to mission work, and I want to be careful how I phrase this, I think a lot of the modern missions movement is misguided.

I think it's not done in a biblical way. It's not done in an efficient way. I don't want to impugn this to, or impute this to all churches everywhere. I know a handful of guys on this podcast, not this one specifically, but Big John, and there's a lot of people whose churches are very involved with missions, but I'm not trying to say that they're doing it wrong, because they have a big emphasis on it.

But by and large, you're sending missions work, when you're sending people to another country or another region to plant churches, you should be sending qualified elders. That's who should be going out.

It's not humanitarian work. That can be part of it, but I feel like a lot of the modern concept of missions has become synonymous with, oh, we're going to dig wells, we're going to bring food in, we're doing this humanitarian work, and we've got a young couple that have been, they're zealous, they're on fire for the Lord, they've been married for two years, they've been saved for three, they're going to go over here and they're going to plant this church, ignoring all of the qualifications for elders and overseers that Paul gives Timothy in chapter three, and they're sending people, and so the emphasis a lot of times is in the wrong spot, and also the people that you're sending aren't qualified for what that work is supposed to entail, if that makes sense.

So I think a lot of the modern missions movement is kind of missing the mark just from the jump, like their emphasis is in the wrong spot, but I think, especially for smaller churches, I'm a member of Reformata, obviously, we're a small church, we have 35 people-ish on a Sunday morning, we would not be in a position to fund a full-time missionary, but we can and do care for the people in our church, like what Claude and Elias have both said already, you can only do what you can do, and if we had near-infinite funds, there would be more that we could do, but where we're at now, we have to faithfully, we're accountable to God for what we do, so you have to kind of prioritize what endeavors you're going to involve yourself with.

I don't think it's wrong to say, you know, we're not going to do something, you know, long-term missions in Uganda or wherever, we're going to actually prioritize our local body and our local community when and when we can, how we can.

I think that is a faithful use of resources and funds.

I think I'm tagging along with what you guys are saying, and if I'm correct, this is where I would stand as well, that it should be an outflowing of the local church. Everything should be an outflowing of the local church, and kind of what I was thinking about before with the other denominations of the churches, be friendly.

They may have the resources. We don't have to join. We don't have to have worship services together. We are not there yet, but we can be friendly, and they may have a resource at their church where this person has a need, and they can provide that resource, but we can't provide, but we can be friendly with other believers in our community.

I think Winthrop was making an emphasis on being familiar.

We've got a question, guys, that I think is relevant to address. Paul Shaw, what if a parent or parents abuse them? And I think this came up while Josh was talking about the widows and admonishing the children where applicable.

And when it comes to parental abuse, when it comes to things like that, it's important to recognize that we're a church, not state, which means that there are laws that are out of our hands, and so when things like abuse come up, I don't have the luxury of trying to determine whether or not it happened.

I have to run it up the chain, okay, because mandatory report is a thing in the state, which means if a child was to tell me that their parent is abusing them, that takes priority because the church can deal with the sins, but it can't deal with the crimes.

I think that is a whole other ballgame than what Josh is talking about with admonishing the children to provide for their parents because...

This is adult children, right? So you don't send mom off to the glue factory. You care for your mother as she's aging, not trying to get... I don't know if this is what Paul was articulating, but you're not trying to get small children to take a factory job to pay the mortgage.

Right. I think that's one thing that a lot of churches have, unfortunately, dropped the ball on, and I think we're reaping some of the fruit of that when you read the articles and the dockets about all of this abuse that's been covered up, which by definition is illegal in this country, especially in the state I live in, because I'm not sure if it's universal, but South Carolina is a mandatory report state, which means...

Tennessee is as well. Tennessee is as well, okay. Which means that if it reaches my ears, I have to go to the authorities. I don't have the luxury under the laws to decipher whether or not I think it's founded, whether or not it's genuine.

I have to go to the police.

Yep. And Claude, as a pastor, would you say that honor... Versus quoted a lot in this situation, but you've got to honor your father and mother. Would you say that as a pastor, honor can look different in different situations?

There's ways that you can honor.

So to this and to that question specifically, to answer both your questions, I think I understand where you're getting at. You're talking about the fifth commandment. Children, honor your parents, right?

Obey your parents and the Lord. That's what the scripture says. So the thing about it is, even if we have, as children, we have parents who, like Paul noted there, what if a parent or parents has abused them?

And again, I don't know if he's speaking about himself having been abused or someone else being abused. The point here is this, that as Tyler just said, and as Josh noted as well, the first thing that any church should do, whether it's the pastor or if it's a lady at the church that's been told this to and is a witness to this, very key, right?

But even at the very whisper of child abuse, it is the responsibility of the leadership at the church to immediately call the police. Josh and I had this discussion, what, a year ago, right? A little more.

Yeah. A little more.

Some of the questions that came up. I asked about this in the new members meeting. And I asked this specifically, like, what does this church do with allegations of abuse? And he said, we call the cops.

In front of everybody. We'll call on the cops. That's the bottom line. And if there's any defending physically to be done, if something's happening right there, we call the cops and then we defend as necessary.

Anybody else have any thoughts on that one? That's a difficult one. I appreciate you guys answering that question. So what I was going to, just a second ago, we were talking about the church and Winthrop uses the word familiar.

We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, abridging ourselves of ours. And Tyler, you did an excellent job just breezing through the pronunciation of this word. Superfluities for the supply of others' necessities.

He had this concept of when we look back at acts where they sold their things. He had this concept of denying the individual for the sake of the community. Do you see that as a good Christian practice, good Christian character, something that we should be developing in our church and our community?

Can you clarify that? What do you mean by denying the individual for the sake of the community? Living for self. Maybe. Oh, okay. Maybe denying some of the things that you may be doing for yourself, living more luxuriously or making life a little bit, it may make life a little more difficult for you or being willing to give up things for the greater good of the community.

Denying the individual for the sake of the community.

See, this is a really interesting one because it gets a little dicey in this current cultural climate because that sounds almost like communism. Bingo. And I know that the argument has been made both regarding Acts chapter two when they were all of one accord and even with the pilgrims that they were communists.

I've seen those arguments and may or may not have believed them at one point. And there was an attempt in the, I keep wanting to say Puritans, pilgrims, that the pilgrim era, there was an attempt that's probably more consistent with what we would call socialism.

It didn't work. And they kind of rebranded it. And I think that's more in the way of what we're looking at with Winthrop is it's a little bit modified because they did start off with everybody just shared everything.

And they basically started. And so what we have with Winthrop I think is a little bit more subdued. That it's not just an outright nobody owns anything and we have to give up everything for the needs of the many.

But rather it's this coming together as individuals in a way that can only come from the gospel really. The way that we are knit together. That we are both one and many. That we don't cease to be individuals.

We don't cease to be a group of people. But that we are united in goals. That we're united in our desires. If that makes any sense. Which is fundamentally different from a Marxist kind of view of economics.

It reminds me of just being a servant. Taking on that servant role. And just loving your neighbor as yourself. That's what it seems like Winthrop was getting at when he was mentioning that. Well, time is getting away from us.

So I'm going to have to narrow down some of these questions. Go ahead, Paul. Do you have something? No, I would just say that, well, maybe yes. Maybe that was not the right answer. Maybe the answer is yes.

Yes. So again, I did not get to read this. So I mean, I probably had to know a little bit more about Winthrop. What's his first name again? John. John Winthrop. Okay. So to know. Because the language, like Tyler said, is somewhat veiled, right?

In a very real sense. We see things like, for example, just for an example, we must delight in each other. About middle of the paragraph. We must delight in each other. Make others conditions our own.

Rejoice together. Mourn together. Labor and suffer together. Always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work as members of the same body. So that language is parallel to what the scriptures say, right?

Look not every man out for himself, but also for the things of others. Distinction. That doesn't mean be a busy body. Share. Share in both the sufferings and the joys. Weep with them that weep. Laugh with them that laugh.

If you're sad, sing psalms. We've got all these applications scattered throughout the text of scripture. But to look at this just straight on, what year was it written? That would be another question I would have.

What year was this written?

He gave this speech in 1630 as they were approaching the new world.

Okay, so knowing context, I would go from being cautious about this, being someone saying that the church should be communal in practice, right? Not even necessarily communist, but communal. A commune is basically most of us knows where hippies live, right?

They all lived on a commune. They shared everything. They shared the bathroom. Whatever the case was, nobody owned anything themselves. Knowing that this is in the 1600s, I could say I could read that and understand it as being a general sharing and a general loving with one another rather than a communal type exhortation.

Gotcha. So I'm going to ask one or two more questions depending on time. I really wanted to talk to you guys about the context of Matthew 5, 13 and 14 and his application and then how we see it applied in political speeches.

So be thinking about that. So my next question is, we as a church, as Christians, what people are seeing as the church on TV and online, how are we doing in portraying our trust? Let me scroll up. There it is.

Trusting in the providence of God, trusting in the sovereignty of God. Question number two, how are we doing in that area? How are we doing in portraying our trust in the providence and the sovereignty of God?

I mean, what are people seeing on TV, on the internet? What do people see in our churches? And that may be different.

Right. Well, if we're talking just with regards to politics, we're not doing a very good job of demonstrating our trust in the sovereignty of God. Amen. And that's something I've been thinking on, honestly, since the debate because I didn't actually watch the debate, but I heard a lot about it.

And if somebody was to ask me who I thought won the debate, I would say the imprecatory Psalms. I think that is where we are, is I truly believe we're in a nation that is experiencing a soft manifestation of God's judgment.

I think we have committed many of the sins that we saw with Babylon, that we saw throughout the Old Testament. We're basically Rome. And God has been very gracious to us as a nation. And we're starting to see some of that common grace that he's poured out kind of being pulled back a little bit.

I think Calvin put it quite well that when God judges a nation, he gives them wicked rulers. And we're seeing that. And the response of Christians has largely been, we just need to vote better. We need to campaign.

We need to do this. We need to do that. We need to get on the Republican bandwagon here. And everything I'm seeing from the Republican Party is not better. When I'm seeing Dennis Prager on podcast talking about how child porn is okay, I don't think it's any better.

And so just looking at how a lot of Christians are responding to political turmoil, it doesn't convey necessarily that we have a sovereign God. It conveys more with what we saw from certain individuals in our nation's founding that God is disconnected from his creation, that he is like a watch, that he just set it and put it on a desk and walked away.

And I think that's an area where we could do a lot better than we are. And honestly, when we talk about the city on a hill, we got a lot of potholes in the city on a hill. That we are a city on a hill, but it's under renovation.

Any other thoughts? Yeah. Yeah. Just to run off what Tyler just said, I think he had mentioned that there's a soft judgment of God upon America. I don't know how soft that judgment actually is at the moment when you consider all the stuff that's going on.

Well, I say soft because we're still here. Well, yeah, that's true. I guess it depends on how you want to qualify that. But Winthrop, in that speech or sermon, he talks about how basically the whole thing is outlining, this is the kind of things that a nation should do if they want God to bless their endeavor.

And if we don't do these things, he's going to remove that blessing from us, right? So this is vision casting. We're building a new nation. We're all Christians. Let's live together in these ways that we might seek God's favor and blessing.

God is not mocked. You don't get to thumb your nose at him and expect to continue to live high on the hog. You will have to pay the man at some point if you continue to rebel against him. And our nation has rebelled against him.