The Leader Our Time Demands

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Okay, well, I had a lot on my heart, a lot on my mind coming here.

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So when you're a young preacher, you're begging God what to say.

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And then when you become an old preacher, you're begging God what not to say. And I'm getting up there in years.

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But I did wanna minister a message to you tonight called Leaders a

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Time Like This Demands. Leaders a Time Like This Demands.

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How many know we're living in pretty daunting and dangerous and deceptive times, amen?

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And honestly, our future is in jeopardy. No question about it.

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Our sins have reached heaven. God's clear judgment is upon the land.

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And so what do we do? What do we do? How do we respond to this challenge?

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And I just wanna share from the scriptures, just some biblical truths, some biblical principles, some presuppositions as you were.

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I'm with apology, I gotta say presupposition. Just to kind of lay out the case,

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Leaders a Time Like This Demands. You know, I have been in this battle since the fall of 1988.

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And the fact that I'm still in the battle is a testimony of God's saving power.

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A lot of people who started in this battle started well, and they ended very, very bad.

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And, you know, obviously you wanna start well and you wanna end well for your

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Lord. And cause he's worthy of that, amen. But I can remember times when

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I was like major really discouraged, depressed.

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I don't know what a nervous breakdown is, but I will tell you there were times in this battle where my physical functions cease.

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The pain I was experiencing internally was so strong that I couldn't even utter words.

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I couldn't formulate a prayer to even pray to God. That's how intense this battle, this dark night of the soul gotten sometimes where I literally could not sleep for days on end.

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I couldn't eat, I couldn't go to the bathroom. I mean, my physical functions ceased operating.

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It was that intense. And it's happened about four or five times through the years that I've been reduced to that state.

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And so there were times obviously when I finally, you know, got my functions back, you know, like Lord, you know, whoa, you know, this is intense.

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And there were times that where God would take me to the scriptures and he would just show me some things to encourage my heart.

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Y 'all remember Jeremiah, right? You know, the weeping prophet. How many know there was times that he got tired?

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In fact, there was times where he said, that's it. I don't like the dungeon ministry.

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So I'm not gonna speak in the name of the Lord anymore. You're sort of,

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I don't know if you've been there or not, but I surely have. And, you know, that was the time when

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God said, Jeremiah, you cannot shut up. If you shut up,

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I'm gonna be fire in your bones. I'll burn you, buddy.

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No, you have a calling. You have a ministry. You have a duty before me in this nation and you need to be faithful, son.

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And it was during that time that God gave Jeremiah pretty incredible promise.

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Now I'm paraphrasing it, but basically God was telling Jeremiah, if you're faithful to me now, son, if you're faithful with this unpopular message that nobody wants to hear, the king doesn't wanna hear it, the princes don't wanna hear it, the prophets don't wanna hear it, the priests don't wanna hear it, nobody wants to hear it.

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Do you get it, Jeremiah? Nobody cares. Yeah, and you can write it and they can burn it and you can write it again, but understand, son, they don't care.

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But I still want you to be faithful to hammer this message out.

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And what Jeremiah received from the Lord was this precious promise.

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He was basically telling Jeremiah, when the day comes that I watch over the word to perform it through your lips, he said, in that day, your enemies will entreat you well.

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See, right now, we're somewhat marginalized, especially churches that take

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God and the Bible serious. We are marginalized, not just in the

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American culture, in the American church herself. We're marginalized, why?

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Because we believe a very popular message in heaven, but a very unpopular message here on earth.

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And so what is a leader a time like this demands? A leader, a time like this demands is one who will stay faithful to the unpopular message.

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Because if we're faithful now, and as we're seeing, we're gonna, brothers and sisters, you gotta understand, we're gonna be sludging through some very daunting times in the days ahead.

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And I don't know how intense this is gonna get, but it can get pretty bad. And I know how far this is gonna go.

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But God told Jeremiah, sort of when the stuff hits the fan, in that day, your enemies will entreat you well.

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In other words, you will be in a position of leadership. Why? Because you were faithful back here.

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It's like Daniel. You know, everybody, you know, we talk about Daniel and the lion's den and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and we see these brave, you know, soldiers of the

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Lord, these righteous warriors who would not compromise. That didn't start, you know, minutes before the big event.

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That started when they were young, they made commitments to the Lord. And it was staying faithful to those commitments to the

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Lord when the test came, when the trying time came, they were prepared.

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Of course they were gonna do what they did. They had prepared themselves for it.

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You know, I think of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and this is like the American church, right? So this nation is setting up all kinds of idolatry.

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I mean, you have a governor in California telling Christians they can't sing to the

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Lord anymore. Are you kidding me? Wow, what authority, what power.

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I remember I went to prison one time and the prison guards tell us we couldn't sing to the

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Lord. And I just raised my hand, I said, excuse me? Do you have the power to stop the sun from rising?

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Do you have the power to set the sun in the evening? Are you insane?

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That ain't never gonna happen. And you ain't lived until you heard amazing grace by 300 inmates resounding through the prison.

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And by the way, I led four prison guards to the Lord during that time in jail. So praise the

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Lord. Now, where was I? This is what happens when you get old.

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You go down rapid trails. Point being, guys, being prepared, staying faithful in these trying, daunting times are incredibly important to our future integrity and being a position to lead.

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Because at some point they're gonna connect the dots. Hey, didn't you guys tell us like back then? Like, you know, maybe we should have repented and stopped killing our babies and parading our sin like Sodom.

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Weren't you the guys that told us that? And we laughed at you and scorned you, mocked you, wanted to kill you. Were you those guys?

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Yeah, now we see. What do we do?

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Where do we go? Okay, it's like, remember with Jesus and John chapter six, right?

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He says that offensive message. You know, you gotta, you know, eat my body, drink my blood.

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And they're like, oh man, we're old, you know, we're Jews. What are you talking about? And you know, the Old Testament forbade that. What are you talking about?

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This is insane. And they said that, you know, they left him and everybody walked away. And these were his disciples.

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And then basically, you know, the Lord looks at the 12 and says, there's the door. Don't let it kick you on the way back. You know, on the way out there.

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And what does Peter say? Where can we go? Only you have the words of life.

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And that's something you gotta hold on to, brothers and sisters, when the times are hard. And we're being tried and we're being tested.

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You do have to come to that realization, where else can we go? Only he has the words of eternal life.

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And so I wanna kind of build on this, brothers and sisters. I wanna give you three major building block principles.

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There's others, there's smaller building blocks, but I wanna at least give you three big building blocks to establish leadership at a time like this demands.

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The first one is this. God works through headship.

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Let's say that together. God works through headship.

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Now, for some reason, we have forgotten this biblical principle in these days.

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We know it from the Bible and how we know the enemy knows this truth, that God works through headship.

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For instance, smite the shepherd and what happens to the sheep?

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They scatter. A father fails in his duty towards his family.

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What happens to that family? Okay. A CEO of a company embezzles funds.

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What happens to the shareholders? A pastor runs off with the church secretary.

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What happens to his family? What happens to the church? What's left in its wake?

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God works through headship. And here's the thing that I really wanna communicate.

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And this is more towards the men than the ladies because most of the responsibility of headship in the home, in the church and in the community is designated towards the male of the species.

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Do you remember in the, just to give you an example of how God works through headship.

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Remember in the book of Acts when Paul and Silas are in jail, they were walking along, they were ministering the gospel of the kingdom and there was this demoniac lady, very interesting scenario there because she had a spirit of divination and she's actually speaking true words.

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She's speaking true words. They're going, these are the men that shows us the way of God and reveals

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God's salvation. Could you imagine a demon telling truth? Now, how do you discern that?

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How do you discern that? See, it's easy to discern deception when people say things and we look at the word of God and go, that doesn't line up, get out of here.

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No, no. But how do you discern a spirit that's actually speaking the true words of God?

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Sort of like Balaam. Remember Balaam? Do you understand every time that guy opened his mouth, he spoke the true words of God.

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Every, he even prophesied of the Messiah. This is Balaam, one of the guys in the

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New Testament that God warns about. Don't go away of Balaam. Well, this

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Balaam guy, I mean, like every time he opened his mouth, every time he stood in the pulpit, he spoke true words of God, but he was a false man.

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He was a false man. And that is so much harder to discern brothers and sisters.

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And so what did Balaam do? Come here, King. Listen, I can't curse what

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God has blessed, but I'll tell you what he can do. If you can seduce Israel to sin against God, God himself will curse his people.

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Job done, give me my reward. Thank you very much. So here is a young lady filled with a spirit of divination, speaking the true words of God.

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And the Bible says that Paul just got simply annoyed. Enough already. Get out of her in the name of Jesus.

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Boom, man, riots in that city. Because all the idolaters and tradesmen, they made a living off exploiting this young lady for divination.

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Of course, they take them before the authorities. The authorities beat them up, put them in stocks, throw them in prison.

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And while Paul and Silas are complaining, they're not having their best life now. Is that what your

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Bible reads? No. As they were praying and singing hymns to God, with their backs bloodied and raw, as they're worshiping the

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Lord, we know the great miracle that took place, right? God shook that prison, the doors opened up, the jailer starts freaking out.

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He's ready to kill himself because if anybody escapes, he's a dead man anyway. And Paul says, no, don't do it.

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Everybody's here. We're okay. And the guy comes running in and he says, do you remember what he said?

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What must I do to be saved? Now listen to Paul's response.

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He said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you and what?

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You and your household shall be saved.

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See, this is an example of God working through headship. Okay, so the promise wasn't just to the jailer.

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The promise, if he believed in the Lord, that this would have a profound impact upon his family.

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And I'm gonna tell you, you could study this out, brothers and sisters. Like when a child comes to faith in Christ, yeah, there may be some people in the family that will also come to faith in Christ.

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And if the wife and the mother comes to Christ, yeah, there'll be some of the family that may follow in her footsteps.

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When the man comes to Christ, like 90%, like some phenomenal high number of families follow in the faith of the footsteps of their father.

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Why? Because God works through headship. He works through headship.

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And this is something we have forgotten, brothers and sisters. And it is jumping up and biting us pretty good.

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This is in the home. This is in the church. We're out of divine order and we're spinning out of control.

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And man, I gotta just reveal this truth to you. This is so, so important. Because let's face it, most men, most

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Christian men are so morally compromised in this nation, they can't make a courageous stand for the

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Lord. They just can't. They're so riddled with guilt. And because of that, there's an opening that the enemy can exploit to tear up our marriages, tear up our children.

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And I'm gonna tell you how the divine principle works, men, really, really important. God's authority rests and works through men who take responsibility.

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There is no authority of God without responsibility of men.

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So men, when you do your duty as a man, as a husband, as a father, as a churchman in your church, as a citizen in your community, when you take responsibility and serve well your

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King, guess what the benefit is for others? God's authority will rest on you and work through you.

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And you and your household shall be saved.

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Pretty important truth. So here's 1 Corinthians 16, 13.

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This is an amazing scripture. And I just want you to understand that God presupposes strength with men.

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He presupposes that, okay? And this is literally God the Father getting into the face of men.

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And he says this profound statement. He says, watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.

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The King James Version actually says, quit ye like men.

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And I would look at that. I'm like, man, is the King James promoting

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American manhood? When the going gets tough, we quit. You know, quit like the

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American man. You know, that's not what it's saying. When it says quit ye like men, this is literally

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God saying to men, be a man. Be a man.

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Do a man's part. Behave yourselves like men.

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Be strong, be brave, be courageous. And then of course he says, let all things be done with love.

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So men, if we're gonna take biblical responsibility that God's authority could rest on us and through us and that he can work through us because he works through headship to bless others, notice what he says.

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He says, watch, watch. When you hear the word watch, what do you think of? Watch.

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Give me, I'm an interactive preacher, so you can work with me, folks.

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Work with me, work with me. Watch. It says watch. He's talking to men and he says, men, watch.

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Watch what? What are we talking about here? Watch the Superbowl? What are we talking about here? In the

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Old Testament, what did they have? They had, what were they called? What?

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Watchmen. What was the duty of the watchmen? Stand guard, right?

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Stand guard. Like what's on the horizon? Anything coming our way? Is there any danger happening here?

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What's going in? What's going out? Right, watch. Men, be watchmen on the wall.

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Like pastors. What's the state of your flock? Pastors as elders in the cities of this land.

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What's coming into your community? What's going out of your community? Where is the enemy killing, stealing, and destroying in your community?

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Watch, be aware. Know what's going on. Right? Fathers in the home.

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What's the state of your children? What are they listening to? What are they watching? Who's influencing them?

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Do you still have their heart, father? Do you? Watch, be aware.

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Don't fall asleep at the wheel. Critically important stuff.

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So men, you gotta watch. You gotta be vigilant. You gotta be awake. You gotta be aware.

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You know, I don't know where you grew up or where I grew up. I grew up in the mean streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut, which means

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I was on red alert all the time because 90 % of my neighborhood was black and Puerto Rican.

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And I was white and it didn't go over very well. So I know discrimination from the other side of the tracks.

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I'm just telling you right now. And when I walk the street, you better believe me, and my spidey sense was like, and I'm watching.

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And I'm very much aware of danger. And you give me a hint. Just give me a hint.

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And I'm going nuclear. I'm going nuclear. I'm not saying to do that.

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I'm just telling you, when you're in dangerous situations, you gotta be alert.

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You gotta be active. You gotta be aware. Really, really important.

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Your wife, your children, the church, the community depends on this. So what kind of leaders are we looking for today is leaders that understand that God works through headship.

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You gotta understand that truth. And if he's put you in that position, you need to be faithful.

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Amen? Okay, second principle. Ready? God judges and restores nations based upon leadership.

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You ready? God judges and restores nations based upon leadership.

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If you have your Bibles, turn to Isaiah chapter three. We're gonna look at some scripture here.

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For Jerusalem stumbled, this is verse eight. And Judah is fallen.

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Now watch this. Because their tongue and their doings are against the

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Lord. Now this is a critical foundational context for one of the reasons why

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God will judge a nation. When our sayings and our doings are against the

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Lord, that is one of the primary reasons why

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God will judge a nation. And now the question is, what does the judgment look like in the real world?

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What does that look like? Well, if you're watching the news today, you're gonna see a lot of what the judgment of God looks like when a nation's sayings and doings are against the

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Lord. Now watch this. To provoke the eyes of his glory, the look on their countenance.

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Oh my gosh, have you seen it? Oh my gosh, the smugness, the vileness, witnesses against them.

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And watch this. And they declare their sin like Sodom. They hide it anymore.

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They're shouting it from the rooftops, right? They do not hide it.

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Woe to their soul. For they have brought evil upon themselves.

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Say to the righteous that it shall be well with them. We got some hope, amen.

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By the way, along those lines, to give you hope for the future.

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Remember in the book of Ezekiel, when God called for the slayers to come before him?

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Starting in God's sanctuary and going throughout the land and slaying everybody.

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Do you remember the one people he told them not to touch, not to slay?

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He says, you don't touch those that have my mark. And what is that mark?

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Those that are vexed, those that are crying out to God because of the abominations in the land.

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You don't touch that. So we don't wanna talk about the mark.

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Wanna get a mark? That's a good mark, okay? He says, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.

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Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with them. For the reward of his hands shall be given him.

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In other words, whatever these craven ingrates wants in this nation, they may get and then they won't be able to live with it.

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They will actually rue the day. They decided to go in this direction. As for my people, now watch this.

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As for my people, children are their oppressors. And women rule over them.

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Oh, my people, those who lead you cause you to err and destroy the way of your paths.

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All right, so let's unpack this, brothers and sisters, okay? Now, I gave you a presupposition.

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God judges nations according to leadership. He also restores them, and I'll get to that later.

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But right now, we're dealing with God judging nations based upon leadership.

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What sets up this judgment? A nation whose sayings and doings are against the

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Lord. And what is the consequence when the sayings and doings of against the

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Lord, when you study Isaiah chapter three, the respected elder, the honorable man, the true prophet, guess what?

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Those guys are all dissed. They're marginalized. They're ignored.

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They're mocked. They're scorned. Have you not seen it in these days? Men pouring out their lives, begging this nation to come back to moral sanity and the truth to set them free.

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And how are they treated in these days? They hate us with a burning hatred.

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They want us dead. I'm gonna tell you right now, they want us dead. I wish I can share with you my fan mail that I get on a constant basis.

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And God help me when one of my loved ones die because they'll stick that knife in and they'll twist it.

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Some of the most cruel, perverse, unbelievable demonic stuff that gets thrown at you.

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This is the consequence when our sayings and doings are against the

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Lord. And how does it culminate? And this is so beautiful in the

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United States of America. We're so enlightened. We're so sophisticated. We're the 20th century, 21st century citizens of the world.

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And Rusty, why don't you get with God's program here? Why don't you grow up and leave behind this antiquated superstition that you believe?

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We're so enlightened. We're so sophisticated. But what is the consequences?

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Children will be your oppressors. Have you seen the youth in America?

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Have you seen them? Do you see what they think, what they believe, and how they act?

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Are they honorable to the elder? Do they have any respect for anything?

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In fact, I saw on Facebook, I couldn't believe it. I saw on Facebook a little old lady just trying to cross the street in a walker.

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I mean, seriously, she was like probably 90, a hundred years old. She's a little old lady trying to cross the street.

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Like back in the day, you know, kids would come behind the elderly. Can I help you cross the street? Well, not today.

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Not today. The young people were blocking her way, wouldn't let her get by, was screaming at her.

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I said, man, these kids, has anybody ever told you, no? Has anybody take down your pants and spank the hell out of you?

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No. So full of themselves.

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And what is the consequence? They're oppressing our nation. And women are ruling over us.

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And so what is God saying in his word? Hey, people, whenever you exchange patriarchy for feminism, you're going deeper and deeper into my curse upon this nation.

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And it's just a harbinger of woe that is to come. And all the subsequent evils that have come with it, abortion, homosexuality, gender confusion, and the total breakdown of the family.

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This is the high price we pay when our sayings and doings are against the

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Lord. And what he does is he'll set down the good men and then he'll turn you over to weak, inept, wicked, corrupt leaders.

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Are we not seeing that in these days? We are.

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God also restores nations based upon leadership.

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Can anybody give me a scenario of the book of Judges? What do we see in the book of Judges?

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In the early part of the book of Judges, what do we see? There's some patterns. It's like 400 and some odd years of history in Israel, but we see some patterns in society, in the culture.

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Okay, but basically when God's people are walking in fidelity with him and obeying him, how many know there's not a power on this earth that could crush

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Israel if they were walking with God? I mean, all the nations of the earth could combine together and you don't touch the apple in my eye, ain't happening.

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But what are we prone to do? We're prone to get lax. We're prone to take the blessing of God and turning it to the curse of God, right?

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We get lazy, we get forgetful, we start to indulge. We become hedonistic where pleasure is the ultimate goal.

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And before you know it, we're acclimating to the spirit of the age and the idols of the land.

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And we start going into idolatry. We start playing the harlot. Going a whoring after other gods.

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And before we know it, God lifts his hand and oppression comes upon us.

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Now it's interesting because the book of Judges, you can basically break it down by two sayings. From the beginning of the book towards a little bit halfway point, there was a saying.

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And that saying was Israel did evil in the sight of the

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Lord. Now, can I tell you as hard as that statement is,

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Israel had hope. Israel had hope in that statement.

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Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. That means they finally got it.

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Oh my gosh, all this stuff has come upon us because we have done evil in the sight of the

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Lord. And what would they do? They would cry out to God. They would humble themselves.

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They would repent. They would plead with God to save them. And guess what? God is mighty to save.

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He would answer their cry. He would come to their aid and to their help. In fact, there were times in the

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Old Testament, and I don't wanna screw with anybody's theology here, but I'm just telling you, it's what the Bible says. Okay, where he said, that's it, you're done.

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You know, I'm no longer gonna help you. Listen, you wanna help, you just cry out to your idols, see if they'll save you, because I'm done with you.

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It ain't happening, no more. Get away from me. And then he would see them suffer.

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He would come to their aid. He would rescue them. Even when he said,

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I'm not doing this anymore. Now, I don't know, again, I don't know what that means theologically, but I'm just telling you, that's what the

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Bible says. So they cry out, but how did

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God answer their prayer? How did deliverance come to their nation?

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He raised up judges. He raised up champions. He raised up leaders, amen?

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And these men would lead Israel in repentance.

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They would drive out the enemies. They would break the oppression, and they would restore the land in peace and in righteousness.

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And yes, that pattern continued throughout Israel's history. But then we come to the latter part, which

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I think is more where we are at today, because there was another saying in the book of Judges.

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And this is probably the most horrific part of the entire Bible. This was a horrendous time in Israel's history.

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It was its most bloodiest, perverse time in Israel's history.

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And the statement that captured that was there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eye.

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You see the difference? Israel did evil in the sight of the

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Lord. We got hope. We got hope for a nation when we understand we have done evil in the sight of the

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Lord. But you get to the place where there's no standard, no king, no truth to judge things by, and every man does what is right in their own eyes?

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Violence, perversion, corruption. And see, if anybody saw my post today, that was part of what

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I was trying to share from my heart is America, we've abandoned the two sure fixed standards for judgment and guidance in our nation.

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God Almighty and His holy word, His commandment. That's the eternal fixed standard by men and nations are judged.

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But we also have our earthly temporal standard, our own founding documents, the

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Declaration of Independence, the Constitution. Now I said in the video, these founding documents, they're not inspired by God.

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They're not holy writ, they're not sacred. But you know what? In a fallen world, pretty good document.

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Pretty good. It's kept us for 250 years. Are you kidding me?

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Name another nation that has sustained himself without coups and military takeovers and all kinds of insanity.

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You know, we had the American Revolution, we had the French Revolution. We only had one revolution that's kept us for 250 years.

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You know how many times France has to change their form of government since the French Revolution? Try being a

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Frenchman. You'd be changing uniforms on a daily basis. Try living in that sanity.

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And what's happened to us? Because we've abandoned God, because we've abandoned his commandment, because we even abandoned our own founding documents.

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And guys, listen. Yes, we've had warts, we've sinned as a nation before.

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There was slavery, there was segregation. These were real evils. And I'm not making light of it.

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But the point of the matter is, at that point, we knew we had done evil in the sight of the

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Lord. And we had men of God, reformers like Frederick Douglass, when this guy was against slavery, he never said, hate

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America, leave America, burn it to the ground. He said, let us get back to God and let us get back to our national creed and covenant.

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We say we are this, but we're doing that. We're hypocrites, we're inconsistent.

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Get back to God, get back to consistency. Get back to your creed and your covenant. And we corrected those wrongs.

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So important in these days. But where are we? Are we at, oh,

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America has done evil in the sight of the Lord? Or are we at, there is no standard, there is no king.

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There is no truth. And so we're just gonna do whatever we wanna do according to our own eyes and our own loss and what we think and what we believe.

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Well, is there any hope?

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Is there any hope? Well, I will tell you, if it is true that God judges and restores nations based upon leadership, you think it might be a good idea to start actually training godly men to be leaders?

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In other words, if that's the biblical prescription to restore a nation, how important is it we prepare for this?

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It could have a profound impact on our future and hope. All right. The last thing,

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I spit on my own glass. At least it wasn't you guys. Somebody told me when

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I preach, I need to have like one of those buckets to buffade things. Sorry, guys. All right, here's the last principle.

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There is a great need for prophetic reformers.

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There's a great need for prophetic reformers.

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Okay, we talked about God works through headship. We talked about God judges and restores nations based upon leadership.

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And now we're bringing to the table, there is a great need for prophetic reformers.

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There was a principle that came out of the historic reformation.

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It was called Semper Reformanda. Semper Reformanda. Does anybody know what that means?

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Always reforming, always reforming. I mean, they were telling us back then, this is not it.

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There's more to go. There's more to go. And the reformers knew the nature of us.

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They knew that we could be lazy. They knew that we could be forgetful.

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And quite frankly, they knew that we would struggle with our sinful nature against the Lord and that we would fail

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Him. And so this always reforming is always set before us.

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And I find this astounding. This is a thought that came to me at the 500 year anniversary of the reformation.

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I thought, wow, you know, a lot has happened in 500 years. There's a lot of water under that bridge.

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And it just hit me. It's been 500 years since the church took a time out and said, hold the presses.

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Like, what are we thinking? What are we believing?

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And how are we behaving as Christians in this world? And then take that and hold it up to the light of scripture and see if we pass muster.

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Do you realize it's been 500 years since we've taken inventory? So my question is, how much do you think the

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American culture and government has influenced the American church? How much has the American church always reforming, right?

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And let me tell you, that's just important for you as an individual too. Because honestly, most

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Christians get their worldview not from the scripture. They get it from their families. They get it from their education and they get it from their political party.

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That's where most Christians get their worldview today and not from the

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Bible. And I'm telling you, that era has devastated our nation.

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Absolutely. And so when I'm talking about being a prophetic reformer, it's like the sons of Issachar.

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Do you remember the sons of Issachar in the Old Testament? It says they were men, listen, they were men, not babies, not boys, not girls.

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They were men who understood the times and knew what

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Israel ought to do. I cannot tell you how we need the sons of Issachar today.

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Men who understand the times and knows what the church ought to be doing right now.

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Because I'm telling you right now, this nation is so bereft of leadership.

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Incredible from the church house to the White House. And like our nation is like floundering.

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Like, yeah, that's hard and that's difficult, but what an opportunity. If the church would step up and fill that void, and give a clear, clarion sound of truth.

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So needful, so needful. So the need is great, but the opportunity is also great.

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So where are these men of Issachar? Well, whoever they are, we need you.

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If you have your Bibles, this is gonna be our last passage of scripture. Turn to Matthew chapter 11.

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Because there's a few things I wanna say about prophetic reformers. And our

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Lord kind of always sets the example. See, when

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I'm talking about being a prophetic reformer, please listen to this, it's so critically important.

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If we're gonna be honest, prophetic reformers, some things are required.

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Number one is kind of what I already shared a little bit. You have to honestly assess your generation.

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You gotta take time and you gotta do inventory. You gotta assess your soul.

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You gotta look at the condition of the family in your nation. You gotta look at the condition of the church in your nation and you gotta look at your nation.

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And you have to honestly assess it, not by the opinions of men, but by thus saith the

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Lord. You have to do inventory. You have to make an honest assessment.

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In other words, you gotta find out what is. What is.

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Like my wife and I, she's like a what if person. Like we have a situation and she's already 20 years down the road and I'm like, honey,

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I can't get there. I can't get there. Too many variables, too much stuff going on.

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I don't think we're gonna get there. But I can't do it what is, I can deal with that. The what if, whoa, that's like God's realm.

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I can't go there. But honestly, to be a prophetic reformer, you have to honestly assess what is.

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What's family like in America? What's the church like in America? What is our nation like? And you really have to be brutally honest in your assessment.

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You can't sugarcoat these things. We gotta be very honest and truthful in our assessment. And so we have to find out what is.

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So here's Jesus giving his assessment of his generation.

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So he says in verse 16 of chapter 11 of Matthew, he says, but what shall

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I liken this generation? Interesting enough, guys, God not only judges individuals, he judges generations.

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Remember when he said, if Tyr and Sodom, he said of all the great works were done in Sodom, they would have repented.

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But you, he basically said, this generation, because you rejected me,

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Sodom is gonna do better in the judgment than you. And he's talking about that generation.

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He says, but what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling their companions saying, we played the flute for you and you did not dance and we mourn to you and you did not lament.

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For John came neither eating nor drinking and they say, he has a demon. The son of man came eating and drinking.

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They say, ha, look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. But wisdom is justified by our children.

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So here's the Lord's assessment of his generation. By the way, these were

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God's covenant people. They had the scriptures, they had the covenants, they had the law. If anybody had the advantage of knowing who

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Christ was, these are the guys. And he comes and he sends John the

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Baptist and John the Baptist, he's that hard -hitting guy and he's calling them to mourn and lament and repent.

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And then Jesus is hanging out with the tax collectors and the sinners and he's partying with them and he's ministering to them.

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He never sunk to their level, but he still hung with them. But the fact of the matter is, his generation did respond to God.

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They were still responding to God, just not correctly responding to God.

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So when God said, mourn, no, we wanna party. And when

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God said, dance, forget about it, okay?

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And I gotta tell you, it's a very dangerous place for a nation and generation that doesn't respond correctly to God when he's dealing with your nation.

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It's like in America, we're a very religious nation and we're responding to God, but are we responding to him correctly in this hour?

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As prophetic reformers, we need to know. And here's the deal, guys, prophetic reformers, their calling, their mission is to take what is and give their lives to make it what it ought to be.

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I'm gonna say that again. Remember, honest assessment of your soul.

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If you're married, your marriage, your family, the condition of family in this nation, the condition of the church in this nation and our nation itself, what is, okay?

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And then you commit your life to God in such a way that you will pour it out to make what is, what it ought to be according to God's word, will and way, and you do it all in the name of Jesus.

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Amen? The words of Rusty are complete. Is that what