-Transcript-
00:24 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:30 Welcome to the Cafe. So good to have you here today. It is such a wonderful day at the Cafe.
00:35 Hopefully you’re just having a great day, a great week. Thank you for joining us. If you haven’t already, check us out on your favorite podcast application, podcast app, I guess you say.
00:49 Search up KJV Cafe and go ahead and subscribe. Every day there’s a new episode just like this, where we dive into the Bible, study the Bible, and we’ll be blessed for it.
00:52 I know I am, and I know pretty much most of what I preach here is preached at our little congregation, our little church, and they also too, I believe, are blessed from God’s Word.
01:01 Nothing I did, but from the Holy Spirit working within them to help discern God’s Word as we praise God for all glory and all the wonderful things He’s done, and He deserves all glory, honor, and praise.
01:16 Guess what He has done? He’s told us to pray without ceasing, hasn’t He? And He’s told us here through Paul talking to Timothy in the first letter there, 1 Timothy2: 1-3, He’s told us to pray for our leadership.
01:28 I exhort, therefore, that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.
01:50 I love this verse so much because guess what? I want to live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. That sounds great.
02:01 If you woke up this morning and someone said to you, friend, sir, ma’am, would you like today to have a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty? Well, I bet you’d say, yeah, I would.
02:12 You know, sometimes the Lord will reveal it to me, but sometimes, you know, Lord, is it going to be a good day? There’s an old bluegrass song you hear on the radio sometimes, Lord, let today be good, you know.
02:22 And it would just be funny if one day the Lord was just like, well, today, you’re going to live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Look, that sounds fantastic to me.
02:31 In this broken, wicked world full of sin and turmoil and anger and rebellion and fallen man and all the rest, to have just some peace of mind, to have just some quiet time, that sounds good, amen.
02:47 That sounds good. And I could spend a whole year preaching on that, but for time’s sake, let’s get to the point here.
02:56 In order to have that wonderful peace, that we can praise God, that we can live as God calls us to live, which is quite different than the world, by the way, we need to have friendly leadership.
03:06 We need to have leadership that even if they are not Christian, they’re not saved, imagine that. We may have leadership that’s not saved, imagine that.
03:09 They at least have to be friendly to Christians, to allow Christians to live out their faith. That is what we need to pray for. And if we do, God, the God of the universe of all power,
03:27 and we know the Bible tells us that he has the ears and the hearts of the kings, he knows what to do, he knows how to move them here or there, and he does at his good will and pleasure, that that sovereign God moves that leadership to allow us to have that liberty so that we can then have that quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
03:49 And it says here in verse three, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. Well, I interpret that as saying that this is what God wants you to do.
04:00 You know, you ever say, oh God, what’s your will for my life? Well, here’s one, pray for all men.
04:06 And by the way, make sure you pray for your leadership, especially that you can live as God has called you to live. And you know, what does the Bible tell us about godly living?
04:17 Well, it has a lot to say on godly living. We are to, again, pray without ceasing.
04:23 We are not to be ashamed of Jesus or he’ll be ashamed of us. As we see the day coming, which we clearly do, we are to meet more and more, not less and less, amen, and not just online. If we can help it, we need to be in person.
04:34 We are called to be set apart, amen. We are to raise our children in the understanding and admonition of the Lord, which if your school is teaching a bunch of wickedness and perversions, it might be time to get the child out, either to homeschool or Christian school or so forth, on and on.
04:52 You know, all of these things require the government’s basically stamp of approval.
04:58 As a young person, as an ignorant person, I didn’t understand that, but hey, I went to college. My major was politics and government because I didn’t understand it at all, and I said, let me learn about this.
05:06 I didn’t know anything, and I learned, I said, wow, the government has a lot of control over the people, even in America, and America is comprised of a bunch of states, and guess what? On the state level, that’s where a lot of things are happening, good or bad.
05:18 We as Christians have a very unique calling that goes against the world, and so if you have a bunch of worldly leaders, carnal, sold out to the devil, and the ways of this world, and they hate Christians,
05:31 it’s not going to be a good time to live in that place, and that I believe sums up some places in America, but not others, thank God. And so we’re here called to pray for all men. We’re to pray for the hells of this world.
05:45 I read this in a commentary, the hells of this world, for the wicked pleasure seekers, for example, God desires all to be saved. For the blasphemous atheists and unbelievers, God desires all to be saved.
05:56 For the enemies of the faith, God desires all to be saved.
06:06 I mean, think of Paul. He was a straight-up enemy of Jesus, and God saved him, converted him, taught him, you know, the whole idea of turning to the Gentiles, and then used him in such a mighty way that he’s written a good part of our Bible, and he gives us our doctrine here, us being Gentiles, he gives us our doctrine. Paul says, follow me because I follow Christ.
06:23 We have to pray for our personal enemies. God desires them to be saved too. For the fallen believers, the backslid, those that once might have been on fire for God and now don’t want anything to do with him, God desires us to pray for them too.
06:36 And so we are to pray for all men. And as we have that heart for the ones in the world, the sick, as Jesus would say, I didn’t come to heal the healthy, I came to heal the sick. So we pray for the sick.
06:49 We pray for the addict. We pray for the heathen. We pray for all of these folks.
06:55 Then our hearts are soft, and while we’re at it, we need to say, God, we need you to remember our governor. We need you to remember our county councilman. We need you to remember our city council.
07:08 We need you to remember our school board. We need you to remember our mayor, God. We need these people to understand what it means to serve and live for you and allow us to have such liberties.
07:17 And as I mentioned a previous episode, recently drove to Kentucky with my family, spent time in Tennessee and Kentucky, and I was praising God for the liberty in Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as we have in North Carolina.
07:33 There was churches everywhere, amen There was scripture on signs. Again, the Ark Encounter is a massive exhibit to creationism, which is the opposing view of what’s taught in many public schools.
07:49 And yet here we live in a country, and those that live in Kentucky, you’re free to worship. You’re free to go there, you know? On and on, on and on. It’s amazing, the liberties in Kentucky and Tennessee, and again in North Carolina.
08:05 As a homeschool dad, I was very pleased to see how simple it was to pull my kids out of that public school, to take them away from a lot of teachings that I disagree with that aren’t biblical, and to teach them, and every day they have a course in Bible.
08:16 That’s how we start every day. And they are young kids, and we are spending as much time in the Bible as we are on math or letters or anything else.
08:26 And in North Carolina, that is okay, amen? That is okay. And if our church wanted to say, go rent a school for Sunday morning service in North Carolina, that’s okay, but in some states, it’s not okay.
08:38 They won’t let you rent that school, amen. They’re going to come hunt you down and want to know why you’re teaching your kids at home or what you’re teaching them.
08:45 In some places, you’re not allowed to worship here or there. I remember years ago, there was a controversy where some government officials were asking to see transcripts of sermons. It’s crazy in America, but they were asking for that.
09:02 And so what we see here is there’s kind of like this cause and effect. God is saying, here’s an issue I want you to pay attention to, prayer, right? And you need to pray for everyone, especially those that you might not think of first.
09:12 Pray for those people, pray diligently, pray earnestly, pray sincerely, because again, God has all power.
09:20 It’s nothing for him to execute his power. It’s everything for us to pray. I’ve heard that people say that praying is hard.
09:30 I agree with that. People have called prayer a striving with God, right? It’s like you’re going and wrestling with God in a way. It can be exhausting, amen? I think a lot of people kind of chuckle and say, oh, I was praying and I fell asleep.
09:42 Well, there’s a little bit more to that than you may think. It may be that you fell asleep because spiritually it’s very challenging to go to God in prayer when the devil is fighting it. Maybe our own fallen nature is fighting it.
09:53 The flesh is fighting it, on and on. And yet we are to pray without ceasing. We are to go to God.
10:01 Now, I believe prayer is like a muscle. It’s just like going to the gym. You know, when I was in high school, I wanted to get big.
10:08 We were the Broncos, our arch rival was the Vikings, and they had the Viking slayers, and those were people that could bench press a lot, so I’d be working on that bench press.
10:15 And it was a pretty simple deal there. The more you lift those weights, the more frequently you did, and the heavier they were, the stronger that you got.
10:22 And of course, you get injured if you’re not careful, but otherwise, that was basically it. Well, the more that we pray, and the heavier that we pray, and the more diligently that we pray, the stronger, I believe, our faith will get.
10:35 And of course, the Bible says that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
10:41 So it’s symbiotic. You need to be in the Word, but you’re in the Word, and you’re praying, and you’re in the Word, and you’re praying. And guess what? All of a sudden, you’re a prayer warrior, amen.
10:46 And you’re looking forward to that prayer time, and you’re not fatigued by that prayer time.
10:51 And spiritually, you love being in the presence of God, amen. My prayer lately, all the time, has been, God, stay near, stay near. So I’ll pray in the morning. I’ll pray in the evening.
10:59 I’ll pray in the afternoon, if I can. And in between that, God, just stay close. Stay close, right? And you’re just loving the Lord’s presence, because it’s a muscle, and you’re strengthening that muscle, and you’re becoming a strong man in prayer, amen. That’ll preach right there.
11:13 And guess what? As you’re doing those things, and as you’re going to an almighty, all-sovereign, all-powerful God, saying, Lord, remember our government, oh, God can move, and God, I believe, will move. He’s asking. The Scripture here says this is what He wants us to do.
11:30 Verse three says of 1 Timothy 2, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. So if you want to know what is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, it is to pray, and it is to pray for all men, including, especially, leadership, that they will allow free worship, so that then what?
11:46 We can live peacefully. And the implication is, you know, it’s not that we’re going to roll over if leadership, then if we got wicked leadership, let’s say, here in the Carolinas, and shut everything down, Christians aren’t going to pack up and say, I’m leaving the faith.
12:02 I hope they wouldn’t do that. They’re simply going to say, okay, it’s going to be a little less peaceful. All right, it’s going to be a little more challenging.
12:08 You know, that saw log backbone’s going to come out, and it’s going to say, okay, well, then they’re going to have to go ahead and give me a ticket, give me a fine. They’re going to go ahead and have to whoop me.
12:14 You know, what Jesus told the disciples, what they were going to have to face.
12:19 Okay, this is going to happen, right? All right. You know, so what God is saying is not that pray so that you can be a Christian. God’s saying, pray that you can be a Christian and live peacefully, live quiet.
12:31 You know, a lot of people did yard signs during COVID with their churches and stuff. We had one for the cafe, it said something like, you know, church at home, kjvcafe.com or something simple.
12:41 You know, I was praising God, I could stick that in the yard, that yard sign, anyone that drove by, whether they like it or not, it’s in my yard.
12:49 On public areas where they have like the political signs or whatever, you know, little public areas, they have all the yard signs, I’d put that sign there.
12:59 Some stayed up for a little while, some didn’t stay up as long, but I praise God for that liberty and that’s what we’re talking about here today. Praying to God for liberty, to live for Him, and that is, I believe, His desire for us.
13:10 So it is beautiful. God wants us, I believe, Lord willing, and we know we’re going to have turmoil, but God wants us to have peace and He provides a peace that surpasses all understanding.
13:22 And He can put in place leadership that can help and allow, again, I mean, if you look at the Arc Encounter, it’s massive.
13:32 They had to have it rezoned. I mean, there’s all kinds of things that they had to do with the government. They had to pull all these permits.
13:40 A corrupt government, which by the way, many governments are corrupt, could have said no or could have looked for bribes or whatever else.
13:48 I have a missionary friend in a far-off country that told me flat out, if you want a church built in that country, you have to pay a bribe or it won’t get done. Look, in America, we can build a church as long as it’s within the zoning code.
14:01 So we need to pray for those that work in the zoning code office, whatever that’s called. We need to pray for our school boards, our governors, our mayors, our councilmen, and maybe God wants you to run for office or God wants you to help on a campaign.
14:16 Whatever it may be, turn to an all-powerful God and pray without ceasing for those in power and all men so that we can live that quiet and peaceful life that God wants to give us.
14:26 Thank you for listening. Tune in next time. Take care. God bless and amen.