In the sermon titled 'America - Last Bastion of Freedom,' Scott Brown addresses the challenges facing America as a nation, particularly focusing on the erosion of freedoms due to unrighteous governmental decrees. The sermon begins with a reflection on Isaiah 10:1, discussing how current rulers are making unrighteous decrees. Brown emphasizes that America is uniquely positioned as a bastion of freedom, a status threatened by governmental overreach and cultural shifts. Ash Noah, who has lived in numerous countries, echoes this sentiment, asserting that America remains the last frontier for Christian freedom. The sermon highlights the importance of understanding biblical justice and the critical role of genuine conversion in promoting national righteousness. Brown discusses the threats to church and family jurisdictions and calls for a return to biblical principles, emphasizing the need for the church to teach all of Jesus Christ's commands. The sermon concludes with a call to action, encouraging believers to stand firm in their faith and prepare for future challenges, supported by a closing prayer for strength and revival.

Just this morning when I opened up my Bible to do my morning reading, I was in Isaiah chapter 10 verse 1, which reads, woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, who write misfortune which they have prescribed. And he's talking about rulers who make decrees that are unrighteous. We happen to live in a time when our rulers are making unrighteous decrees, some of the most unrighteous decrees that we've ever seen in our lifetime. I think we should recognize that the freedoms that we've had over the years in America are very unusual. America is is most likely the last bastion of freedom that exists in the world today.

What we have in America here doesn't exist in other parts of the world. We're getting close to losing it as far as it looks to me. I was speaking to one of the deacons of our church, Ash Noah, this morning and I asked him a question. We were talking about visiting and living in other countries and Ash has lived in so many countries It's not even funny. And I asked him a question about our nation based on his knowledge of other nations, because he's lived in many nations.

Ash Noah has lived in Australia, Sri Lanka, Greece, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Bahrain, Egypt, Sudan, Greece, India, the People's Republic of New York, and North Carolina. So I asked Ash, what's your view of what's happening in America? Now just to be very clear, you can find people who have visited these places. Ash didn't visit these places. He lived in these places and experienced the governments and the cultures of those places.

And Ash said something right off the bat that I thought was striking. He said that every other country in the world has already lost the freedoms that America has today. They lost them years ago. And what he said was, America is the last bastion of freedom that exists on the planet today. I want you to consider that and I want us to consider the seriousness of the moment that we're in right now.

We have seen government usurpations or freedom in many ways. Most recently, just in the last six months, usurpation of the freedom and the government of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And even the very health care of your family has been ordered by a government. We find ourselves in a moment where the Democratic Party platform actually lists the great sins of the Bible, the sins of sodomy, the sins of really oppression, the overthrow of the family, the neutralization of the church. This is the platform of the Democratic Party that's running against the opposition.

I was reading in Isaiah 3 5 recently the people will be oppressed Everyone by another and everyone by his neighbor. This is a culture of oppression We're seeing a culture of oppression by the left like never before Isaiah continues the child will be insolent toward the elder and the base toward the honorable. As for my people, children are their oppressors and women rule over them. Oh my people, those who lead you cause you to err and destroy the way of your paths, your paths, the paths of the church, the paths of the family, the paths of morality, and various things like that. The threats in my mind have to do with the overthrow of jurisdictions.

There is a, I'm just going to call the recent COVID experience as an experience of medical tyranny. There is very clearly ecclesiastical tyranny. For the first time in American history, the government is telling the church what to do. That has not happened before. When the government did that pastors didn't know what to do.

They never thought about such a thing. They never thought in all their lives that anything like that could happen to them. They never even had to process Romans 13 and 1st Peter 2 and the other texts of scripture that speak of obedience to the civil government under this grid. They just didn't have any experience with it. And so you know these jurisdictional overreaches are very very critical.

You know those of you that know about my ministry and the work of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches know that we've been speaking to the jurisdictions of the church and the family for about two decades. But right now, we think that speaking to those issues is even more critical. In fact, on Monday, if you're on our email list, you'll hear that we have changed the name of the National Center for Family integrated churches, and we've changed the name to Church and Family Life. Our view is that the great battles ahead, the great pressures ahead, will be over the jurisdiction of the church and the family, because the governments of this world and the moral oppressors in this world really want to destroy the jurisdiction of the family and they do want to destroy the jurisdiction of the church and preserving the jurisdictional powers of the family and the jurisdictional powers of the church I believe are the most critical matters. In fact in October 28th through 30th I'm having an online conference in place of our national conference called Jurisdictions Under Fire, Church and Family in the Balance, and I've got lots of men coming to speak to that.

I hope you can participate in that. All this to say, America is the last bastion of freedom in the world today. And I want to walk through Proverbs. Open your Bibles to the book of Proverbs. And I'm going to take some texts out of Proverbs sequentially through the book.

I'm going to start in chapter 14, verse 34, and we're just going to bounce through various texts in Proverbs that speak to the matter of living in a nation and how one ought to think about living in a nation and even a nation like ours. So I want to just walk through some of these texts. Why? Just to help us think about what God thinks about nations and how nations ought to operate and how we ought to think about it and frankly how serious it is when you have such overthrows of righteousness and purity and truth and the institutions that God has established in the world. So Proverbs 14 34, righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people.

So when you have righteousness in a nation, you have blessing. And there is reproach when sin runs wild in a culture as it is in our culture today. And what do Christians do about this? Well, genuine conversion, genuine transformation from one kingdom to another, The conversion of sinners to the lordship of Jesus Christ is the only pathway to the righteousness of a nation. Our means aren't primarily political means.

They are spiritual, and they have to do with the conversion of sinners. And if you're here today and you have you've not believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, there isn't really any way that you can be a part of establishing righteousness in a nation. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. God sent His Son to bear our sins on the cross so that we would receive the righteousness of God and the power of sin would be broken and We would have the power to walk in righteousness, but that power Doesn't happen to a person unless they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ unless they've been born again unless they've trusted in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And they have believed and they have received and they follow Jesus Christ and they obey his commands, his commands of righteousness.

The only way for righteousness to exalt a nation is for there to be true conversion. And that should stimulate us to share the gospel more than we ever have before. If you want to be a part of saving this last bastion of freedom, preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and teach everything that Jesus Christ has commanded. And Jesus Christ has commanded how everything should operate. Everything.

It's fraudulent and it's misleading to say all you need to do is preach the gospel message. America is full of churches that preach the gospel message, but they don't preach everything that Jesus Christ has commanded. And that's a serious error that exists in evangelicalism today. To preach the commands of God is called legalism among many, many evangelicals. And it's not legalism, it's faithfulness.

It's actually the fulfillment of the Great Commission. But it does begin with the preaching of the gospel message. But it never ends there. It can't end there. The great commission of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 28 demands that you teach one another everything that Jesus Christ has commanded.

And where do you find that? You find that from Genesis to Revelation. Every word of Scripture is a word of Jesus Christ. And so the preaching of the Gospel is the most important matter in securing the righteousness of a nation. Proverbs 20 verse 28, turn there.

Proverbs 20 verse 28. There's something that we need to recognize in thinking about kings, rulers, and those that are above us. Proverbs 20, 28. Mercy and truth preserve the king, and by loving kindness he upholds his throne it is God and God alone who upholds the king God sets Kings in power and he takes them down out of power by his own will at by his own wisdom. Look at Proverbs 20, verse 8.

We learn here that kings are called to scatter evil, to chase it away. Fathers are supposed to do that too. A king who sits on the throne of judgment scatters all evil with his eyes. Now we need kings like that but we also need fathers like that. We need fathers that scatter evil from their families.

Proverbs 28, 16. Discernment in evaluating rulers. Verse 16, Proverbs 28. A ruler who lacks understanding is a great oppressor, but he who hates covetousness will prolong his days. Here we find this matter of discerning our leaders.

Do they lack understanding? If they lack understanding, biblical understanding, then they will turn out to be oppressors. You have to recognize that. Proverbs 29 verse 8. This relates to many of the things that are happening in some of the cities in America, cities in flames.

Scauffers set a city aflame, but wise men turn away wrath. Wise men turn away wrath. You want governors who are turning away wrath, and those who are setting cities aflame need to be neutralized, not the other way around. Proverbs 29, verse 26. A wise king removes the wicked from his presence, Proverbs 28-26.

A wise king sifts out the wicked and brings the threshing wheel over them. In other words, he turns them to chaff and blows them away. That's what wise and righteous kings do. They get rid of the evil men around them. Proverbs 31 verses 4 and 5.

This really is a really in many ways a call to pray for the purity of Kings. Do you pray for the purity of your kings, of your civil rulers and your governors? Proverbs 31, 4 through 5. It is not for kings, O Lemuel. It is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes intoxicating drink, lest they drink and forget the law and pervert the justice of all the afflicted." This has to do with a king who is levelheaded and not influenced by other intoxicating influences, specifically wine here.

This is a king who desires to have his mind clear in order to lead. And the result of it is that he does not pervert justice. Everybody's concerned about justice today. And we do need biblical justice, absolutely. But it must be biblical justice, not the justice of the left, not the justice of critical race theory, not the justice of intersectionality and all the other ridiculous really unjust ideas which actually makes everyone an oppressor of everyone else you understand that that's the philosophy of the left You are now the oppressor of everyone and now everyone is oppressed.

Proverbs 29 12. This perhaps is one of the most comforting matters in the Proverbs regarding rulers and kings and that is that God is in control. Many seek the ruler's favor, but justice for man comes from the Lord. If there will be justice, it will come from the Lord. God actually does ordain kings to bring injustice in order to punish his own people and turn the church really to worship God and worship God alone.

If you look at the history of Israel, you find that often it was God who brought oppressors to Israel so that the people would worship God in spirit and in truth and perhaps that's happening to us today. What should we do? Turn. We should turn to the Lord with all of our hearts. I'd like to bring Ash Noah up here for a moment.

I'd like him to just give us his thoughts and then also pray for us. And after he's done, we'll just open it wide open for any questions of any of the speakers on any of the matters that we've engaged in over the hours that we've been together. So I bring before you the man who has lived in more countries than anyone I've ever known and probably ever will know. And Ash actually has, I think, a very helpful perspective on what's happening in America today. Ash?

This was absolutely extempore. There was no, This wasn't planned, but as Scott said, it came up with our discussion this morning around breakfast. My expression of gratefulness of this nation that is a nation where we can still say one nation under God is, in my opinion, and this is my opinion, the last frontier where Christianity still stands. Every other nation has capitulated, either in our recent history or in the last 15-20 years. Is there another nation where a church has stood up against the state?

Have you read a report from any other part of the world where a church has stood up against the state? Anyone? Have you heard about that in the U.S.? Yes. It is the last frontier.

I think the battle has been raging and countries have been falling. Countries have been falling to the evil one and have capitulated. The churches have capitulated. They don't have a voice. The church in America still has a voice.

And I believe that our sons in this room need to hear that. That we need to continue to, we don't bear arms, we, the fight that we are fighting is not against flesh and blood as Paul says. It is against powers and principalities and it is against the evil one who wants to claim this country as well. And I believe that God has sustained and preserved this nation for such a time as this, and we are living in such a time as this. I want to encourage us men and our sons that this is a time to take a stand.

And everything we've heard from the men today is about going back, returning to the ways of God. And I know I'm not calling you to arms to take up those AR-15s. That's not what I'm talking about. But I am encouraging us and calling us back to the Word of God and to what we've been listening to for the last day and a half. And take it seriously.

There is coming a time where we will have to perhaps pay with our lives. And we have to be prepared for that, and we need to prepare our sons for that because I believe this is the final frontier which is trying, which all the forces of darkness are trying to bring down. So I'd like to pray for us. I'd like to pray for the fathers, the sons, and our nation. And if you would join me in closing.

Heavenly Father, we come to you as blood-bought children of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you for our nation. We thank you that it is your hand that has preserved us. It is your hand that has preserved the remnant in this nation. Lord, I pray that as the battle rages, as we see lawlessness around us, as we see as we see your law being thrown out.

Oh Lord, we pray that you would give us men and our sons the strength to stand. Lord, stand not in our own strength, O Lord, but enable us through your Holy Spirit. Lord, that not only will we continue to fight sin within us and sin without, but Lord, that we would continue to speak Your Word boldly to a nation that in such a time as this needs to hear your truth. Lord, I pray for our churches, I pray that each one will stand. Lord, I pray for a revival within our hearts.

I pray for repentance I pray for repentance within our hearts first and repentance for having forsaken your ways. Lord, We have heard for a day and a half that we need to tread on the path that is narrow. For this narrow way leads to life, and the broad way leads to destruction. Lord, help our parts to be those pleasant parts that walk in your narrow way. And Lord, I pray that you would preserve us.

In Jesus' name, amen.