Time to be Sober Minded: America at 250

Time to be Sober Minded: America at 250

Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: Dr. James Spencer

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 7/1/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Sam Rohrer:

Well, hello and welcome to Stand in the Gap today. I’m glad that you’ve joined us as we welcome back today our guest, Dr. James Spencer. He’s the president of Useful to God Ministries and the D.L. Moody Center. Now, as we quickly approach our nation’s 250th birthday, millions are preparing to seriously celebrate. Others have been lining up to politically exploit this milestone. There are a lot of ways that people are approaching this, but my perception, few are truly looking into the mirror of God’s word for how God is looking at us and for how we can direct our nation’s thoughts to the worship of God who alone raises up nations and leaders and takes them down too. Over the last few weeks, I’ve used this upcoming anniversary to try and encourage people to look past the cultural noise and to examine America from God’s perspective. On June 19th, Dr. Carl Broggi joined me for a program entitled A Divine Diagnosis of America at 2:50.

On June 24, Michael Snyder, a watchman on the wall journalist joined me as we considered the increasing weather and natural disasters of 2026 and by all objective analysis. We demonstrated in that program historic, what’s happening in 26, that from all perspectives and from the standpoint of scripture meets the criteria of God speaking and manifesting his wake up calls to judgment. Then on June 26th, just last Friday from this program, analyzing the latest research from Dr. George Barnow, we reached the conclusion, I’ll get it out here, on the unequivocable conclusion that America at 250 is not a nation becoming a nation trending toward a nation of rebellion to God, but a nation in the death throes of dead faith and rampant idolatry, a country on literal life support. So listen to that program because it’s full of documentation. Now today, I’ve asked Dr. Spencer to join me as we connect kind of all of these pieces by tackling certain underlying myths and false security premises held by many Americans and far too many Christians about America at America 250 and that’s in regard to our past and our future.

Now our title today is Simple but urgent Time to be Sober Minded America at 250. And with that, I welcome back to the program, Dr. James Spencer. James, thanks for being back with me.

James Spencer:

Yeah, thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Sam Rohrer:

Dr. Spencer, as I alluded to in my introduction, there are many ways as we know that people are approaching America at 250, but very few, my perspective from a true biblical worldview perspective. So let’s consider in this segment a prevailing, I’m going to say intoxicating illusion out there. And that’s the comfortable assumption that because America has lasted 250 years that we are somehow guaranteed another 250 years. And there’s a few held by many and I think furthered by many in our current administration who assume a morally superior position, well, I’m going to say that God is on our side in a way that he isn’t for other nations. And in the minds of those who believe this assumption, I think the presence of our national motto and God we trust, which is so wonderful, but for then it’s proof that what has been will be and leads many, many political leaders and even religious leaders to stand up and when they’re done speaking to just throw in the phrase, God bless America, but they have no interest in adhering to God’s requirements for his blessings, maybe they don’t even know.

But you’ve referenced a passage from Genesis 15 that poses, I’m going to say, a serious question or consideration to our nation at this time. So here’s my question. In light of this passage, you’ll have to explain it obviously, but how it works with nations generally and how would you respond to and dismantle this false sense of national security that because we’ve been here 250 years, we’re going to make it another 250.

James Spencer:

Yeah. So the passage is actually in Genesis 15. It’s not Genesis 15: six, which is the one most of us know. Abraham believed God and credited him as righteousness. It’s actually Genesis 15:16 and the context here is that God is talking to Abram and he’s telling Abram that the people who come after him, his offspring will be sojourners and a land that’s not theirs and that they’ll be afflicted for 400 years. That’s verse 13. And then at the end, he talks about why that is and he says that they’re going to be in this situation for 400 years because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. The Amorites are the ones who are in the promised land at this point and so they have another 400 years before their quote unquote iniquity is going to be complete. Then the people of Israel are going to be brought out of Egypt via the Exodus and they are going to be brought into the promised land, but it’s going to take that amount of time.

And so what I think we can see from this passage is a couple of things. Number one, it’s not really up to Israel.This has nothing to do with Israel’s morality or their willingness to follow God or their piety. This is just what’s going to happen and Israel is going to end up being out of the land for 400 years because this other nation is already there. Amorites have a certain amount of time that God is going to forebear with them and then he’s not going to do that any longer. And so part of what I think this passage really helps us frame out for the United States is two things. Number one, 250 years is something to be grateful for, but there are nations that have lasted way longer. And so for us to think that if we put ourselves in the Amorite shoes and they’re in their 399 year in the land and they’re saying, “Wow, we’ve been here 399 years.

This is great. God is really blessing us.” We know they’ve only got one year left. They don’t. And so the length of time that we are established as a nation tells us something about who God is and what God is doing. He’s forbearing with us, giving us more and more opportunity that we can see God and perhaps find him. Now we see that in Acts 17:26 and 27, that God is establishing geographical and temporal boundaries that will allow those within a given nation to seek him. And so we should be very grateful for these 250 years, no doubt about it, but we should also feel, especially as Christians, a sense of urgency to be proclaiming the gospel because we don’t know ever how much time we actually have left. That to me is what it means to be sober minded at the 250th.

Sam Rohrer:

And James, I think that’s excellent because what you’re painting there is the picture throughout scripture that while God in the Old Testament was working with Israel, he was also working with all of the Gentile nations and as he is working still with Israel today, we are but one of the nations that exist and as that passage would indicate that our time in history may be as dependent as much on what we do, but as much as how God is working out his plan with other nations and ladies and gentlemen, isn’t that a great thing? That’s why when God says he raises up and that he puts down all nations because he is orchestrating what? His plan of redemption. It’s not us. It’s not about us individually or our nation individually because our believers all around the world and all time. God’s plan is why we always say when we pray, Lord, may your will be done.

All right. Now with that in mind, stay with us. Time to be sober minded America 2:50. When we come back, we’re going to build this out a bit more about this matter of God being on our… Well, if he just joining us, welcome aboard. This is Stand in the Gap today and our focus today is this time to be sober minded America at 2:50. My guest is Dr. James Spencer. He’s the president of the Useful to God ministry with a website at usefultogod.com that I encourage you to visit. He’s also the author of a book entitled Serpents and Doves: Christians Politics and the Art of Bearing Witness to Jesus. That’s the name of that book. You can find that and just Google it. But throughout the New Testament, the apostle Peter repeatedly commands the church. You can go and you can look it up there where he commands us to be sober minded and often connects with it watchful as in one Peter five: eight, for instance, where it says this, “Be sober minded, be watchful.” And there’s a reason for it.

Why? Well, your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Now, this isn’t a suggestion and I call it out because there’s something particularly noteworthy about that command. It’s a critical wartime command for Christians living in a dizzy culture like as we are. Spiritual sobriety means pulling our minds out of the cultural fog, which may vary from generation to generation and it does, but certainly we have a foggy one now in which we live, but why do we do that well so that we can see reality clearly? Now today in America, we know that the American church, well, you could use many adjectives, but one of them would be asleep. One of the most intoxicating myths I think keeping the American church asleep is the comfortable premise that America has lasted this long because God is on our side while he same time, God therefore must be against other nations.

Now in the end, we are where we are because we’ve set aside the authority of God’s word and we’ve covered this so clearly in other programs, but these are one of the areas where it works out. We confuse having historical Christian principles in our nation, which we have and for which we ought to be thankful and grateful, but we confuse that with actually possessing an active living faith. Now on a program I did with Dr. George Barnett last Friday with his very latest research and I referred to that and invite you to go back and listen to that program, but that research showed, we talked about it in depth that while 57% of all Americans, 57% of Americans acknowledge that they are created in the image of God, 57%, that’s a low number, but that’s also, you can say that’s a good number, but of that number and incredibly measly, 27% actually believe that human life is sacred in an equally abysmal 27% believe life has no intrinsic value at all.

Consequently, a 52% majority of Americans now view abortion as morally acceptable. That’s in this bizarre thought process. It’s like, how in the world can a clear majority acknowledge a creator but fully reject his authority and his ownership over creation in essence, making themselves little gods. And it’s why I entitled that program, America at 250, A Nation of Idolatry and Dead Faith. That was a fact based on factual survey research. Now, James, since scripture is given as we know for our learning and admonition, let’s look back to the Old Testament in this next segment or this one and the next one for a couple of applicable illustrations to America at 250. At one point I harken back to Joshua. Josh was leading the Israelites. He met the commander of the Lord’s army, we recall for those who know that, where the question wasn’t whether God was on Joshua’s side, but it was whether Joshua and the nation was on God’s side.

So here, break it down for us. How does a lack of biblical sobriety cause us to confuse a nation built on Christian principles with a truly Christian nation and why is it that the God is on our side premise offers a dangerous illusion as we hit this point of 250 years?

James Spencer:

Yeah, I think a couple things. Number one, and I address this in serpents and doves there is when we talk about the image of God language, you reference the statistic that 57% of Americans believe they’re created in the image of God, but throughout our history, whenever we have referenced being made in the image of God, it almost always is used in context where we’re appealing to people in order to give folks equal dignity. Now that’s a good thing. I think because we are made in the image of God, everyone carries an inherent dignity. What we sell them address, however, is the obligation that being made in the image of God brings with it. So if we just think about what the image of God is, it is us representing the triune God. And so as we represent that triune God, we are fundamentally dependent on him.

We are supposed to do and be things in the world that are reflective of who God is. He has a claim on our lives and in order for us to live out what it looks like to be God’s image, that puts obligations on us. It gives us a responsibility. It’s easy for us to talk about being made in God’s image from a dignity perspective, like we deserve a certain degree of dignity, it’s much more difficult to think about the obligation that being made in God’s image actually requires. And I think that’s part of the disconnect here. I think that at times what we’ve done is we’ve said, “Well, we’re made in God’s image. God is thus for us and as a nation, so long as we sort of root ourselves back into a general moral framework, we’re going to be okay.” But that shorts significantly what God really requires of us.

If we think back on those ideas of what it means to be made in God’s image, it requires so much more than just a vague morality. It requires a deep allegiance to the Lord and to the Lord alone. And so this is what it means to be made in the image of God. Now it gets confusing because we do see glimmers of that image even in people who don’t know Christ. They can do things that are good, they can speak truth, they can create beauty and these are things that are shining through this brokenness that we have as fallen men and women, fallen societies. We shouldn’t reject that, we should affirm it, but we should also as Christians be pointing behind that to the source of that goodness, truth, and beauty. Why is it that these things are coming out of society? It’s not because this society has figured something special out and that we’ve arranged ourselves such that we are now the source of this goodness, truth, and beauty.

It’s because the way we’re arranged allows God’s goodness, truth, and beauty to shine through in unique ways. And so I think as Christians, we just have to get our heads around that. I think the reason that the God is on our side sort of illusion is so dangerous is because it creates complacency. We begin to think that everything is just going to continue as it is continuing right now. And so all we really need to do is give God some lip service, bring back some more laws that are maybe rooted a little bit more in Christian ideas and Christian principles and that America is going to be okay. I think that for the church, that is a really deceptive way of thinking. The church needs to recognize that what our role is, is to represent what… We pray, Lord, what is being done in heaven be done on earth.

That’s what we want, right? And so we’ve got to exhibit that and we need to understand that anything that our government does isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s always going to be very incomplete and it’s always going to be insufficient to bring about the sort of transformation that we have via the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ.

Sam Rohrer:

James, I’m hearing a number of things there and I’ve thought through even talking about the church, God is on our side. I think of Revelation three where Christ is analyzing the churches. He goes to Leo to see you and here’s the church, it’s got a lot of money, it’s got a lot of wealth. The people think really good things about themselves and as far as they’re concerned, all is well until Christ looks at them and says, “You don’t get it. You’re not only destitute, you’re not rich, you’re not only well clothed, you’re naked, you’re in bad shape.” That was the church. So it’s possible to get into this and hold a position about ourselves either as church, as a person, or as a nation that falls into this category that just doesn’t align with scripture, right?

James Spencer:

Yes. And I think Sam, just to reinforce that point, when you go back and you look at the church in Smyrna, this is a church that is poor, but Christ is actually rich and they’re rich not because they have material wealth, they’re rich because they’re obedient to him. And so all these things that we look at to sort of determine whether or not God is on our side. The only thing we really need to be looking at to determine whether God is on our side or probably better, we are on God’s side is are we being obedient to his word? Are we being loyal to him? Are we really pursuing conformity to the image of Christ and sitting under Christ’s authority or are we living life on our own terms and mistaking some of what God’s blessing comes through as him endorsing our behavior. And

Sam Rohrer:

Ladies and gentlemen, think about this. As American Christians, obviously we love our country. We should. Has God blessed us? Absolutely. But you know what? What about the Christian that sits in China or Russia? Some other country of the world right now, are they blessed of God? Well, as a nation, they’re not like ours, but see what I mean? So how does God look at? That’s the whole thing. God is operating his plan in a way beyond which we can see, but our responsibility and obedience ship to hip doesn’t change Welcome back to this special edition of Stand in the Gap Today and our focus today, our title is this Time to Be Sober Minded America at 2:50. And I’m talking today with Dr. James Spencer, the president of the Youthful to God ministry and he’s also president of the D.L. Moody Center. And we’re talking about shifting our perspective away from I would say cultural toxification and toward absolute biblical clarity in these days in which we are living, people have a tendency to approach all of life but special occasions like our 250th from their perspective.

So you will hear all kinds of things slanted or modified or however it may be from many different perspectives. But our goal is to really start with, I’ve done them past programs and I’ve talked about it a little bit in this program so you can go back and listen to it again if you didn’t catch the beginning of it, but really to ask the question, what does God say? Now in this segment, I want to address a massive blind spot for millions of patriotic Americans and I’m going to say the well-meaning 70% of Americans who profess to be Christians. You know, that’s what the number is right now in America, 70% used to be much higher, but 70% of Americans today now profess to be Christians. However, as the recent Dr. George Barna surveys confirm, and I dealt with that with him last Friday with a lot more detail built out, but here was a summary of it.

Nine of 10 or 90% of all Americans, 90% of all Americans, even though 70% claim to be Christians, okay 90% of all Americans, including those who profess Christianity, embrace the modern idolatry of syncretism. We’ve described that and defined that. That’s where people take a little bit from this religion and a little bit from that, a little bit of Christianity, a little bit of new age, a little bit of this, a little bit of that and they blend it together into how they feel in their gut and create their own religion. That is what this is, that nine of 10 prompting me to come to the conclusion that, well, in our nation it can be defined as dead faith, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. And it’s in this reality, the illusion of political and cultural reform thrives, but with a disastrous end, far too many professing Christians and patriots of all types, but they live under the premise that if we can just pass the right laws or clean up the public square, whatever that may mean, or win back our institutions, whatever that may be, we can save the nation.

But Dr. Spencer brought an incredibly sober minded illustration to the table today from two kings. King Josiah, and I’m going to ask him to explain this a little bit, so stay with me, but King Josiah, we know him, a righteous leader and he launched an absolute way called a blitz creek of spiritual reforms. He tore down pagan altars, he smashed idols and physically cleaned up the nation all good, right? Yet scripture records a terrifying footnote because despite Josiah’s radical external corrections, it did not stop the impending judgment of God against that nation. Why? Well, because under the surface, the heart of the culture remained unchanged and the cumulative ledger of generational sin, that Genesis 15:16 cup of iniquity that Dr. Spencer referred to in the other segment, first segment, it was already full. So James, here on June 19th, Dr. Carl Broggi was with me and we entitled that a divine diagnosis of our current state here in our nation.

But Dr. Spencer, connect these dots for us. Why is it a dangerous lack of sobriety to think that we can simply reform or legislate our way out of a divine tracking of a national iniquity? And what is it about the warning of King Josiah for America at 250 that might make that whole thing so it’s very applicable?

James Spencer:

Yeah. So I think a couple of things. Number one, Josiah finds out, God tells Josiah that his reforms are not going to be enough to save the nation of Israel. And part of the reason I find this narrative compelling is because Josiah goes ahead with the reforms anyway and that to me speaks to something that we need to get our heads around as Christians in America, that our actions should not be conditioned by the effect that we think they’re going to have Christians do the right thing because we’re seeking to glorify God, not because we think it’s going to restore a nation. And so our motivations have to be sort of checked there and I don’t think it’s bad to want to restore a nation at all, but we have to really recognize that we do these things regardless of whether the nation is restored because it’s the right thing to do and it points to and glorifies the triumph God.

That is what we’re doing and I think that’s what Josiah does. Josiah’s reforms are for Josiah at the very least true reforms. He’s responding to what he sees in God’s word. He’s making changes to the nation and he’s trying to restore something that has been lost even though God tells him that, “Hey, this isn’t going to work. It’s not going to save the nation. Josiah continues to do it anyway.” And I think that’s just sort of a crucial aspect of that narrative that we need to get our head around.

Sam Rohrer:

We hear

James Spencer:

A lot of talk about what we should do in order to restore America and I think that Christian language just needs to change a bit to say, “These are the things that the church needs to do in order to point to and glorify God and whatever happens, happens.” That small mental shift does not deny that we love our nation. It does not deny that we could work to try to get certain laws passed or what have you, but what it does is it reminds us that our role here, our basic responsibility is not to make sure that America lasts another 250 years. It’s to make sure that we are pointing to and glorifying the triune God. And so as we think about some of the things we could do, some of the things like passing legislation, what have you, I think these things are really good things for us to do.

We do need our government to recognize that it sits under God’s authority and so advocating for certain sorts of legislation and pointing the government to the fact that it sits under God’s authority, encouraging it to recognize that, encouraging it in the right direction, participating in it so that it goes that direction, none of those are bad things so long as they do not distract us from proclaiming God and pointing to and glorifying a triumph God.

Sam Rohrer:

James, that’s excellent. And makes me think of this again using Josiah, Israel, the Old Testament. God raised them up as a nation. We know in addition to for whom the Messiah would come as a part of God’s plan of redemption, but as a nation, he raised them up as a witness to the Gentile nations that when a nation made up of individuals first who feared God and obeyed his commands, back to the obedience part we talked about earlier, that when that would be done by the people reflected in its leaders that there would be manifest blessings and there would be good consequences and that’s why the Lord said there in Deuteronomy 30, I put before you today two paths, two choices, choose life and blessing that you may live. That was God’s choice, but Israel didn’t do it and Josiah stepped into that whole thing.

We talked about that. But even later after that, then God challenged Israel and said, “You acknowledge me with your mouth, but your heart is far from me. ” So Go’s judgment then fell. But that brings us back to the importance here, James doesn’t it, and speak to this just briefly in the remaining time. We may look to our leaders, leaders may be good, they may be quite evil as it was in the history of Israel, but at the end of the day, every one of us ought to look in a mirror and speak to that again as we consider this time right now before us here.

James Spencer:

Yeah. If we think about it, God’s people, whether it’s Israel or the church, God’s people are supposed to be a light to the world and that light is supposed to draw people to God. So we see in the Old Testament in Isaiah particularly a couple times where the nations are flowing into Zion because they see the wisdom of the Israelites and they want to live as they live and serve the God that they’re serving. And so sometimes what I think happens is we tend to replace Israel with America or replace the church with America and we start thinking that this golden age is coming where the nations are going to flow into America That’s a wrong choice. And so for us, what we need to be doing is we need to be living so faithfully that we become that witness That is compelling to the people around us and so that they can not flow into our homes or flow into us, but so that they flow into the church and they can worship the God that they need to worship.

That is just part of our basic vocation. And so we’ve got to make sure that we keep these clean lines, not hard separations, but clean lines between what the church is supposed to be doing in this age, how the church is supposed to be engaging the world and where we need to be pointing people ultimately in order to be saved.

Sam Rohrer:

And ladies and gentlemen, it does pose us the question before us all, to whom are we pointing people? Those in office should point people to the worship of God as individuals. Do we point people and encourage them to look to the God of heaven? Okay. If we’re not, well, then we have the situation we have now. When we come back, we’re going to conclude by giving some final comments to then how we should stand sober in these days. Well, we move now into our concluding segment and our timely focus today on time to be sober minded America at 2:50. Over the last three segments, Dr. James Spencer and I have walked through, I’d say, some fundamental considerations that all serious minded patriotic Americans and particularly professing Christians I think must consider. If we are to obey the biblical command as given by the Apostle Peter to be sober minded and watchful in our age of deception, because why?

Peter gave the reason. Because the devil as a roaring lion is walking about seeking people that he can devour. Does that mean physically? No, no, no. But by distorting the truth and leading people away from an obedience and discipleship under Christ, first of all, with a true faith in Jesus Christ, but to lead them away to a false Christ and a false hope, obviously biblically, which ends in destruction. James has helped us to strip away here. Dr. Spencer has helped us to strip away the comfortable illusions that we so often can find ourselves wrapped in from the myth of a guaranteed future because been here for 250 years, we’re guaranteed another 250 years, that kind of thing and give a false security that perhaps because we had Christian principles applied more, I would say intently, purposely in decades past, that that somehow is an insurance policy for the days that are ahead.

But we know that scripturally that’s not the case. Now we are compelled to look into the mirror of God’s word as commanded by the Apostle James and ask the ultimate, I’m going to say sober minded question. And that is, if America is not guaranteed another day, which it’s not, we ourselves are not guaranteed another breath, right? But if America is not guaranteed another day, let alone another 250 years, here’s the question. How then shall we live? When a society becomes intoxicated by what Dr. Spencer, his book we referred to, calls an expressive individualism, which he does in there, where everyone acts as their own ultimate authority and that was what I cited is the result of the research conducted by Dr. George Barna where nine out of 10 Americans have embraced syncretism where they have become their own authority. That’s the incredible linkage there. It’s easy to start drinking the cultural Kool-Aid where we put our ultimate hope in political saviors and we panic as if the kingdom of God rises and falls with the American empire.

It does not. God’s word, that’s where it rises and falls. But true biblical sobriety does change our entire mission. I’ve talked about that. Michael Snyder reminded us that the warning signs of a culture running out of time are all around us and we referred to that in the Genesis 15:16 passage as well. So let’s just go here. Dr. Spencer, bring this home for us. What does it practically look like for the church, for believers, true believers to stop living drunk on cultural anxiety or political illusions, which I think so many do and start standing sober as a true faithful witness to the only kingdom that will actually last forever. And that’s the kingdom that Christ will reign over.

James Spencer:

To answer this question, I sort of like to go to an odd place and it’s Colossians three and it’s Paul’s instructions to bond servants and masters. And we think about bond servants and masters today and we often think, wow, that was an odd thing. And it’s sort of unfortunate that Paul didn’t try to abolish that. It seems like a really bad practice to us and there’s good reason to think about that and there’s a lot of nuance there, but I think what Paul does here is he’s saying, “Look, I don’t have the ability to change the bond servant structure in Roman society, but what I do have the ability to do is resituate the bond servant situation under the authority of God.” And so when he gives his instructors to bond servants, he tells them to obey in everything those who are your earthly masters with a sincerity of heart fearing the Lord.

He tells them to work heartily as for the Lord and not for men and he tells them that the Lord will give them an inheritance and a reward and so they’re serving Christ, they’re not serving men. And for masters, he says this, “Masters treat your bond servants justly and fairly knowing that you also have a master in heaven.” I think it’s crucial for us to get that sort of re-situation into our heads. We’re not going to change American democracy. We’re not going to convert the entire nation. We do not need America to become Christian. What we need to do is we need to recognize that all of these things around us, the apparatus of democracy, the apparatus of the American Republic, those things aren’t really going to change that much and we don’t need to change them. What we need to do is recognize that we serve God, that we are under his mastery and that as we interact with these things, that’s what we’re always doing.

We’re always trying to serve the Lord. I think the practical point here, Sam, is that as we engage in politics, as we engage in celebrations about the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding, as we engage in loving our country, all of those things can be very, very good so long as we do them under the authority of Christ. And what that ends up looking like in my mind is that the habits, the dispositions, the general practices that are sort of ingrained in us from an American perspective need to be shaped, reshaped by discipleship. We need to be, as I like to say, strange in the right ways

And that doesn’t mean we isolate ourselves from doing anything that other Americans might do. What it does mean is that when we do those things, we’re doing them as to the Lord. That distinction can be hard for people to grasp, but I would tell you, I think that is the way that the New Testament teaches us to do these things. I don’t think you’d be able to tell in just the technical way that a bond servant worked a difference between a Christian bond servant and a non-Christian bond servant, but I think that there is a really truly big difference between a Christian bond servant and a non-Christian bond servant. I think there’s a big difference between a Christian master and a non-Christian master and I think there needs to be a clear difference between a Christian living in America and a non-Christian living in America.

Sam Rohrer:

I think that’s a great final emphasis, Dr. Spencer and ladies and gentlemen, is that not our command as believers? One day we’re going to stand before if we truly know him and we will stand before the Lord and give an account for what we have done in this life. The beatitudes, Christ’s sermon on the mount tells people how we should think differently, live differently, how we should be salt and how we should be light in this world, regardless of the culture in which we find ourselves and regardless of where we are, the command is the same. Think like Christ, act like Christ, be salt, be light and direct people to the God of heaven through Jesus Christ who is the sum total of God’s plan of redemption and that’s our message. Lay that be our thoughts as we enter further into this weekend here of the America’s 250th and beyond as we go out throughout this entire year.

Be grateful to God, be more committed than ever to obeying him and doing his will his way. And with that, I did you do for today. Thanks for being with us, Dr. James Spencer. Thank you for being with us today on this important emphasis today here on stand in the gap today.