Some thoughts on the US elections

I told the brothers in this morning's service that this is one of the important sermons, every sermon is important, but there are some that, given the historical context in which they are given and the experience of the people of God, has a resonance and greater importance. And I feel that way this afternoon as I share with you some reflections on the elections that have surprised us all and how good it is when the wisdom of man is confused, no matter which side. I like it sometimes when God – I tell you the truth – humbles myself and my expectations too, because it reminds me that I'm just a man. And it is good sometimes that humanity is chastened, no matter which side we are on, when God says, I am in control and I do a strange work on earth.

That is why it is important that the word of the Lord provide us with the correct perspective, how to see things, not through the lens of partisanship, not through human affiliations or communal passions, but through the eyes of the Lord, eyes eternal, objective eyes, eyes that take neither side nor the other, but see things vertically, as God needs them to be seen.

And so I want to share this message and I feel a little bit conflicted with myself for many reasons. One of them is that this morning I had a sermon and I prepared it and many of the brothers told me, please pastor, preach exactly that sermon. But I feel like the Lord has repackaged it differently, the same content but in a different way. Also, I wrote it in English because it was so important that I decided to write it and I didn't have time to translate it, but I know that the Lord has a word for us. Amen. How many believe it?

For this particular town, because the 9 o'clock service is very different in many ways than this meeting. First let me tell you something so that you understand the context in which I am going to make my comments. This Tuesday I did not vote for any of the 2 main candidates, I did not vote for Donald Trump or for Hillary Clinton, I resisted the urge to fill in that little dot that one usually fills in. Personally, I believe that anyone who voted differently, amen, that is their relationship with God and there are things that one does out of personal conviction and does not expect others to do the same.

I say this so that you understand that this is not a man speaking who was waiting and wishing for a particular result. When I was looking at the possibilities of both sides I really didn't fancy either frankly, and I'm still in a sense kind of pondering and like Mary, waiting to see what God has, keeping things in my heart and letting them mature and waiting to see what God is going to do at this time in history.

But when I thought about voting, personally I couldn't vote for either of the two candidates, and let me briefly tell you why. I could not vote for Donald Trump because what this man embodies in his conduct throughout his life I see his insulting way of treating our immigrant community, it is not even that he does not agree with the immigration of the undocumented to this nation, but the demeaning way of talking about Latinos, for example, in this nation and other communities. His insulting way of treating the same candidates who were with him at the beginning of this process, calling them all kinds of names, denigrating their dignity, insulting them and using names and labels to put them down.

Their way of exploiting the worst instincts in this nation, and I'm not saying that all of them obviously by a lot, but there is a degree of racism in many of these people, of America as the center of the universe and that nationalism that many times leads to nations, as we see with Japan, with Germany, in World War II, it leads nations to war and to use imperialism. The imperialism that we have seen through the centuries from Germany, England, Spain, all these nations that subjugated entire cultures in the Middle East, in Africa and are still paying the price for their actions.

This nationalism of idealizing and enthroning a nation and his way of exploiting these attitudes of racism as well and other things – although I am not saying that everything he said or did not say, sometimes we call something that is not and is racism. another thing, I understand that too. But there have been some of those elements.

When I see that behavior as a businessman for decades, with the profit principle as number 1, if he has to trample people, he tramples them, if he has to lie as in the case of his university that this is still in court right now , and lying to students and people who are looking to improve their lives and exploit them, and lying outright to advance their financial interests, not paying taxes, all the worst of capitalism. I don't consider myself a radical, by far, but there is a naked capitalism, devoid of all mercy, of all principles except money and earn whatever and overwhelm your competitors whatever, that seems to me to be the essence of the demonic in the world, the use of naked force, the fist that crushes the weak and the poor in order to get ahead.

The behavior of this businessman has been that. The worst, I think, of the business world, the corporate in the United States and in the nations, he has exemplified for a long time. His unbridled sexuality and uncontrolled appetites, his denigration of women, of people's appearance, the defects, the imperfections of the disabled. We could go on here and there mentioning many, many things in the behavior of this person that to me actually as a pastor, I have said, geez, I can't associate myself with installing those principles because for me, again, character is important.

And I'm going to talk a little bit about that in other ways, but I felt that in all conscience I had to vote for a principle that was beyond all of that. There is no perfect candidate by far, but I couldn't, I couldn't find a way. On the other hand, I couldn't vote for Hillary Clinton in good conscience either, and for more compelling reasons than those that prevented me from voting for Trump.

Hillary Clinton for her appalling disregard for human life, as we see her fierce support for abortion. Abortion, to the point of allowing a child that is halfway out of its mother's womb to be aborted because it still has half of its body within its mother's real estate, and therefore the mother still has legal rights . For a purely legalistic consideration, allowing a creature of almost 9 months, ready to come to life, to be dismembered and that millions of babies, the most fragile creatures in this world, be sacrificed on the altar of Moloc and that institutions like Planned Parenthood receive millions and millions and tens of millions of dollars if not hundreds of millions of dollars and she brazenly continuing to support that industry of death, which is human sacrifice. I couldn't vote for their neglect of values about God's creation and design, how God has created and designed human beings.

The Bible says that God created a man and a woman and intentionally created them to be complementary to each other, to unite in marriage, to subdue the earth and develop it using that male-female model. Today a whole different model has emerged that violates that divine principle of creative design and subjection to God's design and then installs homosexuality, transgenderism, and an anything-goes, anything-is-possible sexual fluidity. Any sexual appetite, any variant, any sexual neurosis is perfectly acceptable and then try to legislate that and shove it down the throat of those of us who believe in a different way and judicially enthrone that principle that goes directly against the very essence of the creative act of God in the Garden of Eden, it is not possible.

And see how that diabolical principle, in my opinion, is being immigrated and put into schools, where our children have to abandon them to a system that is going to teach them from childhood, through pornographic images that it doesn't matter what you are, that's fine, and that if your son mentions any degree of confusion about his sexual identity, they take it out of your hands and prohibit you from saying things to him, seek help for him that prevents psychologists from working to help people who are wanting help.

And that children, as this previous administration wanted, that if any child shows any kind of sexual confusion that is natural in those years, it must be affirmed immediately, not only given space but affirmed in their confused sexuality, creating a whole nation of confused people and creating an environment… because what is done from the throne spreads throughout a nation. And creating an environment where all manner of human evil and degeneracy can thrive, as we saw here in Massachusetts where recreational marijuana is already legal right now. And part of it is because it creates an environment where grass can easily grow, where the corruption of moral values runs like wildfire. And I couldn't cooperate with that, couldn't cooperate with the attitude of persecuting the church.

I work with institutions, like Gordon College. I am a member of the board of directors and for the last 3 years he has had to put aside his entire agenda almost to be able to defend himself against attacks, because simply the president of that institution signed a letter with other presidents of Christian institutions, asking that they be Christian values should be respected by those institutions and the issue of homosexuality should not be shoved down their throats. But without respect we have seen how that is growing and growing, business people and Christian institutions, the church itself… right now there is a law here in Massachusetts where this church has to allow, if someone who is transgender wants to come and use a men's room or as a woman, as she pleases, we have to allow it because we are a public institution.

So I couldn't vote for our nation's central corruption, the supreme courts, the military. Today the chaplains cannot preach the Gospel, the armed forces are being emptied of all Christian content and the element of this doctrine that is so harmful to the health of this nation is introduced.

So I couldn't vote for her either. I found myself at a point and what I did was vote for a third candidate, a woman called divine will, I don't know if you know her. I voted for her and I said, Lord, I am going to take my hands off the wheel and I am going to let you determine this election. And the truth is that I had resigned myself to having Hillary Clinton for 4 or 8 years, but it was not like that, but I was not happy. I was feeling like what's going to happen, sir? What you have done? What are you doing? Because the alternative was not very appetizing to me, frankly. And I'm still like Mary, keeping things in my heart to see what God has in his hands.

So I want you to understand where I am. I am not here to be a trumpitte or a hillarist, I feel right now that I am simply letting the Lord guide and direct and I want to be a pastor who speaks to his congregation without passions of any kind and who simply speaks of the word of the Lord.

This morning I shared with the brothers in the service in English about Samuel, it is a story that I am not going to bother reading because many of you know it. Saul had been chosen as the first king of Israel, you remember from history. And Saul rebelled against God, installed his own agenda, and do you know the ultimate reason why God got fed up with Saul and threw him out as king? For something that I think is very relevant at this time. God told Saul that he had to exterminate a nation that had been totally fiercely opposed to Israel, Israel's enemy, Amalek. They had tried to exterminate Israel and God was very angry with that nation and God told him that they had to destroy everything including the animals and the king of Amalek as well.

And Saul guided by a false sense of justice, which is what happens many times with men when they install their own sense of justice instead of the definition of justice that God gives. And when they claim to be more just than God and more knowledgeable than God, God does not like that because what God wants is obedience, not sacrifice. And Saul forgave the king of Amalek and chose the best cows and the best animals and when the prophet Samuel came to where Saul was, he said to him, what have you done? And Saul told him, well, it's that I decided to be magnanimous and forgive this king and I reserved the best animals for the Lord. And the prophet Samuel said to him, look, is it pleasing to God for the holocaust of animals? What God wants is obedience not sacrifice. And now God separates from you completely. there were already other things he had done.

But today I think the same thing sometimes happens, what has happened in this nation where many people have wanted to install a sense of social justice that is not based on the values of the Kingdom of God. And when you don't base your efforts at social transformation on the timeless principles of God's Kingdom, you are sooner or later doomed to fail.

If one looks at human history, when you look at the great revolutions of the world and of history, beginning with the first great revolution in the 18th century, the French Revolution, which installed reason as a goddess literally in the center of Notre Dame Cathedral Dame, who ended up completely degenerating into an orgy of terrible violence because they did not substantiate their desire for social justice. He was right, the French people were suffering from a horribly corrupt reign that did not pay attention to the poor and deserved to be dethroned, but not in the way they tried to do, because that thirst for justice did not have the principles of God, but they were principles of revenge, of violence and the devil got into that fire and stoked it and almost consumed an entire nation.

We see after that other great revolutions, even before the French Revolution in Haiti, it was a revolution, Haiti was dedicated to the African gods and it also ended in a terrible orgy of violence. And look at Haiti where it is today too, a nation that is the most backwards in the entire Western Hemisphere.

But you can continue later, the revolution in China in the 20th century, also a revolution based on Marxism, materialism. It ended in an orgy of violence. The Russian revolution in the 1930s or so also ended equally in violence and the death of millions and millions of human beings under Stalinism, and in total corruption that finally collapsed simply because of its old age and their decrepitude because they were not founded, they denied God, they denied the spirit.

The Cuban revolution, a noble revolution that I was able to experience when I was young. The same also ended in corruption, old age, decrepitude, because it did not have... they denied the divine, they denied the spiritual. The other revolutions, the Nicaraguan, the same; this revolution relatively called revolution in Venezuela, look at the disaster. All these revolutions share the same thing, they are not based on the word of God, they deny, be it through Santeria, witchcraft, whatever, but they deny.

And the Bible is very clear, it says if Jehovah does not build the house those who build it work in vain. If the Lord does not watch over the city, the guard watches in vain. So these great efforts, Saul tries to be holier and kinder and more generous than God and God says, no, and so he asks for another king that he's going to install, and he orders Samuel to go to Jesse's house and that he is going to teach you which one is the king.

And Samuel loved Saul, Samuel had grown fond of Saul. He had installed him, he had mentored him and Samuel is crying because Saul is going to be dethroned. And God tells him, look, stop crying and go install the king for me and I'm going to tell you.

Jehovah said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn Saul when I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and come and I will send you to Jesse of Bethlehem because of his sons I have provided myself a king."

What interests me about this data is that many times we become fond of a scenario that we ourselves believe is the way in which God should work, and God decides to change the scenario, but we are clinging to the scenario that we had in preconceived mind, which was the way we thought God was going to work. And when God does something totally different we are shocked and filled with fear and anguish and think like God is not as faithful or as consistent as he is supposed to be.

Samuel got a big surprise, first because God says, I don't want that king anymore. He is not obedient. He is stubborn in his own determinations. That is why I tell the church of Jesus Christ, I am not interested in human methodologies to fill the church, I am interested in making sure that we are aligned with the word of the Lord. He will use us. I suffer every time someone leaves my church because sometimes they don't listen to what they want to hear or whatever, but I am committed. The Lord is the one who directs our congregation and if we are faithful to him we will end up being fair, noble, we will bless the city, we will advocate for the poor, for the needy. God will use us because when Christ establishes his kingdom of justice then the blessing comes on the nations.

The thing is that when Samuel goes to Jesse's house he is very disappointed, all of Jesse's sons pass him by, they are all 6.4 tall, blue eyes, muscular, men of war, and God says, no, no, no, none from them. And jaded he tells Samuel, look, be careful, I don't look at what men look at, I see the heart, so get down from there because none of them are.

Again, there are times when the truth is when man judges according to reason and we all do that, one determines, okay, this has to be. This is the scenario that God has. But I want to speak to you precisely when God creates a different scenario, when God says no, that's not what I... I have another plan.

So, finally, you guys know the story? Finally Samuel asks Jesse, listen to me, but those are all the children you have because none of them are and God told me that this is the address. Ah, yes, man, I forgot, wait, there's Davicito, he's over there taking care of the cows, we don't even bother because he's so small and so unpromising that... we don't think of him, he's not a man of war, He is not big or muscular.

And here comes David and God says, that's it, anoint him. Anoint him, because I look at the heart – and I hasten to say, I am not equating the heart of Donald Trump, I believe that there is a great distance between the heart of Donald Trump and the heart of David, but what I want to mention it is the point that God sees things that we do not see. God sees things that we do not prefer. God is looking beyond the way we judge. God creates scenarios that we cannot even conceive of and often uses instruments that we would never think could lead to a result according to God's heart.

And I don't know what the result is. I do think I know what the final result is, but before reaching the final result there often has to be a lot of process. And what I tell you is that perhaps this is not the end, and that is why we have to be calm and wait for God's end.

The Bible says that God's ending is always good. Sometimes he says that the process is strong but the end - it is in Hebrews - of God is always a positive and good ending. And what I ask of you, my brothers, is patience until the end of God is established. Many times God creates very different scenarios and that was what came to my mind this morning after the 9 o'clock service.

The Bible is full of people who thought their solution was going to come one way and God did it a totally different way. And we, especially the immigrants, for what reason we want a solution to the dilemma we live in, the uncertainty in which we live, the work limitations we have, the uncertainty for our children, not knowing if I am going to be somewhere today or tomorrow someone will come and take me off this earth, it is difficult. And I believe that there is a right to want a resolution to this problem. I identify with my brothers who feel that they no longer want to live with this terrible uncertainty and that it seems like the solution is getting further and further out of their hands every day, so the tendency is to even grab hold of a hot nail, what come, but Lord, I want to get out of this situation.

And then one often builds hope of how the solution will come. And God says, it's not like that, I have another plan. rest in me Be calm, don't rush. I have another plan for you and I know your needs and I will attend to them.

I think of Naaman after the service. Naaman was a leper, he was a very courageous general, greatly decorated, the king saw through his eyes, he was a man highly esteemed by his nation but he had something that was in his heart, in his sensitivity and his pride, he was a leper. Leprosy is a deforming, terrible, contagious thing. A man as dignified as a general and having a disease as humiliating as leprosy. And Naaman discovered that there was a prophet named Elisha in Israel who was the solution to his pressing problem. And the king sent him a letter of recommendation using the powers of kings, I am going to give you a recommendation. Go, and give him my card. You know what I mean. Sometimes we keep the general's card and a policeman stops us and we take out the card. How many know what I'm referring to?

He sends her letters, because men want to resolve things with force. And the king of Syria orders the king of Israel, attend to me this man, he is my people. And Naaman is full of pride, self-confidence and a whole scenario has been built about what God is going to do with him. And he sends him to Elisha's house and when Naaman arrives with his built scenario of how God is going to work, he is very disappointed. Because firstly the prophet doesn't even open the door for Naaman, he doesn't even receive him.

A man, imagine the pride of this general, and what he commands is a little servant, a servant who tells him, the prophet says, that you get into the Jordan River 7 times, that you dive and go home, and everything it's solved. And Naaman is filled with anger and says, how dare this guy treat me like that? And he is already grumbling back to Syria saying, I thought that when I arrived the prophet was going to open the door of his house, he was going to invite me, he was going to serve me coffee and donuts or whatever, he was going to blow my trumpet. And he says, the Farfar river, I think it's called, in Syria is not more beautiful than that dirty river of Jordan. And I go home and a little servant says to him, my Father, listen if the prophet had told you to do something really big and difficult, to give him millions of dollars and whatever, wouldn't you have done it? Okay, yes. So, dive 7 times, what does it cost you? The logic of the poor and the humble.

And Naaman biting his tongue goes and dives once, 2 times, 3 times, and he says the seventh time - and each time he dived I think it was an interior death, a crucifixion of his self, because God had more plans than simply to heal him, to heal his leprosy. We sometimes want very quick solutions. Solve my problem, give me my green card and we'll deal with everything else later. Let go of so many things. He says, no, no, no. God is a God of processes, God is a God who likes to take him out… he is like a great storyteller. I say that it is like a great composer that when you think that the attention is going to fall, he turns the music around again and raises it again.

And God wanted to minister to Naaman's heart, not just his body, he did not want to heal, because what good was it for him to heal his body and for his soul to be lost without knowing the true God. And when Naaman saw his flesh like a baby the seventh time he said, now I understand that there is no other God but God, the God of Israel, and I will never serve any other God again.

God healed him and also healed him in his inner being and his pride as a man and look how much mileage we have gotten from that story. A different setting, a different way. Men, human beings want our candidate to win, we want things to be done in a certain way, we want quick, simple, direct processes, interventions that get to the point, but God is a God who thinks in cosmic terms, in eternal terms. , in terms of the thoroughness of that being that he knows so intimately that is man and his plans for eternity. And it always intervenes in light of those factors.

I also think of the Messiah. The Jews were waiting for a presidential candidate who would win the election and set them up again against Rome, free them from Rome. And they believed that the Messiah was that, he was a military leader who was going to come, he was going to subdue the Romans who had them with their boots on their heads and he was going to install the Messiah and he was going to give Israel national glory again. in all the nations that they had when David was.

But God said, no, my Son does not come to put one country above others and simply establish an empire as oppressive as the others, that is what the Jews would have done. The kingdom of my Son is much more than that. he comes to save humanity, he comes to minister to countless generations. He comes to open a path of communication between God and men. He comes to establish a kingdom of peace, justice, love, truth. He comes to dethrone principalities and powers, his reach is cosmic, his reach is millennial. He is not interested in a small country to continue doing the tricks that they have always done.

So, God brings a different plan and what he does is that he comes with a humble shepherd, a humble carpenter and puts him up on a cross to be crucified and that is his strange way of solving the problem of humanity.

You know what happens, that when you reject God's mysterious and strange plans you are in great danger. That is why I tell you, in this case, although Trump is not my favorite by far, I ask my people to be very complex and say, Lord, what are you up to? And I ask that we pray for this man and give it a chance to see what God is doing because this has been so humiliating to all the brains in this nation, all the intellectuals, all the people who thought they knew how this nation works. And all the sages have been confused, everyone, including me who has never…frankly I stood on the television expecting a big loss and stayed until 3 in the morning fascinated by what was unfolding before my very eyes.

The truth is that I did not know what to do with it. I was thinking about my immigrant brothers and their pain, but on the other hand I was also thinking that well, at least I can think that there will be some Supreme Court judges… I was in conflict with myself. I believe that this is the complexity that we have to have and say, Lord... Thank God that I said, I vote for divine providence, I vote for God's will, that whatever he wants be done and we simply be with our eyes open and with an open heart before this mystery that is unfolding before our eyes.

When these Jews, those who believed, those who had voted for Jesus and had allied themselves with him, thinking that he was the candidate who was going and that he was going to solve their problem, they are disappointed that their candidate ends up being crucified. And I was thinking this morning about the 2 men who were on their way to Emmaus saying, and we who thought that he was the one who was going to save Israel. Because the scenario was very different from what they had built for themselves. And yet on the way the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords appeared to them and told them, I am not dead, what happens is that this is a process.

God takes time to carry out and unwind his processes. Human beings judge in limited, primitive, childish ways. We paint with primary colors and God has a color palette and an assortment of shades that we can't even imagine, and he takes time. He is not in a hurry. He has his time for all things and he knows what he has to do with this world.

So, I believe brothers that in light of the mystery of God's procedure at this time - again, I believe that if you are not in tune with the word of the Lord, if you have not drunk the milk of the Bible, if you have not studied the mysterious ways in which God proceeds through the centuries and centuries, and that is why you and I need to format our consciousness with the paradigms of the word of God, because that is what breaks our glasses interpretive.

When anything happens in our life, be it on a personal level, be it on a collective, macro-cosmic level, the children of God who have studied the scriptures and the precedents that God has established in his word for our benefit can read the things that happen to them. and they can then understand how to walk in the light of the most unexpected things.

I believe that in this time the children of God, number 1, we must give God time for him to complete his work, his strange work. Let's take a big breath and that mom who thought she was going to give birth now has to come home and have 3 more days of labor pains and wait for God to complete his work. Give the Lord time, say, Father, you are sovereign, you are Lord even though I do not understand what is happening, I give you the freedom to act. Teach us to do your will, your will be done.

And then turn that over to the Lord. Give that dream to the Lord. Perhaps you would have preferred that everything be resolved tomorrow, but God has given a different decision. Does anyone here think that God was asleep when Donald Trump was elected? Either we believe what we say or we don't. We have just said that God is Lord, that he is on his throne, what great things will God do, do we believe it or not?

So let's trust. The Bible says, be anxious for nothing, but let your requests be known in all prayer and supplication. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your minds and hearts in Christ Jesus. Rest in the Lord, take a deep breath and say, Father, I abandon myself to your will.

Number 2, if you voted for Donald Trump and you are happy with the result, I beg you one thing and that is that you do not celebrate too much because Donald Trump is a failed man, very, very imperfect and even sinful, and that you see him through Biblical eyes. One does not have to make up a person and obviate his serious imperfections to let God do what he wants through him.

Pray. If you voted for him, don't forget your brothers who are in pain and who feel very threatened in their safety. Mourn to some extent, mourn them and pray for them. Identify with them and ask the Lord to heal their hearts. At most I think triumphant laughter is not appropriate at this time, but at most a quiet, sad smile and letting the Lord be.

Let us have mercy on those who have suffered a great disappointment, even out there in the world as well, who did not expect the result and are right now depressed, heartbroken, confused. And the church of Jesus Christ has to walk with sobriety, with mercy, with love, and let's part with each other, let's not get passionate about any man. Let's not think that the solution comes through a man. No human being is going to bring a solution to the world's problems, unless their values are not totally or strongly aligned with the word of the Lord.

Men cannot do man good even if they wanted to, they are tremendously corruptible. So don't put your faith in that candidate, proceed paternally, pastorally. Do not get excited and think of your brothers and we are going to make a pact, that this congregation will always be a church of love, mercy and kindness. Let's not glorify naked strength, let's not even glorify beauty because sometimes there are things that are not very beautiful but are beautiful in the eyes of God.

Sometimes this idea of a perfect family that comes and goes, I told the brothers on Wednesday, that glorification of the human that I see many times in this man unfortunately, let's be a church of mercy, love, goodness, compassion for the for the poor, for the weak, for the needy, for the one who is in conflict, for the one who is in internal struggle whatever it is and let us promise ourselves that we are going to be the antidote to the vengeful spirit and the overwhelming animal, carnal, diabolical spirit and that our church be a church of incredible mercy and love for the poor, those who do not have a voice, those who sometimes have to leave their nations wanting to stay in them because there is exploitation there and because this nation itself through the centuries has cooperated with many of the horrors we see in those countries.

I am not a Marxist but I understand enough of history to know that God has his ways of redistributing goods many times over. And let's be a complex church, that sees the world in the complex way that God sees the world as well. Again, if you did not vote for Trump and if you are shocked right now to see this man sleeping in Obama's bed and you are thinking how am I going to be able to see this man installed in the White House being honored and this already He's going to take away your lunch. You already sold all your televisions. No.

The Bible says that time and occasion happen to everyone. If Trump acts in a fair and proper way, God will bless him, if he does not knock him off his horse as he did with Saul, his time will come. Brothers, there is nothing better than lowering one's head and blessing the hand of God when he slaps us.

I tell you, God used a mule with Balaam, used a donkey to speak to the prophet. Can't God use something? Let's pray for the Lord to do something, who knows if this man who already surprised us once in an incredible way, surprises us a second time. I don't know. How many can pray for their...

When Paul said to pray for our rulers, he was saying, pray for Nero, pray for Caesar. It's what I was saying. We have to pray for those who are in power so that the Lord says so that we have peace, so that the Lord enlightens them or eliminates them, but that He does something in them. Let us pray for him, let us pray for his administration. Let's pray that the Lord will do something. Do not allow hatred or grudges or resentment to nest in your heart.

Let us heap fiery embers on the head of any unjust ruler. His time will come. You know, the last scenario, and with this I am ending, the last strange scenario that I see in the scriptures is when God tells the Hebrews that Nebuchadnezzar is coming to exile them, to take over their nation, to possess it and they know that Babylon He is at the gates and he is going to destroy Israel, he is going to take their women, their children, he is going to slaughter them, he is going to take them out of Israel, their beloved land, and God has the audacity to send the prophet Jeremiah and tell the Jews, do not rebel against Nebuchadnezzar, do not resist him. Do not try to seek help in Egypt. He says, if you try to seek help in Egypt you will perish, accept my discipline. I have been telling them for centuries that I am going to remove them from their land and I am going to discipline them.

Brothers, do not look for help in Egypt. Many of us look to Egypt for help and God has rejected Egypt. Many of us want to seek help in something we know to be impure because it gets us out of our bind so many times. But God has said, no, do not seek help in something that I have discarded.

The Bible says in Isaiah 31 to the Hebrews, "woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and trust in horses and their hope they put in chariots because they are many and in horsemen, because they are brave, and they do not look at the holy one of Israel or seek to Jehovah. The Egyptians are men and not God and their horses are flesh and not spirit, so that when Jehovah extends his hand the helper will fall and the helped will fall and all of them will faint together.”

I have always said, Lord, I will never take help from something that is impure and that you have not blessed. Brothers, I prefer, I believe and I hope to have the moral courage to support what I am saying, I prefer to die a thousand times before taking help from something that God has said, I do not want that. Something that goes against the will of God, that does not obey and is not aligned with the principles of the Kingdom of God, cannot be a source of help for a people who know where their help comes from. My help comes from Jehovah.

And God told the Hebrews, "Do not seek help from the Egyptians or go to Babylon, accept Nebuchadnezzar, because after a time of discipline I will bring you back to your home, but for now, hold on."

And I think we're in something similar right now. Perhaps Babylon is now in our midst, we are in Babylon. But I know one thing, that in that environment I ask you to rest in the Lord and trust in him.

When the Hebrews finally – and actually tried to take help from Egypt – disobeyed the Lord and came exactly the judgment that God told them would come, they were completely destroyed. Because when you disobey the Lord and go after your reason instead of God's complex logic, you will not have rest. Any help you seek is going to be illusory. There is nothing like aligning yourself with the complex purposes of God.

And when the Jews were finally exiled in Babylon, sad, thinking that there was no hope for them anymore - and by the way I tell you, read the books of Esther, Mats and Nehemiah, because those books tell us about God's care for his people when he is in exile. I preached about Esther a couple of Sundays ago, Haman wanted to kill the Hebrews, exterminate them, and God ended up hanging him on the very gallows that he had built to hang Esther's cousin, Mordecai.

We are like this right now, perhaps we think, there is extermination, there are people who want to exterminate the people in a sense, not physically exterminate them in genocide but exterminate them in terms of exile and other things and get them out. But God watches over his children.

Years ago I wrote a book called 'Pilgrims, the land of pilgrims' I say there clearly and I still believe it, the immigrant people including us Latinos, the Latino church among other churches, I don't want to be too egocentric either , has been brought to this nation to renew it with her tender heart for God, her love for the family, her love for her children, her respect for authority, her prayer, her Christian, spiritual heart, which has drunk the milk of the Gospel enough already.

God has brought us here, we have not come to escape terrorism, gangs or violence or poverty, we have come because God has sovereignly brought these people to this nation. God gives the land to whoever he wants. God has brought us to this nation to bless it and to be a blessing. And I believe that what God gives no one can take away. I am going to exercise faith and believe that God has us here for a purpose and no primitive way of looking at the world is going to prevail against the children of God.

We are going to pray, we are going to kneel, we are going to exercise peace, in stillness and rest, says the Bible, it will be your strength. We are going to worship the Lord because the joy of the Lord is our strength. We are going to launch bombs of joy, grace, love, mercy, faith and we are going to destroy this principality with the weapons of light, not the weapons of darkness.

The devil has tried to subdue the world for centuries with the weapons of darkness and has not been able to. Light always prevails against darkness. We are going to love, we are going to help, we are going to do the work of the church, we are going to be a better, more excellent church every day, we are going to serve the Lord with love and there men who give their fight and fight and pull the bows as they want, their business, we will do the work of God, we will remain firm in the things of the Lord until God does what he has to do.

I leave you with a word from Psalm 37 5 to 7. The word of the Lord invites us, 'commit your way to the Lord and trust in him and he will do, he will display your justice as light, your right as noon, be silent before the Lord .'

That is what God is asking of us, let us keep a holy silence before this mystery that has happened in our midst. Be quiet. There are things that are too big for us. Let's keep quiet. Let's meditate, pray, fast and wait on him. Do not be upset because of the one who prospers in his way because of the man who does evil. Maybe many of us, how can this guy be? How can God use it, how can it be installed there in a place of honor? And we are tempted to fill ourselves with anger and resentment and envy perhaps or other things.

He says, don't get upset, leave the anger, throw away the anger. There are so many people today throwing Molotov cocktails, breaking windows in the street, destroying cars, and are succumbing to the same demonic spirit of violence that threatens to take control of our nation today. No, stop anger, discard anger, do not be excited in any way to do evil because the wicked will be destroyed, but those who hope in Jehovah, they will inherit the earth. Well, from now on the evil will not exist, he will observe his place and will not be there, but the meek will inherit the earth and will recreate themselves with abundance of peace.

Let's jump to verse 18, it says "The Lord knows the days of the perfect and their inheritance will be forever." Many of us may be saying, God forgot about me. It seems that he galloped away in some galaxy and forgot what was happening here in this nation. But the Bible makes it clear that the Lord is in control of your life. He knows your days, he knows the minutes of your life.

Their inheritance will be forever. They will not be ashamed in bad weather and on hungry days they will be satisfied. This is a bad time for many of us, let's trust that God knows the needs of his children. This is a time to create faith and to one day tell our grandchildren, if the Lord has not come yet, I spent a while and let me, sit here and I'll tell you what God did.

Times of crisis are often times of hope and the possibility of seeing God. I have been with water many times in my life, not up to my neck, but to my mouth, and I have seen the Lord come out and take me out of the hole, out of despair, out of the miry mud, place my feet on a rock, straighten my steps, give me a new song and I have learned so much at this point in the game that I already take two aspirin when things are very serious and I say, Lord, I trust in you, I hope in you.

I will not be ashamed because I have trusted you. But the wicked will perish and the enemies of Jehovah will be consumed like the fat of rams. They will dissipate like smoke, but the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord and he is their strength in the time of distress. Jehovah will help them and deliver them, verse 40, he will deliver them from the wicked and save them because they waited for him.

How many can say, yes, Lord, I believe that this afternoon? I think you know very well. Let's stand up for a moment. Receive grace and peace from the Lord. I love serving a God who doesn't sell himself out for anyone, a God who does what he wants. There are times that I would have wanted God to do things the way I wanted. I had a different scenario in my mind and I am not going to tell you about it because you would be shocked.

God took my breath away because I thought something you don't even know was going to happen but God changed things. However, that is the God I believe in, the God I know, he is a God who has his ways of doing things and no one is going to change his methodology, not even those he loves the most. You wish God would be kind of a little more considerate of us, care a little bit more about our anxieties, but he's there on his throne and he knows what he's going to do.

I keep telling him, as I told you a couple of weeks ago, I believe that God is working on earth like never before in history and that we will see his glory like never before in history and that we will see the name of Christ enthroned like never before. in history, that we will have a great harvest of souls, that there is great glory that awaits his church and that a time of darkness and confusion is going to come before the harvest time comes because the arrogance of this man who believes that populates the earth right now, has to be humiliated.

And when man humbles himself before his God, then the salvation he is waiting for will come. So let's give the Lord time. God is working like never before in history and the greater his work, the more mysterious it becomes. And he needs men and women who will rise to his complexity and wait on him and trust him. So I declare a spirit of peace upon you right now in the name of Jesus.

I put aside anger, I put anxiety aside, I put fear aside, I put envy aside, I put aside fear of what will be and I say, Father, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us wisdom, give your people wisdom to know how to behave in this strange time and help us to be a people that ministers this city with your word, Lord, an exemplary people for the glory of your name, a people that has good advice for those who come seeking peace in their hearts, a people that preach enlightened holiness, holiness full of grace and mercy and goodness and love, a people of justice, a people of obedience, a people who know how to move in the mystery of your will.

It starts with me. I declare peace over the hearts of all my brothers and we open space so that what God is doing is fully fulfilled, that his providence reigns and carries out the things that he wants to do. We will go to our homes, we will celebrate, we will rest, we will be happy, we will not stop doing good while the Lord completes his work.

Give us patience and give us peace to wait on you, Lord. Send this people off with your shalom, with your peace, with your wisdom and your eyes to see what you want them to see, in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen. I bless you, my brothers. The grace of the Lord be with you.