Sound of Faith

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings friends and new listeners, and welcome to the Sound of Faith. I'm Sharon Hardy Knotts, thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Today's message is timely and right on point, America Weighed in the Balance.

In Bible days, a corrupt kingdom was placed on the scales of God's righteous standards and was found lacking. Their failure to heed God's warning brought the hand of judgment to literally write upon the wall of the king's palace, "You are weighed in the balance and found wanting." Today, America is being weighed in the balance of God's word.

R. G. Hardy: Isaiah 5:20, "Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness; bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." Look in verse 23, "Which justify the wicked for reward and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him."

This is how you change your standard. You take God's standard that says this is good and this is evil, and you start calling the good evil and the evil good. When we heard this when I was growing up, we thought it was far-fetched. We didn't really think anybody would really be that stupid. Okay, so you don't want to serve God. You don't want to go to church. But you don't go around calling good evil and evil good. You still knew. You still understood righteousness and unrighteousness, good and evil. You may not have been ready to surrender to God and serve him, but you still understood what his word required. Amen.

You still called good good and evil evil. But this is what is happening. Now listen to what the Prophet Micah said, and he was a contemporary of Isaiah. He said, "Who hate the good and love the evil." Now we are progressing. It is getting worse in America today. There have always been people who did evil. From the time of Cain, there have always been people who did evil. But now people love evil. Amen.

There have always been people who do evil, but now they hate good. Now they hate those who do good because they justify the wicked for reward and they take away the righteousness, the right judgment for the righteous. Amen. This has been a radical change that is occurring in America, changing the standards, the moral values of this nation that were built on biblical concepts. No matter how they try to deny it, it is what it is. You don't have to dig very long or very far to see that America was founded by godly men using biblical concepts. Amen.

When you change the standards and you change the moral values, the next step is you have to change the laws. You have to. You change the standards, you change the values, well, now you have to change the laws to conform to your changed values and standards. In the 1960s, throw out prayer. Throw out Bible reading in school. Amen. 1973, legalize abortion. Now sex outside of marriage explodes. Explodes because now people can use abortion as a means of birth control. Amen.

When I was growing up, we heard such things as she is in a family way. She is with child. You will never hear an abortionist or abortion rights proclaimer say that somebody is with child. They are not going to say you are with child. They are not going to say you are having a baby. They are going to say you have a fetus. Because that is vague and impersonal. Amen. They are not going to say you need to get rid of that baby. It is just a fetus.

Fetus is a Greek word and so it means nothing to us. It takes away that personalization of a baby, of a child. Abortion, they don't call themselves pro-abortion. You will never hear them say they are pro-abortion. They say they are pro-choice. Am I telling the truth? We just had a great big victory. The Supreme Court just gave a victory. How many heard about it this week? We need to rejoice in that because they said that pregnancy clinics that are set up usually by churches and religious organizations who want to help women that really can't afford to have a baby.

They are scared to death. They don't know what they are going to do. They are pregnant. They have no support system. But they help them to avoid having abortion. They say we'll help you. We can put the child up for adoption. We'll get you through the pregnancy. You can make a decision then what you want to do. We are here to help you. Do you know that up until this Supreme Court ruling this week that they were forced to tell the women, "Well, by the way, you know you can get an abortion, and if you can't afford it, you can either get it for free or very cheap."

They were forced to tell them that. Can you imagine a church having to tell people that? But the Supreme Court ruled and said no, they don't have to tell them that anymore. That is not what they are there for. Folks, I don't believe it would have happened if we didn't have the latest judge that was just put on the bench, Judge Gorsuch. We wouldn't have had it happen. But he is a conservative who is pro-life. It made all the difference in having that judge there.

People think that it's the president. Let me tell you something, presidents come and presidents go, but Supreme Court justices are appointed for life. They are not elected by the people. They are appointed and they are there for life. Amen. They are not there to legislate from the bench. They are there to interpret the Constitution. Period. They said this infringed on their religious rights, forcing them to have to tell people about abortion when it goes against your religious right. Amen.

When we change the values, we have to change the laws. Whoever thought in 2015 that same-sex marriage would be legalized? We had accepted the fact that people have a right to do what they want to do. You can't make people be heterosexual if they want to be homosexual. We understood that they had civil rights like everybody else. They had civil rights to be treated the same way on the job and for their insurance, et cetera, et cetera. But to legalize same-sex marriage, that was a huge changing of God's standard. Amen.

Now we saw what happened after that. We saw a county clerk, I think it was in Tennessee, go to jail because she refused to give out licenses to same-sex couples. She said because the licenses were already pre-printed with her signature on it because she was the clerk. She was elected and her signature was on there. So when she was giving them a license with her signature on it, she felt like she was condoning same-sex marriage. So she went to jail for it. Amen.

Then we saw where florists and bakers getting sued because they said, "I'll bake you a cake for your birthday, I'll bake you a cake for a banquet, I'll bake anything you want, but I won't bake a wedding cake. And I won't do a florist thing because my religious conscience won't let me participate. You have a right and it is legal, and I understand it is legal, but I personally cannot design something with my own hands for that." How many say amen?

You see when you change the standards, you change the law. But we just had another great victory. That one baker who kept pushing his case, he pushed it all the way to the Supreme Court. And they agreed that when he makes a cake, he is putting his own design into it. It is him, it is a part of him. And that he has the right to refuse to make something created by himself that goes against his religious right. Amen. We have to have religious freedom and it's not free. It's not religious freedom if you can go to jail for exercising it. Or in the case of another baker up in another state, they got sued $135,000 and they had to close down their business. They lost their income and plus now they have to pay $135,000. Amen. Because when you change the values, you have to change the laws to go along with that. Amen.

We saw that creationism was thrown out of the schools and evolution came in. And the impact that this has, because if there is no creator, then there is no designer. Then we are just accidents. How many understand? If we don't have a creator, we don't have a designer. And what does that do? It devalues human life. Amen. Human life is devalued in our nation now from the womb to the tomb. Amen. They are ripping the little babies out of their mothers' wombs in abortion. Amen.

Now we see the murder rate in certain cities, and Lord help Baltimore. The murder rate from just drug wars and gang wars and all kinds of things. Death. And then they are now starting in some nations to euthanize the elderly and the infirm. Amen. And they are doing it now in some states in America because human life has no value. How many saw when Iceland boasted, Iceland's that island way up there, they boasted that they have no more children with Down syndrome in their country. Well, it's not because they came up with a cure. It's because they aborted them all.

This means that they devalued human life. Amen. This is what happens. So when you change the morals, the standards, the values, you have to change the laws. And that means you have to redefine words. Now you have to redefine words to match the morals, values, standards, and laws. For instance, sin is not what it used to be. Sin is not sin. Sin is called a disease. Sin is called an alternate lifestyle. Amen. Why do we have to refer to marriage and things like that as traditional values? Why do we have to call them traditional values?

Think about that. Why? Because now they are not the standard. They are not the standard. Oh, you go with those traditional values, and it is said in a disdainful way. You know, like we used to have when people believed that marriage was a man and a woman, et cetera. Amen. So now you've got to redefine the vocabulary. As I said, fornication is not sin anymore. They call it living together with your significant other.

How many remember when they first started saying significant other? It was kind of weird to me, your significant other. It sounded kind of funny. In the beginning, we understood what it meant. Your significant other meant you were living with your lover and you weren't married. You couldn't call him your husband and you couldn't call her your wife because you weren't married, so you called him your significant other. But it's evolved because now when you say significant other, you don't know if it's two wives or two husbands. You don't know anymore. Amen.

See how you have to change the vocabulary? Adultery is an extra-marital affair. That actually sounds kind of elegant, extra-marital affair. It sounds like something that the people in high society would do. Amen. But God said it's adultery. He said it's an abomination. Whether you are with a man, a woman, or whomever you are with, if it is outside of your marriage, that you are your spouse, whomever they are, it is adultery. Amen.

You won't find the word homosexuality in the Bible. You won't find it. But you will find the word sodomy because God doesn't call them homosexuals. And men, they said we are gay. Like that was gay, that sounds very positive. It sounds like a wonderful, happy thing to be. Amen. And so they had to change the vocabulary, and now it's called an alternative lifestyle.

I am trying to show you that they have to change and redefine words to match the new laws because of the new standards. Amen. When you change the weights, you change the values. You have false balances, you come up with deception and lies. Human life is devalued. Human life is cheap on the streets. Amen. It is. It used to be when people were murdered, the murderers a lot of times had remorse. But they don't anymore. They have no remorse. Sometimes when they kill grannies and elderly people, there is no reason to kill those people. Rob them, take whatever you want. You don't need to kill them. Amen. But human life is cheap.

Marriage is no longer sacred or exclusive or valuable, so sex is cheap. Amen. And the Bible is ridiculed, and now we are being branded as haters. We are haters because we stand up for God's word. We're persecuted in America like we've never ever done before. Ever before to be a Christian in America now is to be mocked and ridiculed. How many know that's true? Because we were told by a former president that America is not a Christian nation. When we're not a Christian nation, that statement set us up to change the laws of the land. Now we see how they have changed so radically.

When you change the laws, you become a law unto yourself. But you cannot measure yourself by yourself. I can't measure myself by myself. We've got to be measured by something greater than ourselves. And that is the temple standard, the sanctuary standard, God's standard. If I say I'm a good person and you say you're a good person, and somebody out there in the street says they're a good person, what does that mean? What does that mean?

If they say well, this is right for me and it's not right for you but this is right for me, what does that mean? It means it's their preference. It's their preference. And everybody has a right to their preference. It's okay to have it your way when you go to Burger King and you get a cheeseburger. It's okay if you say I like pickles on my cheeseburger. That's your preference. But you can't make me get pickles on my cheeseburger. You can't make all of America get pickles on their cheeseburgers. Amen.

It's your preference, and that's fine when it comes to consumerism. But when it comes to the heart and the soul and the morality of this nation, of God's word and God's truth, it's not about your preference. It's about God's standards. God said all the weights in the bag are mine. They're mine. And I have a just weight and a just bag. So when you change the standards, you make yourself God.

You see what happened to Belshazzar. Amen. We are all accountable to our creator. We can change the laws, we can change the standards, but you can't change reality. So go change the bag. So take out the just measures and put phony ones in there. You can't change the reality that a pound is still 16 ounces. Amen. So you get the bag, you get the Bible, and you take the Bible and you say I'm getting rid of the Bible. You're going to change the reality of God's word? So you throw out the Ten Commandments and all the teachings of Jesus and others, and you say I'm getting rid of those weights. I don't like those weights. They're too heavy for me.

You change the definition of words and you change the laws, but none of that will change the truth. None of it will change the truth. Amen. And Paul said a very powerful scripture in 2 Corinthians 13:8, "For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth." All of that does not change God's truth. God is still on the throne. Amen. And he still says and he's watching over the affairs of men. Amen.

We have to realize we can't fight against the truth. We've got to stand up for God's righteous standards no matter how difficult it becomes for us. No matter how much prejudice we face, persecution we face, and God help us, prosecution. We have to stand up for the truth. You know, we could say I don't like the law of gravity. I say we outlaw the law of gravity. I'm outlawing the law of gravity. Yeah, well, go up there and jump off this roof and you're still going to plunge to your death.

Just because you outlaw it doesn't change the law of gravity. Amen. And America has changed the standards and the scales and the weights, and they've outlawed God's laws to the point that they are offended by a cross on a hillside that's been there for decades in memorial of World War II veterans. Out in the middle of nowhere, but they've got to come down. We don't want to see that cross. That's not our standard anymore. But everyone will stand before God on the judgment day and he'll get out his bag. He'll get out this bag and he'll start pouring out the weights. Because Jesus said on that day, "Think not that I will judge you, but the words I speak unto you, they will judge you." Amen.

Saints, July 4th is our nation's birthday, and we're going to be celebrating. Let me make it clear, I wouldn't want to live anywhere but America. With all her faults and problems and chaos and confusion, you know, all these people that said they're going to move elsewhere, I haven't seen anyone leave yet. Because there's no place like America on this earth.

God still has a people. We may be a remnant, we may be small, but we are still God's people. He's got people across this country. He told Elijah, "I got 7,000 haven't bowed their knee to Baal." So what we're going to do is we're going to pray. I think it's fitting because we're coming up on our birthday, July 4th. As you know, one of the Supreme Court justices said he's retiring in September. So there's going to be an empty seat on the Supreme Court.

This is such an opportunity to get another judge who reveres the word of God, who believes in the Christian foundation of America. Amen. I don't care what color they are, I don't care what ethnicity they are, I don't care about any of that. I just want to know that they have already served as a good judge wherever they've served and that they are going to interpret the Constitution the way it was written.

You see there are some judges that say that the Constitution is a living document, and that means that gives them the right to keep changing it because it's living, you can keep changing it. That's not what the fathers had in mind. Amen. When they founded this nation. So we need to pray that the next judge that's put in will get through. It's one thing to nominate somebody, it's another thing for them to get through.

Let's put it just the way it is. There's never been so much hatred and stuff going on in Washington in my lifetime. Amen. So all of that, we need to pray right through it. We don't care what this one says, that one did, or the other one. That means nothing. I don't care who's the president, who's the speaker of the House, who's this congressman, that senator. We need to pray that God will move and put a good judge on that bench. Put a good judge on there.

It will be someone that will be able to maybe withstand the tide of wickedness and corruption a little longer. A little longer. We know the day is coming. I mean, we're going to be out of here soon, and God help the rest that are left. But while we're here, God can give us a good judge that will keep people that have honest religious rights that they don't want to be forced to do things against their righteous conscience. Amen.

The president has said that he will not make it a requirement that they say they want to overturn Roe v. Wade. I think that's a wise thing because the minute you say that, you're going to have people just fixated on that and they'll miss the whole thing. If that ever happens, it'll be a miracle. But we need someone who's pro-life. It doesn't mean they're going to get in there and try, well this is what I'm bound to do. That's future. It may or may not ever happen. But we at least need to have someone who's pro-life and who believes in the Christian foundations the country was founded on. Amen.

That's what I believe. Do you think that that's the right attitude to have? Pray for a good judge. A good judge who's a righteous person. You know, if you're going to pray for somebody who's born again, full of the Holy Ghost and speaks in tongues, good luck with that. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's highly doubtful. But we can pray for a good righteous judge. Amen. A good righteous judge. Be they a man, be they a woman, be they black, be they white, Hispanic, Latin, whatever. A good righteous judge who fears God and fears the word of God.

So let's stand on our feet this morning, and if you believe that, then I want you to join hands with at least one person. If you don't believe it, I'm not forcing you to do this. But if you believe that the prayers of the righteous are mighty and powerful and effectual, amen, and we can pull down strongholds that the enemy has built up. We can pull them down. We can use our God-given authority against the powers of darkness.

Because that's what Paul said. He said we're not wrestling with people. We're wrestling with the powers of darkness, the rulers of the darkness of this age that want to bring America down. But we take authority over them in the name of Jesus. We, the church of the living God, we come together in one mind and one accord, and we bring this petition before your throne, Oh mighty God, Oh righteous God. We bring this petition before you that you would move in the coming days and weeks and months, that you would move, Lord, to get the right judge on the bench.

A judge that is righteous, a judge that will not have favoritism, a judge that will not have a personal agenda, a judge that will not have a double standard, a judge that will stand on the Constitution the way it was written. A judge that will value the Christian values and godly standards that this nation was founded upon in 1776. We ask for a righteous judge. A judge that has compassion but a judge that is righteous and stands against wrong and injustice. That when the scales are put out and that judge is put on the scale, that they will have a balance of compassion and justice and righteousness.

And we know you can do it, Lord. We know that you can cut through the chaos, the confusion, the hatred that's in our government in Washington. But you can cut through all of that, and you can cause someone to rise to the top. For you said promotion comes not from east, west, or south, it comes from north because you sit in the north of heaven. And you take down one and you put up another. So we're asking you, Lord, as this judge steps aside and he retires, that you put a judge in that if you should tarry, they will bring good to America for many years to come. We ask it in Jesus' name, and we thank you in Jesus' name. And let the church say amen.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Amen, what an eye-opening word of the Lord. America: Weighed in the Balance. God said it was an abomination for his people to corrupt the temple standards of measures by having two sets of weights in the bag, one honest and the other deceptive so as to cheat people into getting less product for their money. Every scale and set of weights in Israel was to conform to the set of weights in the house of God. But dishonest sellers had two sets of weights in their bags, using the heavier set when they sold their merchandise. This is where the term double standard comes from.

When you change the standard, the weight of something, you change its value. God said in Proverbs 16:11, "The bag and the weights in the bag are his." The bag is the Bible, and its laws are the weights, the standard of right and wrong. America was founded on these Judeo-Christian standards. Today there is a double standard in America and in the church. People have created their own set of corrupt weights, devaluing the truth of God's word. We've come to the place, as Isaiah prophesied, when they call evil good and good evil.

When a society changes its standards, it then must change its laws to facilitate the new standards. This necessitates redefining words to conform to the new laws. Sin is now a weakness, a disease. It's an alternate lifestyle. What was once a personal preference such as homosexuality is now the new standard for which the law was changed to legalize same-sex marriage in America. God's standard for marriage was struck down. It is opened the door to prosecute Christian vendors who will not participate in same-sex weddings. Men can change standards, laws, and dictionaries, but it won't change the reality. God holds the scales and the weights in his bag.

America Weighed in the Balance is a fresh word in due season, and it's available today on CD for your love gift for the radio ministry of $10 or more. Request SK201. Mail to Sound of Faith, PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203, or shop online at soundoffaith.org where you can order on MP3s. To order by mail, send a minimum love gift of $10, request SK201 to PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Saints, I hope you will order the CD and even shop our e-store for other timely messages by myself and my dad, Brother Hardy. But if not, I urge you to send your best donation to help us with the cost of airtime on this station. If you are inspired, informed, blessed, and refreshed by our program, we want to hear from you and your support can help us stay on this station. Until next time, this is Sharon Knotts saying Maranatha.