0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Do you know the phrase in God we trust is still the phrase and motto? It’s the legal motto of America, but it’s going aside and another motto and other ideas are coming in. I’m going to share all that with you and the dangers of it on the next More Faith, More Life podcast.

0:00:16 – (Steve Gray): You were made for more than the status quo. I’m Pastor Steve Gray, and this is the More Faith, More Life podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises in their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship artist, minister, nonprofit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse. When I was in my early 40s, I was craving more.

0:00:44 – (Steve Gray): More from God and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the word of God and searching for the biblical principles that would bring me closer to God and help my purpose and life flourish. That’s what I want to share with you. In every episode, you’ll get practical tools based on real life experiences that you can put into action to redefine your faith and ultimately your life.

0:01:16 – (Steve Gray): So if you’re ready to do more, so subscribe to More Faith, More Life and hear an unfiltered biblical truth every week. It’s time to be and experience more.

0:01:28 – (Steve Gray): Hello everyone. Welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast. Your voice of revival. And this is an important one today, really important to our country and how Christian believers and non-believers even understand what’s going on in our country. And so I want to talk to you about that and I’m going to go back to our founding Fathers. You know, you hear that? Our founding fathers and what our nation was built on the founding fathers. And we need to understand that of what really was happening. Of course, if you know your history a little bit, to start it off with our founding fathers, if we want to call it that, all the way back to the beginning is they wanted religious freedom.

0:02:11 – (Steve Gray): But what you have to understand is they weren’t bringing a new religion. They brought their founding fathers religion based on Christian, Judeo Christian values. They brought their founding father’s religion here. Okay? They didn’t come and start a new religion. They just weren’t able to do their religion because of the it was a state religion started taking over. They couldn’t do their religion of their forefathers that they grew up with and before them and before them.

0:02:43 – (Steve Gray): So they sought new land to bring what their forefathers taught them and their forefathers and on, on down the line. And so they came here and started a nation based on those, their forefathers ideals, which was Christian and Jewish values, based hopefully, you know, on the Bible, the word of God. And so that’s what started it. And so when we realized that, that we have a long line of ancestors, values that have made this country what it is, all the way up to when they did the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and passed laws, and up to a certain time, which we’ll talk about in a minute, they continued to have those values influencing our laws, our culture, our entertainment and all that.

0:03:33 – (Steve Gray): But now the problem we have is now we’ve had other people come in who have done the same thing, but they don’t have the same founding fathers as the founding fathers ancestors did. And so what made this country strong and great, these values, that biblical values that gave us what we have today all the way through and made us the strongest, most powerful nation in the world, most prosperous nation in the world.

0:04:00 – (Steve Gray): Those are the values and the things that have worked. But the problem today is we have others now coming and bringing their founding fathers from other places, other ideas. And they’re bringing their founding fathers religion in, which is okay because we believe in the, we believe in religious freedom, right? We want them to have freedom here to practice their religion, but we don’t want them to come into the country and not become what this country is.

0:04:30 – (Steve Gray): We come together and we become Americans. We go under the Constitution of America, we go under the Bill of Rights, we go under the laws, we go under the politicians, Congress, president, we place ourselves under that. We came here to place ourselves under what’s here. That’s the way it’s worked and that’s what we expect. But now we have people coming to our country to rearrange it and bringing the religion of their forefathers in, to rearrange it to be what their forefathers taught and set up in other parts of the world, which hasn’t worked very well because there’s lots of poverty, lots of dictatorships, lots of abuse.

0:05:13 – (Steve Gray): And imagine this. The funny thing about it is they come here and we give them religious freedom, which I agree with. But they come from a country that doesn’t have religious freedom. I mean, if you practice their religion, which they’re doing, they’re okay, but it’s abusive to women. They have to do, you know, you can’t be free to practice your religion there. And if You’re a Christian and you go to some of these countries, they’re dying, they’re being killed, they’re being mutilated with machetes in some countries and then killed in others and persecuted.

0:05:48 – (Steve Gray): So they don’t have religious freedom. And those coming from those countries are coming here with their ancestral religion and pushing it now into our country. And our country. Our folks don’t. Many don’t realize that it’s a spiritual thing that’s happening. It is not a political thing going on in our country. It looks political and it looks like these people, they’re just politicians, they get to practice their religion. No, they’re taking their religion and molding laws and attitudes and ideas around their religion which they brought from their forefathers.

0:06:26 – (Steve Gray): And so now we have this threat of changing America’s roots and what our forefathers brought us to believe in and what’s made us strong. And they’re here to promote their forefathers religion in government, in even schools, even school boards. You can see it in school boards, you can see it in the school classroom, you can see it in entertainment. You can see all this influence coming in. In entertainment and movies, the kids watch and adults watch and it’s spread everywhere.

0:07:00 – (Steve Gray): And you know, I don’t know if I can get away with saying this one, but some of the big, big supporters of this, let’s just call it, they have some alternate lifestyles, okay? And I’m not here to talk about their alternate lifestyles. I want to give. They want to have an alternate lifestyle, I think they ought to have the freedom to do it right? Just let’s leave each other alone to our lifestyles. But the people that are strongly supporting these ancestral God ideas from other countries and other religions are big supporters of it.

0:07:38 – (Steve Gray): But if you have an alternate lifestyle and you were to go to visit the country where this is from originates, they’ll kill you, they’ll persecute you, they’ll torture you. They do not tolerate alternative lifestyles. But we here, people that live those alternative lifestyles are supporting the religious concepts that’s going to turn on them if this keeps going. I mean, you don’t hear that talked about and maybe you’re not supposed to talk about it. I don’t know what the rules are, I guess, but that’s just the truth.

0:08:12 – (Steve Gray): They’re supporting something that’s going to turn on them. Remember that. And if it were me, and I was wanting to do some of these things that people do, these great alternative things they want to do, how they want to Dress and act and do and parade and all that stuff, man. I wouldn’t be doing it. I would be doing it in private. I’d have a private alternative lifestyle. I wouldn’t be parading it around.

0:08:35 – (Steve Gray): You’re just telling those people who you are and what you are. And they want their laws to start taking over cities. And that’s what’s happening in the UK in England. The England has been taken over by other gods and other religions. And now they are. They are controlling the government and the ideas that that’s coming into that and the lifestyles. And so there you go. And it’s just. It’ll get worse, you know, as it goes on for them anyway.

0:09:05 – (Steve Gray): So that’s what I’m talking about. And we want them to enjoy freedom of religion, but we don’t want them to change the roots of what our forefathers brought and started. They have their own background and where they’re from. If they want their forefathers, they should stay there or go there. You know, go there and enjoy it. If you come here, you should assimilate into. You know, they used to call it a melting pot that we put all this thing in this one hot pot and we all melt together under the laws, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the government, what we’ve stood for, that has made this nation strong and good. And so we welcome them, and we welcome them to do their religion, but we don’t welcome them to come and bring their religion to change and alter what our forefathers believed in and fought for. All right?

0:10:04 – (Steve Gray): So we don’t want that at all, because it doesn’t work. It’s already proven it doesn’t work. And so some of these ideas that they’re bringing to our country, even political ideas, didn’t work in other countries, right? Communism is a failure. It’s still there. But what started out to be all for one and one for all, you know, we’re all going to pool everything together and we’re going to get fairness and equality and we’re going to share everything and we’re going to commune.

0:10:37 – (Steve Gray): Communism, right, or socialism. We’re all going to socialize, everything the same. Well, what happened? It didn’t work. Dictators took over. And now those countries that wanted to be communal are being run by dictators who tell everybody what to do. Slaughter people, kill people who don’t agree. Okay? That’s what’s trying to come here. And so that’s why I want you to be awake to that. And I wanted to get your roots a little deeper into this and understand the concepts of what made our country great.

0:11:13 – (Steve Gray): So I want to go back. I talked about the Constitution, Founding Fathers bill, all that stuff, Bill of Rights. And here’s something interesting. In 1775, you know, 1776, year before, the Continental Congress of our country made a proclamation calling citizens to. To confess. I’ll write it here. To confess and deplore our many sins and seek forgiveness. This is the Continental Congress. The Congress are calling people to repent of their ways.

0:11:50 – (Steve Gray): Urging citizens to confess their sins and seek forgiveness. Congress, 1775, just getting started. All right. And so they urge. Oh, yeah. And guess what else they did. They began to urge people to attend church. Attend church. Can you imagine that today, our Congress doing that, calling for repentance? And both sides, they call it, Both sides of the aisle said, yeah, we need to do that. We need to call them back. And by the way, you need to go to church this Sunday.

0:12:22 – (Steve Gray): Can you imagine that? Well, that’s 1775. And that’s our Founding Fathers. It’s our forefathers. They, the Founding Fathers had the religion of their forefathers. Okay? So now our Founding Fathers turned us to confess our sins, to deplore our sins, ask forgiveness and get to church. 1775. All right. Then during the Civil War was going on, and citizens began to rise up, and they began to rise up and speak to our government and tell our government what they want and you know, what they wanted.

0:12:58 – (Steve Gray): During the Civil War, they began to say, we want something, to say who we are that pulls God into this war, whatever side they’re on. And so they urged the government. The government and to put these words on our currency. That’s where it began. They put the words In God we Trust on our currency during the Civil War. And it was regular citizens saying, we have to protect. Our nation’s in trouble. We’re in a civil war, and we have to get something going here. Could we put In God we Trust on our currency, whatever it was that time in 1955, in 1955, Congress passed a law against.

0:13:45 – (Steve Gray): Congress passed a law requiring the words In God we trust to be on all our paper money. 1955. 1955. Not that long ago, if you’re a little older. And it was a law. We passed a law. Think about it. Our Congress, based on our forefathers and founding Fathers, said, in God we trust to be put on our currency in 1955. And then. I like this one, 1956, the very next year, Congress officially made In God we Trust the national motto of the United States.

0:14:24 – (Steve Gray): Congress did that. Lawmakers passed laws that we gave them the right to do. And they passed a law, said, this is our motto, In God we trust. It doesn’t say, in God’s. We trust in God. And what God were they talking about? Talking about the same God of the Founding Fathers, the same God of their forefathers and probably your forefathers. Now, if you have other religions, you come from other nations.

0:14:52 – (Steve Gray): And obviously, the big controversy today is you have to enter our country the right way, don’t be illegal, all that kind of stuff. But there’s a way to come. And people come ever since the nation started from all, you know, nations. And you enter and you go through Ellis Island. They used to give us your tired and you’re poor, give it to us. But come and join us and be us with us, because this is what’s preserved us. This is what kept us safe.

0:15:24 – (Steve Gray): This is what gave us ideas. If you want to do your own religion, okay. But you’ve got to be us when it comes to the law, you’ve got to be us when it comes to the Bill of Rights and Constitution and obeying the law, you got to be us when it’s time to obey the police or the National Guard or the army or whatever, politicians, and you got to be us. And instead we have spirits getting behind politicians that are bringing in other ideas that are not on the Founding Fathers. And they’re saying, we don’t care if we’ll break the law. Break the law.

0:16:00 – (Steve Gray): Do not do, we’re just going to break the law. We don’t care what the government says. We don’t care what the. What the law says. The police say, we don’t care. We’re going to do what we want to do. Well, that anarchy, that’s like a revolution. Do what you want. And they had the Bolshevik Revolution, which started communism and it failed. And they’re bringing those ideas into America now that are not what our country was based on.

0:16:27 – (Steve Gray): And so In God We Trust has been the motto now since 19, and it’s still the motto today. It’s still on our currency, In God we trust. And so we’ve got to understand what’s happening now. Let’s put it in my world a little bit. Well, you know, when I heard this is true, when I was in grade school, we said, pledge allegiance to the flag every morning. Every morning you stood there and there’s a little flag hanging on the wall, you know, and you said the Pledge of Allegiance.

0:17:00 – (Steve Gray): I was told today that most kids don’t even know the Pledge of allegiance. So there’s a lack of allegiance, but at the end of it is important. It says, we’re going to be one nation under God. One. One God under nation under God. We’re going to be under that God. You can still practice your religion, but the forefathers. God that made our nation Christian, Judeo values is going to be one nation under God. And what’s that going to give us?

0:17:28 – (Steve Gray): Liberty. We’re going to get liberty and justice for all. Okay? So that’s been the principle that I grew up with and said it. I don’t know when they stopped saying the Pledge of Allegiance. And who. I mean, who in their right mind would say, we’re not going to do that anymore. We’re not going to do that anymore. We’re not going to say in God we trust anymore. So right now, in my opinion, our country is unwell. It’s sick.

0:17:56 – (Steve Gray): It’s got a sickness going through. It’s contaminated. We’ve let the contaminants of ideas that were never intended and are now invading, and they’re going to. I’m not against the people. I’m not even against any other religions. They should have the freedom too. What I’m against is bringing them in. The ideas that. That crushed other nations, that caused poverty, division and wars and abuse, particularly against women.

0:18:30 – (Steve Gray): I don’t want that here. We didn’t start the nation. We. Our founding forefathers and their founding fathers, their forefathers, their ancestries set up something that has been working and works, and now there’s a great onslaught. So, you know, our country is unwell, but it’s not beyond healing. There is a chance. There’s good. And with that in mind, as we get into now, this is more out of politics because I really don’t want to talk about politics. I’m just telling you what’s going on. And it’s not.

0:19:02 – (Steve Gray): It’s not political. It’s spiritual. It’s spiritual. It’s spiritual. And the problem we have is while we have those that are advancing these ideas with vigor, right? With vigor and strength. And then you go to a church and we talk about how sick we are in our heads, our hearts. Oh, we’re so broken. We’re so victimized. We’re so hurt. We’re so confused. We don’t know what to do. Everything’s. You know, our marriages do not. Our finances are not. And my heart, you know, and, you know, sometimes I think I’ll just quit or maybe I’ll commit suicide or whatever. Cause it’s just so bad, you know, and that. And so you go to the church and there’s this cloud hanging over the people.

0:19:51 – (Steve Gray): Well, we can’t do anything about it. And life is hard. And we just come and we come for an hour or so to church, we sing some songs, we get inspired to keep going in our current condition, rather than inspired to be transformed by the renewing of our minds and transformed. And when renewing of our minds mean renewing it in God’s word, our God’s word that formed this nation, all right? And so we don’t feel that way. And so here’s what’s happening. If you want to put it in a biblical story, which this is more my territory rather than political.

0:20:25 – (Steve Gray): I’m not political, I’m spiritual. Revealing that it’s spiritual behind the politics and not the other way around. All right? And so if it is, the way to stop it is spiritually, not politically, spiritually. That’s why we need a spiritual revival. We need a revival of spiritual things. You say, yeah, we’re going to get these people and those people and those people. No, God’s people that are already going to church are so nominal. And here’s what happened, okay? So Elisha is Elijah and Elisha, Elisha in the Bible came upon this very important water, spring water.

0:21:03 – (Steve Gray): And, you know, water was more scarce than it is here. So it’s very important to get water. You have to live with water. And this particular spring had somehow become polluted. It was pugnant, it was contaminated, and you couldn’t drink it. In fact, it’d make you sick or might even kill you if you drank it. So here’s this body of water, and you can’t do anything with it. Well, prophetically, I think Elisha said, give me a bowl of salt.

0:21:31 – (Steve Gray): So they gave him some salt, and he took the salt and he threw it into the water. And immediately the salt made the water pure. Immediately it was pure and drinkable. Imagine that. Well, that helped them out. But it’s a picture of what needs to be done today. Because Jesus said his people, his people who are called by his name are the salt of the earth. That meant something to them. And you know, those that heard this story, they probably knew the story of Elisha. They know Elijah and Elisha. Well, salt of the earth.

0:22:08 – (Steve Gray): And salt was also a preservative. Salt was there to heal. They used it for medicine. It was all kinds of stuff that was good. But he said, here’s the problem. If salt loses its saltiness, or in general language, if salt loses its flavor, can’t Flavor anymore. If salt is not salty anymore, he said, it becomes good for nothing, useless. Now, what was that water? That water was useless, good for nothing.

0:22:35 – (Steve Gray): But when it got salt in, changed it, it transformed it. And he said, if his people, which would be today, the church, maybe we want to look into Judaism too, but we’ll stick with our world. If the church has lost its saltiness, the inability to preserve, to heal, to changes, to transform the waters. When we see contaminated people, contaminated people hurting, I’m sympathetic to their hurts. They’re hurting.

0:23:07 – (Steve Gray): They’re discouraged, they’re afraid. They’re struggling in relationships, they’re struggling how to raise their kids. Kids are struggling. Kids addicted to certain things. And adults are addicted too, to things. All this is going on and the church is to be the salt of the earth. And we salt it. And what happens? People change. We’re to transform the hurts until it doesn’t hurt. Transform until we’re changed. Transformed until we don’t feel the way we feel now.

0:23:40 – (Steve Gray): And that means now we really can go salt our nation. So we are the salters. But he says, listen, if it loses its saltiness. So you walk into a church and it doesn’t have any salt, no transformation. You could throw it on everybody and nothing would happen, Right? You come to church and nothing happens. Nothing happens. We just get inspired. We have friendship. We go to church for friends and fellowship and home groups, sports groups, children’s ministry so children have a place to go and play. And we get a kind of a break from our kids. And we go and have church while they are being.

0:24:19 – (Steve Gray): Being babysit for free. All this is going on, but we don’t have any salt. We’ve lost our saltiness. And so Jesus says, now listen, it’s good for nothing. And it’s only good to throw out in the street, Listen. And be trampled on and be trampled on by others. Be walked on, Trampled on. Is that where you want our nation to go? That the church has become so unsalty, lost in saltiness that now what has been is being tossed out?

0:24:50 – (Steve Gray): Not literally, of course, but in God’s eyes? And then he puts. He says, yep, well, get ready to be trampled on. That’s what people want to do to America. They want to trample on who we are, what we are and what’s preserved us and helped us. The saltiness that hasn’t been perfect, but the saltiness that has preserved us has kept us intact and has made us the greatest nation on the face of the earth is being attacked and changed by spiritual not political.

0:25:22 – (Steve Gray): I’m not against other politicians who believe other things than I do. They have a right to do that. But we do not want them to change the framework and cause it to the framework of our forefathers and their forefathers and our founding fathers and their forefathers. Right, that were smart enough and God led. In my opinion, the in God we trust needs to stay. And it’s the one God, not gods. One the one gods and transform what has contaminated us into holiness, into purity again, pure water.

0:25:56 – (Steve Gray): Change the spring into purity. So we can drink from the river of life. Right? We can drink from the river of life. And the church has now become powerful places that influence. They influence the politics. God in the church, God in the house influences the politicians rather than gods from other kingdoms and other worlds and other places coming now and forming and reforming the nation and causing it to be contaminated.

0:26:25 – (Steve Gray): So if we drink of it, it’s going to cause us to be trampled under foot. That’s my story. I go back clear back to In God We Trust. Clear back to 1755, when in God We Trust began to be the motto of our country. And we need to go back to that again. You want to learn more? Go to https://stevegrayministries.com. Support, tell your friends, give a gift, buy a book. These are things that people need to hear. I love to have you come on board and be a part of this movement that’s beginning now to come forth and kind of balance this out, to not be against anybody, but to just remain sure on our foundation that made this nation great. Until next time, bye-bye.