This is a live interview with Mike Winther and Pastor Michael Douglass and Elaine Harland of Lighthouse Live. As the Founder of IPS, Mike breaks down who we are and what we stand for.
IPS is a Christian think tank with the main objective of doing research on basic Christian principles and then to teach those principles through our church community.
The focus of our teachings is on government, economics, and history. These principles are shared through students, teachers, pastors, Sunday School classes, and more.
You'll Learn:
[01:21] We teach to the community through students, teachers, pastors, Sunday School classes, and more.
[01:27] IPS focuses on principles of government, economics, and history.
[01:35] We've discovered that the modern-day church has very little understanding of the biblical principles related to how we govern ourselves, history, and economics.
[02:39] God has ordained three institutions: the family, the church, and the civil government.
[04:17] There are biblical principles for how the government should operate.
[04:41] Our founding fathers wanted the three separate institutions. They did not want to separate the State from God. They believe that all authority was derived from Biblical scriptural principles.
[05:53] When there's a problem, the first thing we should ask in God's economy is which institution should we appeal to?
[07:36] Most of us know that the government is inefficient, but we don't understand the principles behind that. It's because God's principles are being violated.
[08:24] We have a natural tendency to slide away from where we ought to be.
[08:47] If you go back and read what the teachers and pastors who trained our founding fathers wrote, it's an eye-opening experience.
[09:17] The Puritan pulpit was in manuscript form from the scriptures. These sermons have withstood the test of time.
[10:16] Pastors weren't afraid to comment on the political issues of the day and applied biblical principles.
[10:33] Our founding fathers grew up under the teachings of these Puritan pulpits.
[10:59] By the 1820s, a lot of these principles were disappearing from our schools.
[11:18] IPS is searching out these principles, and that's part of the research that we do.
[11:50] It's our hope that God will do a great and mighty work in recapturing these principles.
[12:32] Jefferson and the Danbury Baptists.
[15:40] We talk about the difference between a valid patriotism and an invalid patriotism.
[17:24] The role of charity and what God has to say about it biblically. We should work if we're able. The family should be the first safety net. If the family can't do it, it's the church's job.
[20:19] The church is more passive when it should be active. When it comes to charity, we've become passive.
[21:51] The church needs to compete with the government to take back what is ours.
[23:56] If we were meeting the needs of charity as the body of Christ, the government wouldn't need to come in.
[24:37] Why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Ezekiel 16:49. The sin was not meeting the needs of the poor.
[26:43] If we are saved by God's grace, what are we safe from? We are safe from God's Wrath.
[28:32] Church should be what's happening outside of the walls. In Acts, believers went out and spread the word to everybody.
[29:55] If we could go back to a situation where the church met the needs of the poor, our tax burden would drop by 75%.
