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00:00:00.000 | I am James Hong and welcome to the Surpassing Value Podcast.
00:00:15.620 | The fuel and desire for this podcast was born out of a compulsion to flesh out what's
00:00:19.740 | been going on in the midst of an ocean of megaphones that may not actually withstand
00:00:24.600 | the test of scrutiny.
00:00:26.620 | As a signpost theologian, I will do my best to filter out the impurities and point people
00:00:32.320 | in the right direction.
00:00:37.160 | For episode number 8, I wanted to continue our journey into Marxism.
00:00:45.400 | I last left off by quoting to you various portions of the 1963 US Communist Party goals.
00:00:54.200 | That was relevant because you were able to see how Marxism had influenced and fleshed
00:01:00.760 | out its principles into explicit goals.
00:01:04.840 | I'm going to quote to you some of them which were already quoted in the last episode, but
00:01:09.660 | just to kind of start us off.
00:01:12.200 | And I quote, "Get control of the schools.
00:01:16.160 | Use them as transmission belts for "socialism" and current "communist" propaganda.
00:01:24.320 | Soften the curriculum.
00:01:26.040 | Get control of teachers' associations.
00:01:28.800 | Put the party line in textbooks.
00:01:31.400 | Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion.
00:01:37.440 | Discredit the Bible and emphasize a need for intellectual maturity which does not need
00:01:43.240 | a religious crutch.
00:01:45.760 | Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that
00:01:51.280 | it violates the principle of separation of church and state.
00:01:56.160 | Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step
00:02:01.880 | with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis."
00:02:12.920 | At the last episode I left off with two questions.
00:02:18.760 | In the event that you're thinking to yourself that 1963 is somehow outdated, I wanted to
00:02:29.920 | quote from the U.S. Communist Party of today, of today.
00:02:37.300 | This is from their website, quote, "The roots of the Communist Party extend deep
00:02:42.900 | into our nation's soil, even far beyond our founding in Chicago in 1919.
00:02:50.320 | We build on the legacy of those who fought against slavery for the right to organize
00:02:55.360 | unions, for civil rights, and for women's vote and reproductive rights.
00:02:59.680 | We apply the scientific outlook developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and others in the
00:03:06.760 | context of U.S. history, culture, and traditions.
00:03:11.120 | The need for the Communist Party is as great as ever.
00:03:15.160 | Capitalism has cast billions of people around the world into poverty.
00:03:19.640 | It afflicts humanity with endless wars.
00:03:22.400 | It institutionalizes racism and women's oppression, denies youth the hope of a future,
00:03:29.160 | and fuels discrimination against gay, lesbian, and transgender people, religious minorities,
00:03:35.880 | immigrants, and people with disabilities.
00:03:39.040 | Capitalism pits worker against worker in a global race to the bottom.
00:03:43.440 | Corporate interests wage a never-ending campaign to roll back people's hard-won democratic
00:03:49.520 | rights.
00:03:51.080 | Capitalism's insatiable drive for profits has poisoned the earth's land, sea, and air.
00:03:58.660 | Capitalism treats people and nature as disposable commodities in order to transfer the wealth
00:04:03.880 | of the planet to a handful of multi-millionaires.
00:04:08.120 | Our basic principles are rooted in today's struggles, informed by our history and experience,
00:04:14.400 | and guided by our scientific outlook and vision of socialism.
00:04:18.160 | Our bedrock principles include the leading role of the working class in the struggle
00:04:22.800 | for social change.
00:04:24.400 | That working class unity is essential, and the fight against racism and for immigrant
00:04:29.420 | rights are essential to build that unity.
00:04:32.340 | In solidarity with working people around the world, we stand in opposition to U.S. imperialism,
00:04:38.200 | the system by which U.S. corporations use their economic power, along with the political
00:04:43.540 | and military power of our government, to exploit workers, pillage the environment, and corrupt
00:04:49.340 | governments around the world, just as they do here at home."
00:04:59.660 | Much of the language that I quoted to you just now, do you see that in politics today?
00:05:11.260 | Do you see that in politics today?
00:05:20.260 | And what I quoted to you, an ever-present dialogue in politics today.
00:05:34.260 | Now you can see, by connecting the dots, Marxism is much more present than we have been led
00:05:49.100 | to believe.
00:05:53.500 | It is not benign, it is not even neutral.
00:05:58.740 | This is an all-encompassing worldview that is completely at odds with what most people
00:06:09.140 | believe to be good.
00:06:13.140 | It is completely at odds with the worldview of the scriptures.
00:06:23.020 | Socialism and communism share very little differences, if at all, if at all.
00:06:31.760 | It is for that reason, it is for that reason that one of the Communist Party's goals was,
00:06:43.040 | and I quote, "get control of the schools, use them as transmission belts for socialism
00:06:51.160 | and current communist propaganda," unquote.
00:06:56.960 | That's one of the goals.
00:06:59.520 | And then I quoted to you today's goals.
00:07:04.560 | And in today's goals, that has become the marching beat of what you hear on the news.
00:07:16.720 | And no, Nordic countries like Denmark and Sweden are not socialist countries.
00:07:24.640 | They are capitalist countries with a high safety net.
00:07:28.880 | There's a huge difference.
00:07:31.720 | As I make these statements to you, I'm not trying to convince you to become a good Republican.
00:07:40.480 | That is not my goal here.
00:07:42.560 | As I stated to you earlier in the last episode, the dialectic that is presented, communism
00:07:49.080 | or socialism versus capitalism, that's the dialectic that is typically pushed on us by
00:07:58.040 | the culture.
00:07:59.760 | And because that dialectic is pushed on us by the culture, many well-intentioned yet
00:08:07.800 | naive Christians believe that entering the discussion is not a prudent thing to do because
00:08:17.280 | Christians should not be overly engaged in politics.
00:08:22.640 | But I've embarked in this discussion, not necessarily for politics per se, although
00:08:31.880 | of course all of life touches some political arena to some degree.
00:08:40.360 | But the reason I embarked on this discussion is because of what the Communist Manifesto
00:08:50.880 | explicitly states with respect to morality, not just mere politics.
00:09:01.520 | When that worldview espouses to destroy, to abolish the nuclear family, to take children
00:09:11.120 | away for indoctrination, that is far beyond just mere politics.
00:09:21.080 | Also, I'm just giving you the truth of the matter.
00:09:25.720 | I am just giving you the truth of the matter.
00:09:30.080 | So as we approach this discussion, do not let the culture's version of what the culture
00:09:41.120 | wants you to believe the dialectic is to cast the picture of the framework that we should
00:09:52.940 | have.
00:09:56.120 | Let me quote to you again from Karl Marx, from the Communist Manifesto to prove my point.
00:10:02.160 | "Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a socialist tinge.
00:10:10.640 | Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the state?
00:10:17.260 | Has it not preached in the place of these charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification
00:10:23.420 | of the flesh, monastic life and mother church?
00:10:27.820 | Christian socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heartburnings
00:10:34.880 | of the aristocrat."
00:10:38.520 | Karl Marx makes absolutely no qualms about wanting his ideology to infiltrate and blend
00:10:46.840 | it with Christianity.
00:10:49.080 | No doubt, just like as he was stating, by playing on the Christian's desire to be compassionate
00:10:55.600 | and in most cases, to be intentionally ignorant.
00:11:02.520 | As I alluded to in the last episode, interestingly enough, Karl Marx and C. H. Spurgeon, Charles
00:11:11.540 | Haddon Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, these two figures occupied the same time and
00:11:18.240 | the same place.
00:11:20.000 | They lived during the same time and at the same place.
00:11:26.520 | Did Charles Haddon Spurgeon have anything to say about socialism?
00:11:33.240 | Let me read to you a couple quotes by C. H. Spurgeon.
00:11:39.840 | "Did I hear a whisper that ministers are nowadays very broad and have given up the
00:11:47.400 | old gospel?
00:11:48.840 | I know it and I am not surprised.
00:11:51.360 | The builders are the first to reject the chosen stone.
00:11:54.920 | Christ owes little to preachers, and some of his worst enemies are found in their ranks.
00:12:00.560 | Unconverted men are in too many pulpits and are seeking out many inventions to set aside
00:12:06.240 | the pure gospel, which exalts Christ Jesus.
00:12:09.720 | Let them alone, the ditches gaping for these blind guides.
00:12:13.660 | Our Lord can do without them.
00:12:15.400 | He owes his victories to himself and to himself alone, and therefore he let the faith of his
00:12:21.040 | people rest in peace, for if they will have patience they shall see greater things than
00:12:25.640 | they have yet beheld.
00:12:27.640 | Our text saith that it is not only the Lord's doing and marvelous, but it is marvelous in
00:12:33.480 | our eyes, which it could not be if we did not see it.
00:12:36.800 | We shall see and we shall marvel.
00:12:39.080 | Some of us may have passed away, but you who are younger may live to see modern thought
00:12:44.040 | obtain supremacy over human minds.
00:12:47.320 | German rationalism, which has ripened into socialism, may yet pollute the mass of mankind
00:12:55.800 | and lead them to overturn the foundations of society.
00:12:59.760 | Then advanced principles will hold carnival and free thought will ride with the vice and
00:13:05.480 | blood which were years ago the insignia of the age of reason.
00:13:10.040 | I say that it will be so, but I should not wonder if it come to pass, for deadly principles
00:13:15.280 | are abroad and certain ministers are spreading them.
00:13:18.720 | If it ever should be so, do not, O believers, for a single moment despair, but rest certain
00:13:24.040 | that the Lord is about to do a marvelous thing on the earth, and that he will lift up once
00:13:28.080 | again the stone which the builders have again refused and cause it to become more than ever
00:13:33.000 | the headstone of the corner.
00:13:35.160 | Never dream of defeat; be calm amid all the din of controversy, for the hand which holds
00:13:41.400 | the gospel must win the victory.
00:13:44.080 | This is the Lord's doing, and we shall see it.
00:13:46.340 | In the early days of Christianity, multitudes of Christians were tormented to death because
00:13:50.320 | of their faith in Christ Jesus.
00:13:52.120 | There was no excuse for it, for they had done no harm to the state.
00:13:55.880 | Christianity does not come into a nation to break up its arrangements or to break down
00:14:00.280 | its fabric.
00:14:01.520 | All that is good in human society it preserves and establishes.
00:14:05.260 | It snaps no ties of the family.
00:14:07.500 | It dislocates no bond of the body politic.
00:14:10.640 | There are theories of "socialism" and the like which lead to anarchy and riot.
00:14:16.700 | But it is not so with the mild and gentle teaching of Jesus Christ, whose every word
00:14:22.460 | is love and patience.
00:14:27.260 | Charles Spurgeon saw beyond the dialectic that socialism/communism was merely political.
00:14:42.980 | It is not just merely political.
00:14:47.740 | This worldview is antithetical to Christianity.
00:14:58.340 | I fear, less than any of you, there should be even the least measure of despising the
00:15:02.620 | one lost sheep.
00:15:04.280 | Because of the large and philosophical methods which are now so loudly cried up, I would
00:15:09.540 | not have you exchange the gold of individual Christianity for the base metal of Christian
00:15:15.620 | socialism.
00:15:17.980 | If the wonders are to be brought in, in vast numbers, as I pray they may be, yet must it
00:15:22.700 | be accomplished by the bringing of them in one by one, to attempt national regeneration
00:15:28.540 | without personal regeneration is to dream of erecting a house without separate bricks.
00:15:34.660 | In the vain attempt to work in the gross, we may miss the practical result which would
00:15:38.940 | have followed working in detail.
00:15:41.000 | Let us settle it in our minds that we cannot do better than obey the example of our Lord
00:15:45.720 | Jesus given us in the text and go after the one sheep which has gone astray.
00:15:57.040 | I would not have you exchange the gold of individual Christianity for the base metal
00:16:04.200 | of Christian socialism.
00:16:09.600 | "For many a year, by the grand old truths of the gospel, sinners were converted and
00:16:17.560 | saints were edified, and the world was made to know that there is a God in Israel.
00:16:22.080 | But these are too antiquated for the present cultured race of superior beings.
00:16:26.040 | They are going to regenerate the world by democratic socialism, and set up a kingdom
00:16:31.960 | for Christ without the new birth or the pardon of sin.
00:16:36.360 | Surely the Lord has not taken away the seven thousand that have not bowed the knee to Baal,
00:16:41.080 | but they are, in most cases, hidden away, even as Obadiah hid the prophets in a cave."
00:16:55.160 | They are going to regenerate the world by democratic socialism, and set up a kingdom
00:17:00.800 | for Christ without the new birth or the pardon of sin.
00:17:05.680 | C.H.
00:17:06.680 | Spurgeon saw beyond the mere dialectic that is Marxism versus capitalism.
00:17:18.800 | He saw socialism, communism, Marxism for exactly what it was, and he spoke out against it.
00:17:30.040 | Spurgeon saw that it wasn't just a mere economic philosophy.
00:17:35.760 | Even Karl Marx, even he himself, stated that it wasn't just a mere economic philosophy.
00:17:45.160 | Even he wanted to embed this within Christianity, and he wanted to fool the unsuspecting, or
00:17:55.600 | the ones who just don't care.
00:17:59.680 | And out of a very naive desire to do good and to be compassionate, one could easily
00:18:07.280 | fall sway to this deceptive philosophy.
00:18:11.920 | The very fact that I have more quotes by C.H.
00:18:14.840 | Spurgeon that I'm not sharing with you should tell you something.
00:18:22.680 | If this isn't enough for you, take a look back upon history.
00:18:30.960 | What has been communism's history?
00:18:34.920 | What is it?
00:18:38.560 | Despicable Nazi Germany was responsible for the death of at least six million, probably
00:18:45.280 | six to nine million Jews, between 11 to 25 million people total.
00:18:51.800 | And they are rightfully denounced for their despicable and heinous acts.
00:18:58.120 | But what about communism?
00:19:00.720 | What about communism?
00:19:01.720 | What has been communism's track record in the same plane of thought?
00:19:08.160 | Well, Kim Il-sung's North Korea resulted in the deaths of 2 million from 1972 to 1994.
00:19:17.600 | Pol Pot's Cambodia resulted in the deaths of 2 million in the 1970s.
00:19:22.400 | Lenin's Stalin resulted in the deaths of 20 million between the 1920s and the 1950s.
00:19:29.720 | Mao Zedong's China resulted in the deaths of 65 million between 1943 and 1976.
00:19:38.000 | And I haven't even mentioned Ho Chi Minh or Fidel Castro or anyone from the country of
00:19:45.560 | Venezuela.
00:19:48.640 | Some have it at 100 million total.
00:19:53.680 | 100 million total died as a result of Marxism, communism.
00:20:04.760 | They are AKAs, believe me.
00:20:07.960 | They are AKAs, as I've just demonstrated.
00:20:12.120 | If you're ever interested in this subject a little further, I would suggest to you the
00:20:17.000 | Black Book of Communism, the Black Book of Communism.
00:20:22.160 | A benign or neutral worldview does not end in the deaths of millions of people.
00:20:33.880 | It just doesn't.
00:20:38.760 | Now perhaps you're listening to this and you're not a huge fan of C. H. Spurgeon or history.
00:20:46.760 | I'm going to read to you another rather extensive quote, and I'm not going to tell you who said
00:20:52.720 | it.
00:20:53.720 | But at the end of the long quote, I will tell you who said it.
00:21:01.960 | And internally, judge for yourself whether or not you believe this person before I tell
00:21:09.100 | you who said it.
00:21:11.400 | "I elicit your undivided attention as I attempt to discuss with you one of the vital issues
00:21:18.640 | of our day.
00:21:19.640 | It is a rather controversial subject, and yet I think it is the responsibility of the
00:21:24.360 | preacher to keep his congregation informed on the major issues of the day, to bring the
00:21:29.120 | kind of tenets of our gospel to bear on these various issues.
00:21:32.680 | Now, this will not be the traditional sermon with a text, and you may feel when it's over
00:21:37.000 | that it's more of an academic lecture than a moving sermon, but I think it is important
00:21:41.200 | for me to discuss the question of communism with you, and so I am using as a subject from
00:21:46.180 | which to preach, "Can a Christian be a communist?"
00:21:49.800 | Now, there are at least three reasons why I feel obligated as a Christian minister to
00:21:54.640 | talk to you about communism.
00:21:56.360 | The first grows out of the fact that communism is having widespread influence in the contemporary
00:22:01.600 | world.
00:22:02.600 | Like a mighty tidal wave, it has moved through China, Russia, Eastern Europe, and now has
00:22:06.560 | ruled within 90 miles of the borders of our nations.
00:22:09.440 | More than a billion of the peoples of the world believe in communism, and many of these
00:22:13.160 | people have accepted it as a new religion, and they are willing to surrender their total
00:22:17.220 | being to this system, a force so potent cannot be ignored.
00:22:21.800 | A second reason that I feel compelled to talk about communism this morning is that it is
00:22:26.280 | the only serious rival of Christianity.
00:22:29.040 | The other historic and great religions of the world such as Judaism, Muhammadism, Buddhism,
00:22:33.800 | and Hinduism may stand as alternatives to Christianity, but for the most formidable
00:22:37.840 | competitor that Christianity faces in the world today, we must look to communism.
00:22:43.560 | No one conversant with the hard facts of modern life can deny the truth that communism and
00:22:48.400 | Christianity's most serious rival.
00:22:50.500 | The third reason that I feel compelled to talk about communism this morning is that
00:22:53.880 | it is unfair and certainly unscientific to condemn a system of thought without knowing
00:22:58.680 | what that system of thought says and without knowing why it is wrong and why it is evil.
00:23:03.120 | So for these reasons, I choose to talk about this troubling issue.
00:23:06.480 | Now let us begin by answering the question which our sermon topic raises, "Can a Christian
00:23:10.840 | be a communist?"
00:23:11.840 | I answer that question with an emphatic "no."
00:23:16.200 | These two philosophies are diametrically opposed.
00:23:19.060 | The basic philosophy of Christianity is unalterably opposed to the basic philosophy of communism
00:23:24.200 | and all of the dialectics of the logician cannot make them lie down together.
00:23:28.120 | They are contrary philosophies.
00:23:30.300 | How then is communism irreconcilable with Christianity?
00:23:34.320 | In the first place, it leaves out God and Jesus Christ.
00:23:37.960 | Communism is avowedly secularistic and materialist.
00:23:40.580 | The great philosopher of communism, Karl Marx, based his total philosophy on what he called
00:23:45.040 | dialectical materialism.
00:23:46.980 | There was a philosopher by the name of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel who had used what
00:23:51.680 | he called a dialectical system to analyze concepts and Karl Marx was willing to take
00:23:56.280 | Hegel's dialectic.
00:23:57.740 | And then he studied another man by the name of Feuerbach, a German philosopher.
00:24:01.720 | This man was a materialist.
00:24:03.360 | And so he took the materialism of this man and added it to the dialectic that he got
00:24:07.360 | from Hegel and this is why his system is called dialectical materialism.
00:24:12.400 | Now what is materialism?
00:24:13.840 | It says in substance that the whole of reality can be explained in terms of matter and motion.
00:24:18.520 | In other words, it says that the basic stuff of reality is the material stuff.
00:24:23.880 | Materialism says, in substance, that idealism is wrong when it talks about the ultimate
00:24:27.760 | reality of mind and spirit and all of that.
00:24:30.600 | Karl Marx was a materialist and he believed that the whole of human history moved on driven
00:24:35.960 | by economic forces.
00:24:37.640 | This was his idea.
00:24:39.120 | There was no place in that system for God.
00:24:41.560 | And so from that moment on, communism became an atheistic system.
00:24:46.040 | And to this very day, it is atheistic.
00:24:49.440 | It denies the existence of God.
00:24:51.360 | And if one goes to Russia, even today, he will find many of the churches filled on Sunday
00:24:55.760 | morning.
00:24:56.760 | And he will know that in spite of that, the Russian government has had a campaign against
00:25:00.480 | religion and against God and belief in God ever since the revolution in 1917.
00:25:06.540 | So that no Christian can be a communist because communism leaves out God.
00:25:10.760 | It regards religion psychologically as wishful thinking, regards religion intellectually
00:25:15.760 | as a product of fear and ignorance, and it regards religion historically as an instrument
00:25:20.600 | serving the ends of exploiters.
00:25:23.720 | This is what communism teaches about religion.
00:25:26.240 | And so in a real sense, we disagree with this because we believe that history is moved not
00:25:31.080 | by economic forces, but by spiritual forces.
00:25:34.240 | We believe that there is a God in this universe, a God who loves his children and a God who
00:25:39.920 | works through history for the salvation of man.
00:25:42.680 | Consequently, we can't accept communism at that point.
00:25:46.040 | A second reason that we can't accept communism is that its methods are opposed to Christianity.
00:25:51.840 | Since for the communists, there is no divine government or no absolute moral order.
00:25:55.800 | There are no fixed immutable principles.
00:25:58.280 | So force, violence, murder, and lying are all justifiable means to bring about the millennial
00:26:02.920 | end.
00:26:03.920 | Lenin, the man who was something of the technician of communism, putting the philosophy of Karl
00:26:08.200 | Marx into practical action, said on one occasion, "We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit,
00:26:14.560 | and lawbreaking, withholding and concealing truth."
00:26:18.120 | That the followers of Lenin have been willing to act upon these instructions is a matter
00:26:22.400 | of history.
00:26:23.840 | For communism, the end justifies the means.
00:26:28.440 | There again, we can't go along with this.
00:26:30.680 | We believe that there are certain moral principles in this universe that are eternal and absolute.
00:26:35.400 | We believe that there are some things right and there are some things wrong.
00:26:39.680 | It's wrong to lie.
00:26:40.800 | It's always been wrong to lie and will always be wrong.
00:26:43.240 | It's wrong to hate.
00:26:44.600 | It has always been wrong and will always be wrong.
00:26:47.080 | It's wrong to throw away the precious lives that God gives us in righteous living.
00:26:51.320 | It was wrong in 1800 BC and it's wrong in 1962 AD.
00:26:56.480 | It's wrong in Russia.
00:26:57.480 | It's wrong in China.
00:26:58.480 | It's wrong in India.
00:26:59.480 | It's wrong in New York.
00:27:00.480 | It's wrong in Atlanta.
00:27:01.840 | We believe that there are some things right, eternally and absolutely so, and there are
00:27:06.400 | some things wrong.
00:27:07.880 | Then, we don't believe that the end justifies the means if those means happen to be bad.
00:27:13.000 | For we know that the end represents the means in process and the ideal in the making.
00:27:18.280 | The end is preexistent in the means, and so destructive means cannot bring about constructive
00:27:24.000 | ends.
00:27:25.360 | Immoral methods cannot achieve moral goals.
00:27:29.200 | And so, we disagree with the ethical relativism of communism.
00:27:34.440 | In the third place, we have to disagree with communism because the end of communism is
00:27:38.920 | the state.
00:27:39.920 | I should qualify this by saying that the state in communist theory is a temporary reality,
00:27:45.400 | an interim reality, which is to be eliminated when the classless society emerges.
00:27:50.840 | Karl Marx talks of that day when there will be a classless society.
00:27:55.080 | The ruling class, or rather the workers, what he called the proletariat, will through the
00:27:59.640 | revolution take power from the ruling class, which were the producers or the capitalists.
00:28:04.680 | And finally, they will come to power and through their power, they will establish a classless
00:28:09.120 | society.
00:28:10.480 | He says that while you are on the way to this classless society, that the state is the end.
00:28:15.880 | Man becomes only a means to that end.
00:28:18.760 | And if any man's so-called rights or liberties stand in the way of that end, they are simply
00:28:24.680 | swept aside.
00:28:26.720 | And so in the communistic system, you do not have freedom of the press.
00:28:31.240 | You do not have freedom of speech.
00:28:33.280 | You do not have freedom of assembly.
00:28:35.000 | All these things are under the scrutiny of the state, which is manipulated through the
00:28:39.000 | party.
00:28:40.040 | And whatever the party says, that must be done.
00:28:43.040 | All the freedoms that are dear to us are denied.
00:28:46.000 | Man has to be a servant, a dutiful and submissive servant of the state.
00:28:51.200 | The state is omnipotent and supreme, and so if one lived in Russia today, he couldn't
00:28:56.760 | just get up and make a speech against the communist party.
00:29:00.180 | If one lived in Russia today, he could not write a book saying certain things without
00:29:04.120 | the condemnation of the party.
00:29:06.120 | He may be searched and even killed.
00:29:08.640 | You remember the great book that Pasternak wrote, and you remember the problems that
00:29:11.640 | he faced because there were within that book some things that they didn't like in Russia.
00:29:16.560 | It had criticisms of the system."
00:29:24.980 | If you are not convinced by what C. H. Spurgeon said, if you are not convinced of communism's
00:29:36.380 | objective historical record, will you perhaps be convinced from a sermon from Dr. Martin
00:29:48.240 | Luther King, Jr.?
00:29:51.940 | That was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
00:29:56.020 | Now, let me say, theologically, I don't agree with many points of Dr. King's.
00:30:11.000 | My point in quoting him was this.
00:30:17.280 | There have been many people across the spectrum that have accurately diagnosed and explicitly
00:30:32.440 | called out Marxism, Socialism, Communism for exactly what it is, and they are all the same.
00:30:49.160 | I'm going to say it again, the dialectic that's pushed, that it's Marxism versus capitalism,
00:31:00.320 | and therefore, we need not care as Christians, we need not care, that is completely false.
00:31:12.240 | Marx himself wanted to push that dialectic so that well-intentioned Christians would
00:31:32.400 | be fooled.
00:31:33.400 | We need to be sober.
00:31:34.400 | We need to be discerning.
00:31:35.400 | I want to read to you 1 John 4, verses 1-6, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but
00:31:48.140 | test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone
00:31:56.920 | out into the world.
00:31:58.900 | By this you know the Spirit of God.
00:32:01.640 | Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every
00:32:07.840 | spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
00:32:13.240 | This is the spirit of the Antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now
00:32:19.780 | it is already in the world.
00:32:22.080 | You are from God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He who is
00:32:27.640 | in you than he who is in the world.
00:32:31.320 | They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to
00:32:36.480 | them.
00:32:37.560 | We are from God.
00:32:39.040 | He who knows God listens to us.
00:32:42.000 | He who is not from God does not listen to us.
00:32:45.200 | By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
00:32:52.600 | Test every spirit to see whether they are from God."
00:33:00.760 | Colossians 2 says something similar, "We are not to be beholden by deceptive philosophies,
00:33:09.480 | the elementary principles of this world."
00:33:13.720 | And let me tell you, communism, socialism, Marxism, does not confess that Jesus is God.
00:33:25.600 | In fact, it does the exact opposite.
00:33:30.160 | It is antagonistic to the Christian worldview, which is why they want to abolish the family,
00:33:44.720 | abolish organized religion, and embed themselves and masquerade around as some form of Christianity.
00:33:56.080 | Thanks for making it to the end.
00:34:02.360 | I'll continue to try to make the journey worth it.
00:34:06.760 | To Him be honor, glory, and eternal dominion, James Harno.
00:34:34.240 | Amen.
00:34:41.720 | (upbeat music)