Wrong Think I

[Music][Applause][Music]wgood morning uh and welcome as weworship here today on the Sabbath day inthis the Lord's House my name is PastorConrad Vine and this is the first of athree-part series a religious libertyseries entitled wrong think one wrongthink 2 and wrong think three and uhthis is the first of the three-partseries entitled wrong think one andwe're going to be looking at the descentinto totalitarianism here in the UnitedStates and implication ac across many ofthe countries of the West and so pleasebow your heads with me and we'll openwith a word of prayer dear heavenlyfather we pray your blessing upon us aswe We Gather here today we ask for theoutpouring of your holy spirit that wemay hear the words you have prepared forus I pray father that you will speakthrough me and for me that my words willbe taken from your throne of gracefather we're going to touch upon somedifficult topics today but I pray that Iwill speak with both Grace and Truth inthe name of Jesus I askamen Natan shansi is an Israelipolitician he serves in Israeliparliaments the knesset but whilst hewas living with within the union ofsocialist socialist Soviet republics orthe USSR he was a human rights activistand a very famous refus niik who spentnine years in the prisons of the SovietUnion reflecting on how he changed frombeing a subservient Soviet citizen to aprisoner of conscience he says thefollowing he says I was a loyal Sovietcitizen until the age of 20 what itmeant to be a loyal citizen was to saywhat you were supposed to say to readwhat you were permitted to read to tospeak to vote the way you were told tovote and at the same time to know thatit was all a lie another very famousrefusenik of the Soviet Union era wasAlexander soliton he won the Nobel PeacePrize and he published a final messageto the Soviet people shortly before hisExile and that final message wasentitled live not by lies he argued thattotalitarian regimes are built on anideology of lies and the system survivesonly because people are afraid tochallenge those lies in contrastdemocracies Thrive because of sharedtruths here in the United States in theUS declaration of independence we readwe hold these truths to be self-evidentthat all men are created equal and theyare endowed with their creator withcertain unalienable rights that amongthose are life liberty and the pursuitof happiness in contrast totalitarianregimes survive because they impose liesand the people have no ability to fightback against those lies and today in the21st century in 2021 we here in Americaare being forced are being required tolive with lies today these are some ofthe lies we he in modern day Societynumber one men can have periods numbertwo there are dozens of genderidentities number three a man can becomea woman number four a woman can become aman this is a lie number five 2 + 2 nolonger equals four that is racism 2+ 2rather can equal five if that is yourlived experience same-sex marriage istermed marriage equality though it is anAbomination unto God open marriage isfreedom same-sex marriages are moralchildren will Thrive equally with twofathers or two mothers as compared tohaving one father and one mother payingmore taxes when you buy your gas for thecar will somehow change global weatherpatterns equal opportunity equalitybefore the law reason logic and scienceare now considered inherently racist andin modern day double think diversitymeans excluding those who disagree withMarxist ideology and Equity meanstreating people differently for anideological outcome these are some ofthe lies that we being forced to livewith here in the United States so thestructure of our sermon today is basedaround four parts firstly we're going tolook at The Descent in totalitarianismhow did we in America descend intotalitarianism then we're going to lookat the turn to totalitarianism in thelate uh 2020 we're then going to belooking at how the Adventist Churchhistorically has respondedtotalitarianism and finally mostimportantly we're going to ask what maywe as Bible believing um Bible faithfulDisciples of Jesus Christ how may werespond to the rising of totalitarianismwithin America today so let's startfirst with the descent into toal intototalitarianism and you may let's startwith a definition because it's importantto define the words that we use in themodern era language is being weaponizedlanguage no longer means what you thinkit means this is part of a criticaltheory in practice and so it's importantto Define very precisely the terms thatwe mean as and when we use them and sowhat do we mean by to totalitarianismwell the term totalitarianism firstcomes from the Italian dictator in the1930s and early 1940s called Benitomelini he coined the term totalitario todescribe the new fascist state of Italyand he described totalitarianism in thisway he said it is all within the statenone outside the state and none againstthe state let me repeat all within thestate none outside the state and noneagainst the state totalitarian forms ofgovernment do not permit any individualfreedoms such as freedom of conscienceand they seek to subordinate all aspectsof an individual's life to the needs andpriorities of the dominant state hardtotalitarian regimes enforce their liesvia secret police via the gulag of theSoviet Union via concentration camps vialegalized torture of its own citizens byextended imprisonment hard labor campsand execution soft totality regimes incontrast enforce their Lies by what wenow call cancel culture where you arereduced to a non-person by professionalFinancial social and personaldestruction and we are seeing thearrival of cancel culture and with itssoft totalitarianism right here in theUnited States in2021 so what are some of the factorsthat led to America's disent into softtotalitarianism well there are a numberof factors and we can identify themfirst ly we are now a postmodern Societymodern Nations such as the United Statesof America or the French Republic theyhave a a dominant meta narrative forinstance in America it is the concept ofmanifest destiny in France it is Liberegalfraternity but socially in America weare now a postmodern culture and we aretrying to live as a postmodern culturewithin the structures of a modernistSociety our legal system our JudicialSystem our political system our economicsystem our political system is based onthe rationalism of the modernist era butwe are now postmodern and it isbasically in almost impossible for apostmodern Society to live within theboundaries of a modernist nation statesecondly we are now a posttruthsociety in the modernist era whenAmerica was founded truth was absoluteTR truth was fixed truth was knowabletruth was measurable and Truth wasUniversal for instance if you if I takean apple and I drop it on the floor if Ilet go of it it will drop to the floorit doesn't matter the color of my skinor my sexual orientation or what part ofthe globe I am wherever I drop thatApple it will always drop to the floorthis is one of the universal principlesof science however in the the uhpostmodernist era truth is no longerabsolute but it is it is variable it issituational it is no longer knowable itis often unknowable it is personal it isyour truth it is subjective it issituational and it is fluid hence OprahWinfrey might talk about your truth itis important that you speak your truthshe does not say it is important thatyou speak the truth because the truth isa concept of modernism but now we nolonger believe in the truth as anabsolute now we believe in your truthand my truth and his her his truth andher truth and their truth over therewe're also now a post privacy Societyubiquitous smart devices our cell ourcell phones and our hands our iPads umour Amazon dots and Echoes at home andwe have all these um gadgets so we canspeak to them and they give us the timeand the weather and so forth um we haveLi effectively eliminated to a greatextent personal privacy in the interestsof convenience and what is completelynormal today May in fact be recorded andused against you tomorrow now this isone of the reasons why we're seeing anepidemic of mental illness problemmental health problems among collegestudents To This Day in 2020 and 2021people know that if you utter an opinionon something today it may be considerednormal within society today but today'snormal um Dogma becomes tomorrow's hatespeech and so people are voluntarilyself-censoring they're no longerspeaking their mind on things they're nolonger speaking or afraid to share theirconvictions they no longer want to poston social media because what isconsidered normal today will land you asas as a victim of of a Twitter onlinemob tomorrow because that is nowconsidered to be hate speech and so weare a post- privacy Society we are aposttruth society we we are a postmodernSociety we also a postc communitySociety in 1951 very famous authorauthor Hannah Aron she wrote a bookcalled the origins of totalitarianismand she sought to understand how radicalideologies could thrive in wear Germanyand become the Nazi regime and inpre-revolution Russia and become thattheUSSR and among other item she concludesand I quote she says what prepares menfor totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact thatloneliness has become everyday concernfor the ever grown masses of our centuryjust as in the early 20th century sotoday in the early 21st century with therise of social media we are increasinglydisconnected from real people we havemay we may have thousands of friends onFacebook but we are experiencing a deepamount of loneliness all across WesternSociety it used to be that lonelinessmay affect those in their 70s and abovewho had seen their friends and theirparents their brothers and sisters passaway with the passage of time but now weare seeing an epidemic of lonelinessamong teenagers and young people intheir 18 teens and in their 20s and 30sbecause the more we spend time on socialmedia the more disconnected weparadoxically become the more lonely andatomized we've become as a society andso we are spending our time particularlyduring the covid pandemic alone onlineat home becoming ever more anxiousafraid and vulnerable and into this voidthis void of social disconnection we seethe the onrush of new identity groupsprovided by the dogma ofintersectionality and so it's in the1950s and 60s in America people wouldhave their lunch clubs uh they would umthey would have um hobby clubs you maygo to the bicycling Club on a Sunday youmay go to a reading club on a Tuesdaynight you may have a stamp collectorClub on the Thursday night you wouldhelp out at your local food pantry onthe Friday nights there was a lot ofsocial connections going on butparticularly in the 21st century andacutely during the covid pandemic theseforms of social connection have simplygone for mostpeople and so identity politics thatidentifi puts you into a group a groupidentity is thriving in America stay themost obvious examples are thelgbtq community and those new groupidentities provide meaning and anarrative and a purpose identify you asa victim in need of of Vengeance orJustice within Society not only are we apost communal Society in America but wenow increasingly a postchristian societyAmerica is fast becoming post-christiandiversity inclusion critical race Theoryand social justice Warrior ideology areall underpinned by Marxist ideologyproviding a powerful socialistalternative for a postchristian Americathe uh Evangelical author Nancy pieryexplains why Marxism is a secularizedversion of the kingdom of God and as yousee on the screen here um we have withinthe biblical narrative the basicworldview is there is creation thisanswers questions such as ultimateOrigins how did we begin why are we hereis there purpose in life then you havethe fall and that is the ultimate causeof pain and suffering and that answersthe question why has our world gonewrong and then you have Redemption thatis how will the world be set right againhow will pain and suffering come to anend these are legitimate questions thatall human beings sooner or later mustgrapple with as they come to thequestions of why do we why do we existwhy are we here where are we going inthe biblical worldview um when we lookat the doctrine of the creation werealize that we are created by God InHis Image for a loving and personalcommunion with him and for a life ofsacrificial love one with another interms of the Fall we read in in the Bookof Genesis chapters 2 and 3 that ourfirst parentsreplaced God on the throne of theirhearts with self that that allowed deathand suffering to enter into God'screation when it comes to Redemptionwithin the biblical worldview this isfound through faith in Jesus Christ wenow live in the Kingdom of Grace todayand we look forward to the kingdom ofGlory tomorrow at his second coming whenall things are made new again andwonderful wonderful news every tear willbe wiped away now KL Marx provided analmost identical worldview with themotif of Origins a fall and a Redemptionand we see this and anti piy clearlyexplains it in her writings uh so inMarxist ideology um creation marks arguthat matter is actually Dynamic thatmatter contains the power of motion ofchange and of development this is whathe called dialectical materialism andall through the Soviet Union in the 30s40s and 50s people would be expected togo to a lecture every week after work ondamat as they call it dmat dialecticalmaterialism people were beingindoctrinated in Marxist ideologyaccording to Marx matter replaces Godinanimate matter replaces God no longerdo we have a loving personal Creator butwe have inanimate matter and theuniverse according to Marx is a selforiginating self-operating machinemoving towards its final goal of aclassless society where there are equaloutcomes for everybody otherwise knownas equity in critical theory ideologyand what is the c cause of suffering inthe Marxist worldview well it is thecreation of private property and onceyou have private property that leads toall the evils of exploitation andstruggle and what is the source ofredemption in Marxist ideology well umRevolution is by the urban proletariatmust be against their Bourgeois orcapitalist oppressors that isreinterpreted on the streets of Americain 20120 and 2021 by violent socialjustice Warriors to mean a violentrevolution against against theoppressors to recreate the originalclassless and equal Society free from uhoppression expectation or restrictionsof any kind we're not only apostchristian society we're not only apost um purpose Society we're not only apost privacy posttruth and post modernsociety but we are postp purpose we havelost our sense of purpose within theWest we no longer know what it means tolive a good life in fact we no longerknow what it means that what is good andwhat is bad there is just me and what Ido today and in our postchristian andpost meaning World desperate people umthat they have this void in their heartsthey want to find a purpose in life andMarxist ideology and secular humanismtells them they they are intrinsically arandom piece of chemicals that came outof a random explosion in a meaninglessuniverse and the whole human SpiritRebels against the idea that that we aresomehow uh living in a purposelessuniverse because if our universe has nopurpose and I have no purpose and if Ihave no purpose and I get a cancerdiagnosis why should I fight the cancerwhy don't I just give into it or takethe easy way out and so we're living ina post-p purpose society and into thisvoid people suck in whatever createdmeaning they can here in America we dothis in a number of ways we see it allthe time for instance you see in thepopular culture people argue who are thetop 10 quarterbacks of alltime this argument is is cond Ed in insports media um by an industry that nolonger believes in purpose anyway thatno longer believes in good or bad rightor wrong good or evil at all and so yousee that in in a in a society thatdenies the possibility of meaning andpurpose we desperately try to createmeaning and purpose by saying these arethe top 100 movies of all time these arethe top 10 quarterbacks of all time andso on and so on we're desperately tryingto create meaning and purpose andstructure within a worldview that deniesthe possibility for meaning and purposeand structure intrinsically the sty inthe stalinist year of the 1930s multipleshow trials were conducted and they werefilled with the false Confessions bydevout Communists who would rather umwrite a fake confession knowing they'llbe executed for it rather than admitthat socialism was a lie this was aphenomenon often commented upon by therefusenik in the Soviet Union thatpeople are willing to die for a lierather than accept accept that there isno purpose within their lives and thosewho uphold ideologies they know to be alie often commit mass murder in order tosilence their inner doubts if You' neverseen the series I'd encourage you towatch it it's called life and Fate byvasle grman vasle grman was a Soviet uhJew he lived during the 1930s and 40s umhe fought in the second world war atStalingrad and he fought with the theSoviet the Red Army all the way fromStalingrad all the way back across toRussia across the East to Germany allacross the Eastern European landmass andas he went back from Stalingrad as hewas moving West back towards um Germanyhe was looking for the Jewishcommunities that he'd known prior toWorld War II and as he traveled acrossthe Soviet Union then and B Russia theninto Poland he realized that the Jewishcommunities were simply gone and so hewrote a a a very famous novel calledlife and fate it's not a Christian novelat all but it's the novel of of a manwho who's recording um differentcharacters struggling to live under thedehumanizing demands of the totalitarianregime he records the stories of ofnuclear physicists who know that mathsays X but the party says Y and so arewe going to say that Y is true eventhough know that X is true he recordsthe stories of of Soviet soldiers whoparticipate in the wiping out of theukrainians in the the man-made Famine ofthe 1930s who then themselves are caughtup by by the security services andthemselves are executed or sent to thegulag and the concentration camps and hecaptures that these Soviet soldierstrying to reconcile how come I'm beingpunished today for what the state toldme to do yesterday and I encourage youto watch it's on Amazon Prime it'scalled life and Fate by vasle grman it'sa very very personal narration of theimpact of totalitarianism upon humanbeings it's a degrading it isdehumanizing and it is defilingso are we turning to totalitarianismhere in the United States in 2021 and Iwould argue today that we absolutely areand what is the evidence for that wellthe night the 2020 elections in Novemberwere a turning point in American historyfor the first time we have a party inpower that promised in its Manifestoexplicitly to AB abolish freedom ofconscience and religious liberty havemany people vote in America based onfeelings based what the media wastelling them I I saw to vote on policieswhat are the policy decisions of theparties what are their positions whatare their stated plans and so we realizein in the word of God that creation isbased on distinction we find in Genesischapter 1 you find water above fromwater below you find the land and theSea you find the night and the day youfind male and you find female andcreation is possible because God makesdistinctions within his Creation in theflood God erased life on planet Earthand by raising the distinction betweenland and sea and water above and waterbelow now we in the west are lookingwith the equality act currently goingthrough Congress at the erasing of theone distinction we can try to erase thedistinction between male and female aswe disassociate legally um bodily sexfrom gender identity under the currentuh wording of the equality act goingthrough Congress Americanpopular culture today now idealizeshappiness free of any external restraintthat is nobody can tell me what to dothere's no such thing as moralityanymore and within this new worldviewthe biblical framework of humansexuality and human marriage and humanparenting this must be thrown away inorder to allow individuals to experienceand to taste and see uh what their ownpersonal happiness might look like freeof any external restraints of any kindin his first day in office PresidentBiden signed a new executive order on uhon transgender uh sexual identity andsexual orientation and transgender umrights and this was a strike atreligious liberty within the UnitedStates of America and quote he saidchildren should be able to learn withoutworrying about whether they will deniedaccess to the restroom the locker roomor School sports people should be ableto access health care and secure a roofover their heads without being subjectedto sex discrimination now that soundsall well and good until you realize thathe's actually separating gender identityfrom sex biological sex male and femalewhat does this mean in practice it meansthat boys who T who identify at girlsright at this moment in time must beallowed to compete in the girls athleticcompetitions men who identify as womenmust be allowed into women only intimatespaces healthc care plans must now payfor gender transition procedures and doand hospitals are required to treat themor they'll be guilty of ofdiscrimination one way or another nowscientists know that male and femalebodies are vulnerable to some diseasesin different ways to different degreesand that biological males and biologicalfemales respond to treatmentsdifferently these differences do notrespect how whether you identify as aman or as a woman at 10:00 or 11:00 inthe morning they are more fundamentallyto do with an unchanging biologicaldifferentiationI believe that men are adult biologicalmales boys are juvenile biological maleswomen are adult biological females girlsare juvenile biological females there isunderlying sex based on reproductionthat's how we Define the Sexes male andfemale have to come together for thereto be reproduction that is defined bybiology and genetics and chromosomes anda boy and a man and a girl and a womanare the Juvenile and the adults of themale and and the female sides of thehuman species but the equality Act isnow going through Congress and what doesthis act actually do while the 1964Civil Rights Act protects individualsfrom discrimination on the basis of racecolor religion sex and national originbut the equality act aims to prohibitdiscrimination on the basis of genderidentity and sexual orientation so thesewill become protected categoriestherefore for the first time in Americanhistory and actually in world history inhuman history we're witnessing the legalseparation of biological sex from genderidentity this has never been triedbefore and when the equality Act issigned into law and it really is only amatter of time before it is signed intolaw um people of Faith all acrossAmerica are going to have to make someharddecisions are we going to accept genderidentity within our workplace or are wegoing to uphold a biblical understandingof gender and sex we will be suedprobably as Adventist conferences andunions and divisions for refusing toemploy an individual over SOI sexualorientation gender identity issues we uhwe have um we have merged ourconferences with our associations inNorth America so that our conferencesown all the property and our conferencessimultaneously make all the employmentdecisions for those conferences so ifsomebody doesn't like the employment thedecision they get if they're not hiredfor instancethey can now they may be able to sue theconference and take all the property ofthe conference hence all the churchesand schools institutions may be takenaway or closed down or have to be soldto pay the damages the current wordingof the equality act specificallyeliminates all protections provided bythe First Amendment of the USConstitution um to the right of thefreedom to practice your faith and ofthe religious freedom restoration actsigned into law by President BillClinton which provides um freedoms ofconscience um from White issues going onwithin Society so we are watching inAmerica right now in early 2021 the riseof totalitarianism via the theinnocuously named equality act whichreally has nothing to do with equalityand has everything to do witheliminating the biblical worldviewAcross America and imposing the sexualRevolution upon everybody regardless ofwho you are or what youbelieve so how have Adventistshistorically responded tototalitarianism well um it's notactually a pretty picture uh in thewe've struggled to respond to thedemands of totalitarian regimes and weshould make a very important Point herethat if you've never lived under atotalitarian regime you can never pointthe finger at those who have or thosewho've had to make the most terrible andhorrendous of choices at those who aretrying to hold their families togetherin the midst of overwhelming pressurefrom totalitarian regimes who will nothesitate to literally kill you orexterminate your family if you stay stepout of line with the dominant Narrativeof the day in Nazi Germany theAdventists were torn between threecompelling interests firstly to com tofulfill the demands of the mission givenus by Jesus Christ secondly the desireto preserve their structures and thirdlyum they needed to accommodate somehow tothe demands of the intolerant Naziregime in practice many Adventist the1930s enthusiastically endorsed AdolfHitler in the early 1930sthey saw him as maybe a savior of theGerman people he was after all vegan andso forth and so forth and he promised tobring back full employment and eliminatepoverty on the part of many um Urbanunemployed uhGermans but few Adventist if any joinedthe confessing church and as the the Nthe nature of the Nazi regime becameever more evident as evil exposed itselfmore and more so the Adventists werecaught in a in a most difficult positionin the USS are and in communistcountries to this day and yes there arecommunist countries to this day I won'tname them but if you do some researchthere are still communist countriestoday the SDA Church did split into theofficial Church which gave into thegovernment demands that children beeducated on the Sabbath in publicschools and The Unofficial Church whorefused to send their children toschools on the Sabbath day the neteffect of this was that it was thechildren of the official Church whocompleted their educations and thechildren of the unofficial Adventiststhe underground Adventists who were notable to complete higher education and asyou as you work that through from one totwo to three generations you see a gulfum Rising between the officialAdventists with their roles theirprofessional roles in society and TheUnofficial Adventists who are foreverheld back because they refuse to sendtheir children to school during theSabbathhours those divisions existed throughoutthe Soviet Union and in some countriesthey still existtoday and across the United States in2021 I would argue that we in NorthAmerican Division adventism we we havealready fractured to a large extent wehave people within North AmericanDivision adventism who loudly progaProclaim that they are progressive theyare lgbtq allies we have diversityinclusion officers promoted andappointed who promote atheist socialjustice Warrior worldviews on ourCollege campuses among our studentsclasses are offered in gender andfeminism studies reading lists atcollege campuses promote atheistcritical theory safe spaces areproclaimed in which the gospel issilence as the call to repentancechallenges the deification of the Fleshand is now interpreted as amicroaggression against somebody else'slived experience and so the more weProclaim that our college campuses asafe space the more we are effectivelyclosing down the gospel call and theonly means of salvation for the youngpeople within that campus and driven bythe false principle of secularinclusivity support for women'sordination will inevitably evolve intosupport for gay ordination lesbianordination trans ordination and one dayminor attracted ordination the wokeAdventist Church in North America willin all likelihood accommodate to thetruth rejecting Bible burning Christhating demands of the new softtotalitarianism and there will be afaithful Adventist remnantI know that God knows that they will beout there Elijah thought that he alonehad not bowed the knee to bail but whenGod came to visit with Elijah in thecave down near M Mount siai he said toElijah there are still 7,000 who haveyet to Bow the knee to bail God willhave his faithful Remnant who will notbow the knee to the bales of the modernWestern society and it is to that groupthat I want to turn our attention nowthe response to totalitarianism on thepart of the individualdisciple well we cannot change what ishappening in the west we cannot changewhat is happening in America but asindividuals and as families of faith wecan determine our response we are nothelpless we do not we have not lost allcontrol over our own lives we can choosehow we're going to respond to what ishappening around us so I want to giveyou some counsel on what are the some ofthe best ways that we can respond towhat is happening around us firstlytreasure your history or retell yourhistory the word the word of God saysthis in Deuteronomy 6 and verse 12 takecare that you do not forget the Lord whobrought you out of the land of Egypt outof the house of slavery in the USSR theSoviets executed those who taught or whocould remember pre-revolutionaryHistory George Orwell said this in 1984who controls the past controls thefuture who controls the present controlsthe past historical memory in anysociety is an objective recollection ofpast facts for instance I was raised inBritain and we know that in 1066 Williamthe Conqueror the Duke of Normandy hesailed across the English Channel hebeat king har King uh the king in theBattle of Hastings um the King was outthe uh King uh the king of England washit by an arrow in the eye a very famousBayer tapestry was made to commemoratethat event on the part of the Normansand from that time on 1066 ad we had theNorman invasion of England and themingling of the Anglo-Saxon and theFrench languages which led to theEnglish language ultimately and we stillhave those divisions today for instancethe Anglo-Saxons they were the slavesand they would look after the animalsand so the names for the animals inmodern day English language areAnglo-Saxon words pig cow chicken uhsheep and lamb whereas it was the theNormans who actually ate the meat theydidn't look after the animals but theanimals were cooked and served on theirtables to the Lords of the manner and sothe words we have for the meat when it'seaten are French words beef pork ham andve and mutton and so we just see even inthe Modern English language the divisionbetween the Anglo-Saxons and the Normansand it's important to remember your yourhistory and just as important asremembering your the facts of Historythere's your cultural history theseinclude the stories the narratives the Hthe heroes the villains the myths of thepast they include our landmarks our artour music are holidays that Define anation and its cultural identity withouta cultural memory you have no cultureand without a culture you have noidentity and that is exactly wheretotalitarian regimes want theirpopulations to be they seek to eliminatethe cultural memories of Any Givenpopulation when you eliminate thestories of the past when you eliminatethe structures the habits or the beliefsthen the totalitarian regime can imposeits own Dogma upon an otherwiseunwilling population every time a statueis toppled every time a building isrenamed or burnt to the ground everynight time a holiday is renamed we losethe opportunity to learn from the highsand the low the good and the evil fromour past our cultural memory in Americais being destroyed before our very eyesand we are being prepped fortotalitarianism Christianity inparticular is being targeted because weProclaim salvation a historicalsalvation a present salvation a futuresalvation and our primary loyalty is notto the party but our primary loyalty isto Jesus Christ and to his comingKingdom so the first advice I give youis this retell your history the secondimportant piece of advice is to rememberand what are you to remember is tomemorize scripture the word of God saysthis I treasure your word in my heart sothat I may not sin against you Psalm119: 11 when you walk they will lead youwhen you lie down they will watch overyou when you awake they will talk withyou Proverbs 6:21 where pmon is talkingabout the statutes and the commands ofGod that when you walk they will leadyou when you lie down they will watchover you when you awake they will talkwith you that is your your life is livedin an ongoing dialogue with the word ofGod prisoners of conscience repeatedlytestify to the fact that memorizedscripture is absolutely crucial inbringing people through times of stresstimes of imprisonment and Times oftorture scripture shines light into thedeepest Despair and darkest dungeonreminding us of our father's everlastinglove bringing encouragement wisdomguidance and Heavenly perspective tothose who suffer for the name of Jesusso in 2021 I want to challenge you uhdon't just fill your mind with themeaningless froth that's going on outthere as you go through this pandemiclockdown don't binge uh binge watchseries on Netflix or any of that kind ofstuff but fill your mind with the wordof God maybe start out by memorizing theThe Ten Commandments then start thenthen start memorizing the Beatitudesthen start memorizing um key parts ofthe gospels maybe the story of Jesus andLazareth or The Sermon on the Mountmemorize these key portions of scripturelook at some of the scripturememorization programs that are out thereyou can easily find them online maybeyour local church is offering one ofthose programs even as I preach thisservice today but fill your mind withthe word of God rather than with themeaningless froth that that passes frommodern day Society because of much ofwhat is today in American culture isbasically meaningless it's froth and itdoes not bring happiness or EverlastingJoy the third piece of advice I give youis to reconnect that's to bind with eachother I know we've been in lockdowns ofvarious kinds and in different of thestates across the United States thelockdowns are interpreted in differentways but the word of God says this letus consider how to provoke one anotheror how to encourage one another to loveand to Good Deeds not not neglecting tomeet together as is the habit of son butencouraging one another and all the moreas you see the day approaching uh Paulgoes on to say in 1 Thessalonians 5:11he says therefore encourage one anotherand build up each other as indeed youare doing so wherever possible and tothe extent possible reconnect withbrothers and sisters if you are able toworship side by side in the buildingpraise the Lord and actually when youleave the building you're out in thefresh air connect with people personallysay what can I be praying for on yourpart on your behalf and please this iswhat I need you to be praying for on mybehalf one tortured dissident referredto the solidarity of the shattered astotalitarianism builds in America buildclose personal relationships with fellowdisciples today invest in humanrelationships learn to lovesacrificially to pray for and with oneanother learn to look out for oneanother because when your churches areclosed when your schools are closed whenyour colleges are closed when yourpublishing houses are closed when yourconference offices are closed when yourUnion offices are closed when the churchmagazines are no more when the divisionis gone the only thing you will haveleft as a visible manifestation of thebody of Christ are those HumanRelationships your love for your brotheror sister that lives in your sub in yoursubdivision or in your District or inyour portion of town so invest today inthose Human Relationships that are goingto carry you through until the time whenJesus comes again and then fourthly repprioritize you know we're getting moneyfrom the federal government we'regetting various stimulus packages thatare coming through I like to challengeyou that one's life as Jesus says doesnot consist in the abundance ofpossessions and Jesus teaches us tostore up for yourself Treasures inHeaven as for those who in the presentage are rich as says Paul to Timothycommand them not to be proud or to settheir Hope on the uncertainty of richesthey are to do good to be rich in GoodWorks generous and ready to share thusstoring up for themselves The Treasureof a good foundation for the future sothat they may take hold of the life thatreally is life as as you maybe watchingthis in America as you receive astimulus payment think and ask the HolySpirit what would you have me do withthis payment it may be that you need topay off some back rent it may that youmaybe have bills that are piling up andbecause you've lost income during thepandemic but maybe you're not in thatsituation maybe your bills are alreadythey they're up you're up to date withyour bills you're not behind on yourrent or your mortgage and this moneyyou're thinking what will I do with itmaybe look around for a brother orsister in your church who you know isstruggling who has lost their job whohas a couple of kids going to school andis struggling to pay the bills why nothelp those in need around you repprioritize your use of funds prior toWorld War II the ship you see on thescreen which is the Queen Mary she was aluxury transatlantic liner and whenevershe went across the Atlantic between NewYork and Southampton on the south coastof England uh the Queen Mary would carryabout 3,000 passengers these were thewealthiest of the wealthy in British andAmerican um popular society as theywould cross the Atlantic they would bewhined and dined in absolute luxury theywould eat off bone china plates theythey would sleep under feather um on afeather mattress and um beautiful duesacross them they they lived in the theheights of luxury um late n late 18thear 19th century worldbut when World War II came along thegovernments of Britain America decidedto rep prioritize the Queen Mary outcame all the fancy Cutlery and Crockeryand the fancy beds and the fancy loungesthey were replaced with metal bunk bedsum T eight tier bunks replaced thosesoft beds indented aluminum metal traysreplaced the China Crockery and whybecause during World War II the QueenMary no longer carried 3,000 passengersacross the Atlantic but she carried15,00 th000 troops at a time an entireInfantry Division every time crossed theAtlantic on a weekly basis with theQueen Mary they were being taken toEurope to fight in the war against NaziGermany why was this change necessarypeacetime ease and consumption were setaside because the lives of tens ofmillions of individuals rotting in theconcentration camps of NationalSocialist Germany the Nazi party theydesperately needed um to be set free bythose incoming troops did those troopsGrumble as they cross the Atlantic I'msure they did were they comfortable asthey cross the Atlantic I'm sure theywere not did they enjoy the food theywere fed while traveling across theAtlantic I'm sure they it was nothing towrite homeabout but we celebrate more than theirdiscomfort the fact that Millions wereliberated across Europe because thosesoldiers made it on the Queen Mary so Iwant to challenge you today toreprioritize your financesreprioritize um the finances that Godhas blessed you with so that that youare use those finances to be a blessingin God's kingdom if there's nobody thatyou you think who I can help I'dencourage you to invest in literaturewhen God's people are deplatformed fromsocial media we can no longer present onthe Internet or online what do we haveleft we have physical literature somaybe now is the time to invest in in uhthe copies of steps to Christ greatcontroversy and the glow tracks forinstance so that as and when we aredeplatformed from social media we cangive out these sleeping sense sleepSentinels these silent witnesses thatcan rest in people's home and when thefinal Conflict comes people can read itand realize that they can have hope in aworld that is fast falling apart andfinally I want to encourage you toretool Jesus has given us the GreatCommission to go and make disciples ofall peoples and every disciple is calledto be a seed sow some people have theprivilege of reaping a harvest if you'rean evangelist other people have theprivilege of discipling new Believersmaybe you're a pastor or a Bible workerbut every believer in the gospel everymember of the body of Christ is borninto the kingdom of God as a missionarythat means we are all called to be seedSowers so disciples who are seederswhich is all every disciple in thekingdom of God Master simple skills suchas listening respectfully to the storiesof others loving our neighbor learning agospel presentation sharing yourpersonal testimony of God's goodness inyour life and learning how to lead adiscover Bible study let me let me giveyou a really simple example the simplestway to express the gospel is in threewords thankyou sorry so it go sorry thank youplease sorry I'm sorry for my sins Iconfess my sins thank you thank you forthe gift of Grace thank you for the giftof of forgiveness I receive it by faithand please please fill me with yourspirit and please Lead Me day by daysorry thank you you please that's nothard is it that's the essence of theGospel in a simple presentation thatanybody can remember sorry thank you andplease I'd encourage you to check outthe 411 training you can see the linkthere on the screen uh you can check itout on YouTube now that talks some moredetail about how to prepare your yourpersonal presentation your testimony ofyour life before you met Jesus when youmet Jesus how you met Jesus what yourlife is like after you've met Jesus solearn to become seed SE retool um we'veall learned how to zoom during thispandemic we've all learned new it toolsduring this pandemic but it's time forGod's people to retool in a spiritualsense and to learn skills that willactually have an eternal Harvest whenJesus comes again so what do we say inconclusion today because we are enteringan era of totalitarianism uh in in theUnited States of America in particularwell Alexander soliton he wrote aboutthe compelling power of ideology and Iquote he said ideology that is whatgives evildoing its long-soughtjustification and gives the evildoer thenecessary steadfastness anddetermination thanks to ideology the20th century was fated to experienceevildoing on a scale calculated in themillions this cannot be denied norpassed over nor suppressed how then dowe dare insist that evildoers do notexist and who was it that destroyedthose Millions without evildoers therewould have been noarchipelago well we are witnessing inAmerica today the rising of the samechrist-hating socialist ideology thatled to the murder of over 110 millionpeople in the 20th century today thisideology presents itself in America viacancel culture it's imposing itself viacancel culture that is a form of softtotalitarianism but sooner or latercanceling will not be enough and softcancel culture will be replaced by aharder form of totalitarianism here inAmerica in an era when we are beingforced to live with lies we are fastapproaching a moment of truth will webow to the lies or will we stand for thetruth what path will you choose todayyou can choose to live with the lies andkeep your well-paid middleclass job youmay chant the flan slogans and flauntyour vert you on social media by joiningin in the latest online mob all thewhile living with with lies means youare living with fear and you aresteadily becoming dehumanized degradedand demoralized and eventually you haveno no no rights against the governmentand the government can do to you exactlywhat they wish or you can choose to livefor the truth to stand with freedom ofthe Soul Jesus said if you continue inmy word you truly are my disciples andyou'll know the truth and the truth willset you free so I want to challenge youtoday to seek truth know the truth knowJesus who is the truth and know thetruth about The Human Condition so thatyour conscience your thoughts your wordsand your heart will be free and you canproclaim the truth that there is acoming King who will wipe away everyKingdom on this Earth and who will oneday set up a kingdom of justice and ofrighteousness and of Mercy where all mayexperience the Shalom that only God cangive stand for the truth do it withGrace and allow God to work through youmay God bless bless you as you live forJesus in this coming week and month andyear that is my prayer in jesus' nameamen[Music][Music][Music]