Seven Threats of Our Time

is what has brought us, as a result of God’s creative active powers and decrees, He’s brought us these social institutions that the scripture speaks of and delineates for us. The members and the roles, the relationships with each other, both within that system and the relationships to the other systems. This is part of the unity and diversity of God that we find. For example, the diversity [of] the male and female that [is] probably the most diverse aspect of humanity brought together in unity in the family.

The State, the king, and the citizens,

God & Man, the infinite God and the finite man brought together in a relationship that is mind boggling. That God would allow us to join with Him in a relationship.

is a reflection of the unity and diversity of God.

then that God desires the fruit of His creatures, I would submit to you that everyone of these social institutions has been created for the purpose of bringing forth fruit from God’s creatures.

It is easy to see in

His intent, of course, is to destroy unity. Rather than the unity that God wants, Satan brings about war between people, disunity. He brings about quarrels and accusations. He brings about Isolation, separation, hate, racism and all those things that are the opposite of the unity that should exist as a result of God’s decree and desire.

When we think of diversity, Satan brings about a perversity, rather than the Godly righteous diversity, male and female, for example and the bringing of them together, Satan will bring about a perverse nature associated with all of those things.

Satan hates the fruit of God’s creatures and so everything that Satan wants to [do] is to destroy those institutions. He destroys their relationships. He will bring about perversity associated with those relationships. He will bring about evil. He’ll bring things together that should not be brought together. And he will attempt to destroy the proper roles. For example, when we saw Uzziah and Saul. He will bring about a consolidation of power. He will turn the church upside down. And so he attempts to destroy the fruitfulness of God’s creatures and therefore destroys their glory.

In the typical form of Statism, I think this is not a political thing, this is a demonic thing, when the State consolidates its power, absorbs all of the institutions underneath itself. That’s not a political thing, that’s a demonic thing. And oftentimes then the demonic result is that the State retains enormous power destroying the fruitfulness of those institutions and now we see Labor co-joining in that.

Ok, so now let’s take a look at history. We’ll try to do this as quickly as we can, but it very, very important to

if we want to go back to that point and examine again, that that’s what Satan did in the very beginning. He came to Eve and attempted to destroy the role associated with God & man, that [he would] lay before her the ruse, the scam, that she could be like God. that she would not surely die. And so, [Satan] began to pit Eve against God and then, of course, we can see the relationships that were destroyed. The relationship between Adam and Eve, they point a finger at each other and then Cain and Able and so forth. And that whole mess began.

But we’ll pick it up with a German philosopher:

The important thing to understand about Hegel is that he is the one [who] laid before the world the notion of the "dialectic." These are important things for us to understand, they are all basic things to understand what is happening today. Hegel is primarily thinking in terms of ideas, but we’re going to see how important it is because Hegel had a deep influence on Marx. The basic understanding of the dialectic in Hegel’s teaching [is] you have a thesis [an idea], that is, the current status quo [the current idea]. You have an antithesis [idea] that rises up against that thesis. There is a major conflict as those two [ideas] almost have a war with each other. And in Hegel’s mind, there is [a] resulting synthesis [idea], an idea of a higher order. So it was a progressive, [a progression of ideas, how ideas progress, an] almost evolutionary thing that Hegel laid forth [for the development of ideas].

So Hegel will be a kind of a first notch here in our historical context.

That brings us then to

I have written about the history of this and the demonic influences upon Karl Marx before, but to remind you. Marx bought the notion, the Hegelian understanding of the dialectic, but he put it into his own context [of competing classes of people in place of Hagel’s competing ideas]. where he pit the proletariat, the working class, against the bourgeoisie, the capitalist class, that is, the owners. And in the Marxist dialectic that conflict, or that war, the revolution, came as a result of the proletariat rising up in revolution against the bourgeoisie. [And] that would result in a higher order. Ultimately, it would result in socialism and [then] communism. And we’ll talk in a second about that being the ultimate [goal]. It wasn’t that simple [to achieve] because in the Marxist dialectic there is a series of conflicts or crises.

believed, and others at that time that joined Marx and Engels in their thinking, that what would really occur, would be a series of conflicts, all according to the dialectic (i.e. that the current idea is opposed by a new idea and as a result of the conflict between the two a higher idea, a synthesis arises). And each of those conflicts would result in a little higher order until eventually that those series of conflicts or crises would result in the utopia, which Marx called, "Communism." That’s where we [are] left finally with just the commune, everybody living in a utopia. Nobody owning anything, everybody having the same amount, there is no conflict, no struggle and that was the utopia.

And in the Marxist dialectic, this whole series of conflicts, (the whole series of) crises, one falling after the other, was the stage that Marx referred to as Socialism. And so, Socialism was the means that would get us ultimately to the utopia of communism. And those conflicts, (and those) crises where necessary in order to get there. But those crises and those conflicts where primarily this series of events that would slowly but surely destroy these institutions [the Family, Church, Labor, Community, God and Man relationship, and the State]. And so, that is why you will read in Marxist writings about "The Abolition of the family!" It was all part of the destruction of the social order. Because it was the social order[, they say,] that was bringing about the oppression. And all of those things that Marx was promising, the new "gospel" that he was promising, the new utopia, would free us from all of these oppressive institutions.

And so, to Marx and to a Marxist, the family represents an oppressive system that has to be destroyed. The church is an oppressive system, "opiate of the masses", right? Marx wrote in his dissertation his hatred for God, for all the gods.

And so, Socialism was this series of crises, whether they were brought about, manufactured or whether they were crises that now needed to be taken advantage of, [it was a] conflict nevertheless, it would take the status quo and through that conflict provide a synthesis that would move us onward and upward in the path of socialism. Which meant every conflict would result in a little more destruction of one of those institutions, a little more destruction in the authority structure, a little more destruction of the roles and responsibilities represented by those structures. Of course from the biblical worldview, we would say these are God’s designs, these are God’s institutions and that is why this is a demonic worldview that is attempting to destroy the design of God, to destroy the institutions of God that were created by God to bring about the fruitfulness of His creatures and therefore bring about the glory that is due to God.

Well, when you read this in the manifesto, you [need] to understand that those social conditions that they’re talking about are the social institutions that God has created. And it is the overthrow of [His] institutions that are part of the Socialism, the means by which, the Marxist would reach their utopia. It requires the destruction of those existing social institutions.

So as we look at

If you read Richard Wurmbrand’s biography of Karl Marx, Wurmbrand you recall wrote the book: Persecuted for Christ, he was active in working, trying to do whatever he could to help those who were persecuted for Christ. He saw tens of thousands of people slaughtered at the hands of this demonic worldview and Wurmbrand decided he would write a biography about Marx because it was Marx’s worldview that was bringing about all of this persecution and death and pain and suffering that he was seeing. In that biography of Marx, Wurmbrand even talked about the demonic influence upon Karl Marx. He did not hold back in talking about his view on that.

He paints probably the classic biography on Karl Marx. Even Robert Payne (a biographer) describes and talks about how people around Karl Marx believed that either he was possessed by demons or he was influenced by demonic activity. Karl Marx was a drunkard, his son died, most believe, just because the fact that Marx never had a job and that his family was in continual poverty. And yet he pursued what probably has to be at the top of the list in terms of what we would call demonic thinking in our world today. I believe he was a pawn in the hand of the enemy nevertheless.

So, out of the Communist Manifesto (by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels) here are ten things, I won’t go through all of these, but there very boldly [are] the things that we’ve already talked about:

And so, let me summarize it, Marxism as a worldview. Yes, it was based on:

Ok, what happened, and this is very important to understand, the Frankfurt school, these were Marxists, German Marxists. They moved in WWI to Switzerland and eventually came here to Columbia University. But the key figure there is

and the issue here that Gramsci primarily laid forth is why isn’t Marxism working in America? One of the problems was that you couldn’t convince the prosperous middle class that they were somehow being oppressed. I mean they had running water, they had vacation, they had cars, they were wealthy compared to the rest of the world. And so it was difficult for the Marxist proletariat, bourgeoisie characterization to get any kind of footage in Western culture. And so, they needed a new "oppressor" and they needed a new class of the oppressed. And so, what happened is, and this is probably best laid at the foot of Gramsci, is that the new "hegemony" was the white upper class and the systems that they produced and any "minority" was therefore the oppressed.

And so, for the first time in America, rather than being this melting pot of people coming, [they] all of a sudden begin to identify as a minority, identify as an oppressed class.

and I don’t want to lay everything at her feet, but most people say that Crenshaw is the founder of what we would call Critical Race Theory today. Critical Race Theory is based upon Gramsci’s and the Frankfurt school’s Critical Theory.

Critical race theory is: that the entirety of the American society is based upon the oppression between races. And that was the 1619 Project’s fundamental presumption there [in] the critical race theory. Crenshaw is also the author of intersectionality [that states] "All Oppression is Connected!" In other words, racism, sexism, classism, gender are all the different ways that you can associate with being a part of the oppressed class. Because see what this worldview is trying to do is to pull increasingly more and more people into the notion that they are the oppressed and to rise up against the oppressor class.

And so, we’ll finish the historical thing here with

Cullors is the co-founder of Black Lives Matter, which brings us to the present. When she was asked how she would respond to the concern that Black Lives Matter might fizzle out due to a lack of ideological structure…​

On the BLM website originally, there was no surprise there to find that they were talking about abolishing the family. That has been since removed [from their website], it’s a little bit too out in the open.

at this point. You can look at these percentages of people who have favorable impressions of socialism.

  People who have a favorable impression of capitalism

  "socialism/communism" [is] gaining favor with GenZ/Millennials

Would you be likely to vote for a socialist?

  So this is the utopia that is being sold.

Ok, let me close with this. Because we find ourselves today in a nation that has a worldview rift. And my position is that this is the first time we’ve had a true worldview rift in this culture. And what are we to do about it? Well, it brings us, and this is not a promotion of the Engagement Project, but that’s why we did the Engagement Project, because I think it is the only way in which we’re going to confront the world we find ourself in.

This is the acknowledgement of the scripture that we are dealing with a demonic force around us and it’s going to be the prayers of God’s people, the gentle instruction of God’s people, asking God that He would grant them a change of heart.

This is the vision the Lord has given to us and why He has called us to be engaged with a small number of people, those who live around us. To build a deep relationship with them. To be diligent in our prayers for them. So that God would begin to work in their life and open up their heart and open up their mind, even the "depraved" mind, that they might begin to ask the questions that their worldview is not able to answer. To love them with a biblical love and to be able to speak truth and wisdom into their life.

That is the Lord’s vision, that’s the biblical vision of how God’s people are going to impact the world.

Again, remind ourselves that we are not a people that are without hope. Every time we talk about each of these threats it is easy to be overcome by the weight of what is happening around us. And yet we need to understand and realize that we are pilgrims in this world, but we are still here and we are placed here for a reason. We are placed here for a purpose. And God has given everything that we need, everything that we need to follow what He’s asking us to do.

And so, my [recommendation] to you is to be [of good courage], be of good hope, even in the midst of this perfect storm that is raging around us. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Father, we pray Lord that all of this that we’ve gone through will be of value to us as we walk in this world. We pray for those who find themselves often discouraged and despondent in terms of what is going on, that You would strengthen them with the courage that comes from the understanding of Who You are and who we are. Those of us who are in Christ, that Father, we would be ambassadors for you, that we would begin to focus on the small number of people, those who live around us. To build those deep relationships. To pray for them. To seek Father, favor in their eyes, to love them. And pray Father that You would begin to stir them, open their eyes, soften their hearts, that we might be able to speak. Season our speech with salt, so that we might know how to respond to each individual. All for Your glory, Father. None for ours, all for Yours, Soli Deo Gloria, In Jesus name, Amen

https://www.deltackett.com/resources/36043/7-threats-in-our-times-5-rise-of-a-demonic-worldview-and-the-national-divide