Our nation is being brainwashed via a method called the Hegelian Dialectic Process to forget our past, to embrace a new standard of morals which are in total contrast to what the Bible calls for, and to embrace state run operations on nearly every area of our life. Our foundations have been destroyed, so what can we do? What can we as believers do about all this? Since the Bible has been rejected as a source of authority nationwide, how can we use it to call people back to what we once were?
Before we can address things politically, we must first address where we are spiritually. It’s not just the nation that has lost its history and its moral foundations, but so has the American “church.” If the Christian is to make a change in our society politically, we need to make a change in our lives spiritually. We must return to the faith that was handed down. The Gospel hasn’t changed; we’ve changed. As a result, the extreme majority of Christians today don’t even know what the Gospel is. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know what the Gospel was until around the same time I joined Worldview Warriors 6 ½ years ago and I was not only raised in the church, but on the mission field no less. God was doing an amazing work in me during that time and it’s been an awesome journey. Then, I was what you could call a “casual Christian.” My faith lived on in cruise control. Since that time period, I woke up. I still have a long way to go, but I realized that there was so much more to this life we call Christianity than what I knew for so long.
Our churches today have many professing Christians. If you ask someone what religion they are, many will say, “I’m a Christian.” But if you dig deeper into that and ask them how it works or what it means, the answers will be vague, unclear, general, and not concrete. They claim the label because it’s simply part of their culture or their morality. But that is not Christianity. We instead need to be confessing Christians. Eric Ludy has a short sermon/video about "Two Churches" and it will be worth watching before you continue.
First, the image that comes to mind when I hear “confession” in regard to modern Christianity is a mere profession of faith. It is someone saying little more than “I agree with 4-5 doctrines of Christianity, I have said a prayer, and I have declared in front of my church that I am a Christian.” But that’s not Biblical confession. In the simplest form confession is saying the same thing that God says about something. But it means more than that. According to Ludy, the Greek word “homologeo” is a “reflection upon the word.” To “confess,” Biblically speaking, means to reflect the Word of God, to be in agreement in both word and deed, and with Jesus Christ. Anyone can make a proclamation of faith; that’s easy. To confess Christ is another issue.
Near the beginning of the movie Tortured for Christ, Richard Wurmbrand and his wife were sitting in a major conference with all the big church leaders of Romania to welcome in the new Communist regime. Preacher after preacher after preacher proclaimed how their churches would work with the Russians, how their church practices would not be affected, and how the Russians would support the churches. Sabina Wurmbrand told her husband that they were spitting on the face of Jesus and encouraged her husband to speak up. Richard said she may not have a husband if he did so, because he was telling her this was exactly how it went in Russia during their revolution before Communist atheism was enforced. Sabina said she’d rather have a dead husband than a coward husband. Richard stepped up to the microphone and proclaimed the true Gospel. The pastors present who didn’t have the guts to speak up, but didn’t speak in favor of Communism, cheered and clapped while the whole thing was broadcast on the Romanian radio.
Wurmbrand was a confessor of Christ. He spoke up when it wasn’t popular. He spoke up when he knew he would become a target and on the ‘wanted’ list by the Communist government. He saw the dialectic process going on as it was happening, explaining to his wife during that conference what was happening. Pastor after pastor spoke and dedicated their churches to the promotion of the state, whereas Wurmbrand confessed Christ as supreme over the state. He was a confessor of Christ.
Now my reader may ask, “Did he succeed in stopping the taking over?” The answer is obvious: No. But he succeeded in giving the true believers hope and courage not to cave when every other so-called believer kowtowed to the state’s demands lest they be put in prison. I need to make something clear. We CANNOT save the world. Satan owns it. The world’s way of thinking, the culture, the system, etc., is ruled by the god of this world. Russ Miller describes how he was on a college campus and during a Q/A session, someone made a very disparaging and insulting comment towards Christianity and the audience roared with laughter. After the audience quieted down, Miller asked if he could make the same comment towards a Muslim or a homosexual. Would the audience still laugh, or would he be kicked out of the campus? Dead silence. Then he said the reason why he could do that was because academia is run by the god of this world, Satan, and he doesn’t need false teachings to battle each other. He only needs them all to battle the truth. Again, dead silence. Miller is a confessing Christian. We here at Worldview Warriors are confessing Christians. We aren’t going to mince words nor cave to fear. We are going to confess the name of Christ even when it not kosher to do so.
Our job as Christians is not to save the system. Our job is to save people FROM the system. Every believer has one of three roles: go into the pit to rescue the lost, hold the rope for those going into the pit, or train and help those who came out of the pit to go back and repeat the process. Not many are doing those roles. I’ve come to see my role as the third one: to help equip and train those going into the pit and to help those who’ve come out in how to live a Christian life. I still need to go into the pit myself and I need to help hold the rope too, but when someone gets out, they need someone who can help them learn what to do with life outside the pit.
In the video link above, Eric Ludy points out a key difference between the professing Christian and a confessing Christian. The “professing Christian” is the one who identifies as a Christian and may be saved but listens to the state in where, when, and how he can practice his faith. He is a “caged Christian” like a caged bird. The “confessing Christian” is the one who boldly proclaims Christ and defies any order to slow down, shut up, and stay in your cage. They prefer to follow God’s orders over man’s orders. Now, I’m not calling for a defiant uprising against any governmental authority. Peter and James were still respectful to those they said they would not obey, as were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they refused to bow before the golden image. However, those who are confessing Christians are going to be as Richard Wurmbrand; when everyone else around you spits on the face of Christ due to political correctness, they will stand up and proclaim Him in defiance of the system that seeks to rid themselves of Him.
But Wurmbrand knew that making a stand would come with a cost. Next week, I’m going to share a burden that’s been on my heart for a couple of years but has been reignited recently, and it is likely to be one of the most difficult subjects for me to address in our comfortable American culture.
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If you’ve been around the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the Bible at all, you’ve likely read about Jesus’ 12 disciples. We’re all familiar with some of them: Peter, John, or Matthew for example. But what do you know about, say, Thaddeus? Probably not too much. Are you even able to name all 12 of the disciples? I know I can’t, at least not from memory.
In light of that, I’m writing this blog post series to give more insight into who each of the 12 disciples was. We don’t have a lot of information on some of them, but I hope to educate you as well as myself on some aspects of these men’s lives that perhaps we didn’t know before.
So to start, who were all 12 of the disciples? Let’s start with a list, in no particular order:
- Simon Peter
- James
- John
- Andrew
- Bartholomew aka Nathanael
- James the Lesser
- Judas
- Jude aka Thaddeus
- Matthew aka Levi
- Philip
- Simon the Zealot
- Thomas
You’ll notice that some of them have two names, which is one aspect we’ll get into in the individual posts about each of these men. But why is it important for us today to know who these men were, who lived some 2000 years ago? It’s actually very important for our Christian faith, for a few reasons. First of all, these men are one of the main reasons that you and I can even know who Jesus is today. Right before Jesus left the earth and ascended into heaven, He gave them these instructions:
“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age’” (Matthew 28:18-20).
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
In the passage from Matthew 28, known as the Great Commission, Jesus commands His disciples to make more disciples. Many generations later, that legacy is how you and I have had the opportunity to become disciples of Jesus. If His gospel message had died with those 12 men, then Christianity would have died and none of us would have the opportunity to know Jesus today. But instead, these twelve literally risked their lives to carry on that gospel message so that others would get to know Jesus, both their contemporaries and future generations to come. They followed Jesus’ instructions to make disciples and teach them everything that Jesus taught them.
These men weren't trained in what needed to be done, but they were trained to hear and respond to the Father. If they knew what they were getting into, they probably would not have done it. They spent 3 years living and ministering with Jesus, having all of their preconceived notions about religion blown up. Now, they know God will be present with them and they know the goal of making more disciples. Fortunately, they had the power and authority of Jesus behind them in this task, as it could not be accomplished simply by human means.
The original disciples did not just keep the message to themselves and their local area either. They followed Jesus’ command in Acts 1:8 and took the message to the entire known world, even to people with whom they would not usually associate. These courageous men relied on the power of the Holy Spirit that they received to fulfill this mission so that the whole world would have the opportunity to experience God’s grace and salvation as they had.
It is important for us to know where our faith came from and appreciate these twelve men who gave up their “regular” lives in order to follow Jesus, learned His teaching, and bravely shared that message with so many others. Most of them were believed to be martyred, giving up their lives for this faith. If they could literally give their entire lives for the gospel message, the least we can do is to learn about their stories and learn from their examples so that we can follow Jesus better.
I look forward to you joining me on this journey to learn more about Jesus’ original disciples as we yearn to become better disciples ourselves.
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“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” ~Psalm 11:3
If you’ve been following Worldview Warriors as a whole this year, you will have heard our president Jason DeZurik saying a lot of stuff about needing to return to our foundations to find out what is really going on and what we should do amidst all this chaos. We see all the statues and historical figures being removed from public because at some point in their lives, there was something related to racism there. That’s the reasoning. But when the 54th Massachusetts memorial is trashed (go watch the movie Glory to get a lesson about that one) or “Aunt Jemima” (a woman who came out of slavery and developed recipes for pancakes and syrup) are being tarnished and removed, you might want to realize that this isn’t about ‘racism,’ but about the removal of our history.
I have been writing about brainwashing and the Hegelian Dialectic Process over the past few weeks. Today, I’m going to address how this process has been used and is currently being used. This is a repetitive process that over time guides a people away from solid, moral foundations and gets them adjusted to a “new” standard. In William Watkins’ book The New Absolutes (which is 20 years old for the record), he described how the moral standards of Judeo-Christianity are being replaced not with a “free-for-all” as some are suggesting but “new standards” that cannot and will not be challenged. Voddie Baucham makes the distinction between how the word “tolerance” has changed in his sermon “Contending for the Faith.” The old meaning was used by Voltaire: “I disagree with you, but I defend your right to say it.” The current meaning is: “You better allow for my opinion and if you disagree with me, you are a lying, racist, white supremist, bigot.” That’s the result of this dialectic process and the brainwashing that comes with it. Our history and our moral standards that were predominately Judeo-Christian are not merely being removed but replaced with a history and moral standard set up by a Marxist, or rather Satanic, agenda. Side note: Richard Wurmbrand reveals that Karl Marx wasn’t merely an atheist, he was a practicing Satanist (cited by Henry Morris in The Long War Against God, page 182).
This Hegelian Dialectic is a tactic of compromise to get those who speak the truth to be either silenced or submitted into service for the state to promote their agenda. There are biographies showcasing this process but few I’ve read depicts it better than Laura’s Children by Becky Powers, a local author to me. This is not a well-known book, partly due to the need of protection from those whom Laura Richards, an American girl who started an orphanage in pre-Communist China, raised. This book very accurately describes how the Communists took over and eventually forced her to return to the U.S.
Here is how it happened. The state immediately made a proclamation of religious freedom. China, due to Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Missions, having the support of C.T. Studd and George Mueller, was fast becoming a Christian nation. The Communist government sent in their trained people who would be the “facilitators,” and they would actually carry out the Hegelian Dialectic Process. But instead of having two groups of differing opinions, they would talk about the daily operations and they would be seeking for any sort of moral failing to remove the leader of the church or compound where they could replace their own. Powers describes how when this wasn’t working for Laura Richards and her orphanage, the facilitators would go back for more training, to uproot Richards and submit the orphanage to be run by the state. Eventually one student caved because Richards’ then husband made a grave error when she was away, and the dominoes began to fall. She eventually had to flee back to the U.S.
This is just a sampling of what happens in nearly every church or Christian school in a Communist state. The pastors and principals are approached by the government, and they are given a choice to submit to the state and begin preaching the state’s doctrines, or basically face imprisonment or arrest. But the latter happens through this dialectic process. The government plants their own people into leadership, possibly as an elder or on a board, or gets one who is already there to cave, and they begin the dialectic process. Again, the goal is to either expose the leader as corrupt through ANY form of sin and thus grounds for removal for which he will then be replaced by someone the government has already selected to run the institution, or to get the very congregation to run said leader out through emotional hype. Powers records how some pastors were attacked by mobs and killed through a result of this dialectic process. The 50+ million killed by Mao Tse Tung? It wasn’t just by starvation. It was also by using the Hegelian Dialectic Process to creates mobs and turn against those who won’t “play by the rules.”
Two weeks ago, I explained how the Hegelian Dialectic is a gradual changing from the old morals to the new morals. The removal of history is a key part of it. I am able to showcase the gradual changes (and I’ve hardly touched on the subject here) because I know the history of where we came from. Another key part of this process is the removal of historical markers and the re-writing of the history. When the people don’t know where they came from, they can’t tell if the direction they are heading is good or bad. While our schools have “history” as a required course, what are they teaching? At most, it’s just dates and events. We aren’t teaching them about the mindset and the reasons for why these events took place, nor the philosophies that went behind the thinking of the decisions. And when those are presented, it’s always in conjunction with the politically correct agenda. The average person on the street repeatedly shows to be utterly clueless about even current events. They only know what the media tells them, and even then they mostly get it wrong.
Even in a series of blog posts, I can’t give this topic enough justice. The foremost authority I know on this issue is Dean Gotcher. I had shared a 4-part series (for about 6 hours total) a few weeks ago and I’ll share the first link here for further research. He also has a website on this issue called “Authority Research,” however, it’s rather painful to navigate and the articles are long. But he does travel and even in group homes he’ll share what he’s learned. One of his themes is addressing the removal of the father figure from the home and ultimately to remove God as being the Father. It’s all using this Dialectic process. He terms it “diaprax,” which is the praxis (practice) of the dialectic. It’s worth exploring.
What can we do about this process? How can we battle against it? Deception is so powerful, and it easily affects the masses. We as a church have been sleeping and playing along with this, with only a few voices speaking out. I’d speak out more too than just here if I knew how. But here is one thing: We must stop being a professing church, one who just declares that we are Christian. We must instead be a confessing church. Next week, I’m going to address what a confessing church is and what it does, especially in a culture that is hostile to such messages.
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I’ve been writing through the book of Ecclesiastes throughout 2020 so far, and we have finally reached the end! Last week, I wrapped up going through the actual text, so this week I want to provide you with a summary of the Teacher’s wisdom from this great book. You can read all of my blog posts on this book here or at the links throughout this post.
Way back in my introduction post, we first needed to figure out who wrote this book and why in order to have a better understanding of its meaning. Ecclesiastes is written by the Teacher (“Qohelet” in Hebrew), who is generally believed to be King Solomon. If that is true, then it was written near the end of King Solomon’s reign and life. It is considered to be wisdom literature, similar to proverbs.
Ecclesiastes 1 starts out on a seemingly depressing note, talking about how meaningless this life is. It first looks at nature and how all of the natural processes just keep on going regardless of what’s going on in the lives of humans. Next in this chapter, the Teacher looks at the chasing of knowledge and wisdom and how it seems meaningless. In both of these examples, the important thing to remember is that God created this world and put us in it to worship and glorify Him, and that is what gives meaning to our lives.
Ecclesiastes 2 starts out with the Teacher’s discussion on pleasure in this life. His emphasis is on how the pleasures of this life are only temporarily enjoyable but ultimately meaningless when we die. These pleasures will never truly satisfy us. The chapter continues with comparing wisdom to folly, very similar to many passages in the book of Proverbs. The Teacher emphasizes that whether we live our lives wisely or foolishly, all of us are going to die. That may sound depressing, but for those of us who believe in Jesus, physical death brings us that much closer to eternal life with Him, if we have made the choice to live our lives out of faith in Him. This chapter concludes with the Teacher’s thoughts on work and how it, too, seems to be meaningless in this life after we die. Work is important because God created us to do it, and our goal should be to glorify God in our work.
Ecclesiastes 3 begins with that “famous” passage of there being a time for everything under the sun. We go through rhythms of good and bad times in our lives, and God is there for us through it all. The Teacher shares his perspective on this concept in the next part of the chapter as he discusses where our focus is, discovering our purpose, and how we react to God and what He has done in our lives. The chapter ends with a discussion on death - a topic we’ve probably all thought about, but most people don’t want to discuss it.
After that depressing note, the Teacher begins to discuss ambition and power in Ecclesiastes 4. Achieving power is meaningless in this world if that’s all we’re living for, so we need to check out motivation on why we live the way we live so that we’re not living meaningless lives. He then moves on to discussing working together for good purposes and being in leadership roles. We’re encouraged in this chapter to work with others for the good of the community rather than to be isolated, and to be a wise leader and to pray for and encourage our leaders.
Ecclesiastes 5 begins with the Teacher reminding his readers that true purpose and fulfillment are only found in God’s presence. Everything outside of fearing God and doing His will is meaningless. Next, the Teacher goes back to addressing the meaninglessness of various topics; next up is money. We need to keep a proper perspective on money, that it’s all from God anyway so we need to use it as He wants us to. The Teacher then addresses the evils of money, and how accumulating wealth can be a distraction from what is really important in this life - glorifying God and trusting in Him for all our needs.
Ecclesiastes 6 continues the discussion on money by addressing our desire for accumulating possessions. We frequently think that having more possessions will make us happier, but the Teacher has learned from his wisdom that this is not the case. Our attitude toward material wealth is important; are we content with what God has given us, or are we always wanting more?
The Teacher switches gears in Ecclesiastes 7 by starting out the chapter with a selection of proverbs, or wise sayings. The chapter then continues by addressing the question of what happens to people who live righteous lives or wicked lives. We all disobey God in our lives, but some people seem to have better or longer lives than others. We are all called to obey God, and it’s up to God how He blesses us or not. The Teacher wraps up the chapter by looking at how to deal with those who appear to be less wise than us. We may become frustrated in such situations, but God calls us to share the wisdom He has given us with others.
Ecclesiastes 8 begins with instructing us on obeying the authorities that are in power over us. We need to respect our authorities, knowing that all of us will answer to God (the ultimate authority) for all of our actions. The rest of this chapter deals with the idea of injustice in this world. We all struggle with this idea of why the world seems to be so unfair, but the key is to remember that God is God and we are not, so we cannot understand His ways.
Ecclesiastes 9 first looks at our destiny - both what we will end up doing on this earth, and where we will end up after this life is over. As believers in Christ, we know our destiny is ultimately to be with Him. That is a certainty, unlike all of the uncertainty we face in this life. We can (and should) always turn to God in every situation we face in this life because He is the one certainty we have. That wisdom is better than physical strength or size.
Ecclesiastes 10 is full of proverbs from the Teacher on a variety of topics. While these proverbs were written many centuries ago in a different culture, they have timeless wisdom that still applies to us today.
Ecclesiastes 11 continues with more proverbs, but these are centered around the theme of how to live in the present with not knowing what the future will hold. The Teacher then discusses the idea of growing up and growing old. We should strive to enjoy the days we are given and always be growing in wisdom and maturity.
Ecclesiastes 12 first continues the discussion on old age and how our life should not be meaningless when we look back on it. We then read the Teacher’s concluding thoughts. I’ll leave you with the ultimate summary of this great book from Ecclesiastes 12:13-14: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”
Fear God and keep His commandments; everything else is meaningless under the sun.
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As I wrote last week’s post on the Hegelian Dialectic process, I had an epiphany. I need to take a short detour to examine the role of the facilitator of this process which has swept away the foundations of our nation and our culture. This facilitator is hired and trained by those seeking power to not only create the division in the first place but to agitate any division already there and then to play the hero in negotiating the peace. In other words, the one who is going to present themselves as the hero in the conflicts is the very villain who created them.
The formal job of said facilitator is to be a mediator, or a negotiator. As I wrote my blog post for last week, I was thinking about this role and it hit me: the mediator, the true Mediator, is Jesus Christ. The only one who could create peace between God and man is Jesus Christ. God and man are irreconcilable apart from Jesus, the Creator Himself, coming as a man to die on the cross. We need to understand this about the Gospel. Man is at war with God. Sin is not a mistake. Sin is not a mere barrier that prevents our “blessings” from coming to us. Sin is direct defiance against the Holy God. There is nothing man can do to make up for this, except to die and join the demons in hell in everlasting punishment. God is so holy, so pure, and so righteous that He will punish sin and smite it once and for all. If we are associated with sin when that day comes, we go with it. Jesus, however, came to negotiate peace.
The facilitator of the Hegelian Dialectic does a similar job at the surface. His job is to take two sides who are diametrically opposed to each other and to which no peace can seem to be had, and to get them to make peace. He often succeeds too. Peace is achieved. The fighting ends. However, there is a vast difference between the approaches of Jesus and the facilitator, and a vast difference in the outcomes as well.
As I shared last week, the facilitator’s job is to appeal to emotions and use peer pressure and feelings to get people to play around with different ideas based on how they feel. As the sinful, selfish, natural self will appeal emotionally to whatever feels good at the moment at the expense of what is true and needs to be done, the negotiation will always lean away from factual truths that remain throughout time, and lean towards the “progressive” ideas which lets sin rule unrestrained. Jesus doesn’t do this. Jesus lays out the facts and never appeals to emotion. You never hear Jesus asking: “How do you feel about this?” when dealing with doctrinal issues or the things of God. He wasn’t emotionless, but emotions weren’t the basis for how He made His decisions or how He dealt with people. Jesus based His claims on the facts, and He did not mince words about what they were and what reality was.
The facilitator and the group he’s with work behinds the scenes to create division or magnify what division is already there. They seek to create a problem that gets so bad that it takes someone – like them – to solve it. Once their “solution” is achieved, they will cease creating the problems, thus problem is solved. Again, the key here is to create division from the start. Jesus, however, was different. He didn’t create the problems man has; man did. Jesus wasn’t working behind the scenes to create the problem that He would be the savior to fix. No, He came to be the solution for man’s problem that man created.
The facilitator seeks to create “peace” between all groups at the expense of truth. Remember, his job is about emotions and feelings, not facts. Through peer pressure and emotional appeal, the facilitator brings a nominal peace that is ultimately just a cease fire. It’s a cease fire that will last only long enough for the next iteration of the compromise position to begin. It will end because the facilitator is going to bring division again. Jesus didn’t come to create such peace. He did not come to create a cease fire between God and man, but rather He came to bring both peace and a sword. He brings peace by getting man to surrender himself to God, in brokenness and humility over his sin. However, those who refuse to submit to Jesus’ negotiation process will remain at enmity with God. Because God does not compromise, those who refuse to submit to His terms will remain at war with Him and His followers.
The facilitator directs the process of compromise away from facts and conservative values and towards the already intended liberal left. The only compromise in the left is temporary because they know that once it starts, the “slippery slope” will pick up speed. And they know that when those who stand for truth compromise on the little things or “secondary issues,” it’s only a matter of time before they start caving on the big ones. Jesus doesn’t negotiate that way. He puts up the standards, God’s righteous standards, and gives us two options: meet them at your own ability (good luck), or to rely and depend upon Him who already did it for us. While the facilitator makes the righteous cave to the sinful, Jesus calls for the sinful to cave and surrender to the righteous God.
There’s one last comparison I want to make. This Hegelian Dialectic process is actually described in Scripture. There is going to be a great war which is described in Revelation and there is one man who will be able to negotiate peace for Jerusalem. This is not Jesus, but the Antichrist. We know from Scripture that such a peace will be only temporary as the Jews will be betrayed by the Antichrist. But how will such a treaty be made or even be possible? What could possibly get Muslims to make a positive deal with Israel? The answer is simple: through a process like this, where they KNOW that things will turn against Israel and in their favor. Please take notice: when the same tactics are being used by different people, regardless of what side they claim to be on, the tactics are from the same source.
There is one Mediator between God and man: Jesus Christ. There is only one mediator who can truly negotiate peace between different groups: Jesus Christ. Racial division? Socio-political division? Denominational division? Familial division? You name it; the only one who can truly negotiate peace among these battles is Jesus Christ. Anyone else, if they are following Christ’s method, they will be pointing to and revealing Christ. If they are not, they are not negotiating peace. They are negotiating something else and it will not be good.
Next week, I’ll come back to the practical side of the Hegelian Dialectic process, because that is going to lead to my next series which has been a burden on my heart for a couple years was reignited recently.
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After all the wisdom we’ve read in the book of Ecclesiastes, we have finally made it to the conclusion of this book!
This conclusion section begins by going back to the author of this book, the Teacher. Verse 9 says, “Not only was the Teacher wise, but he also imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs.”
It’s one thing to have wisdom, and it’s a completely different thing to give that wisdom to others. When I was in college, I had a few professors who were incredibly intelligent, but they were not good at teaching that knowledge to those of us who didn’t have their level of genius. Just because a person knows something, whether intellectual knowledge or how to perform a skilled task, doesn’t mean that they are able to teach that thing to others. The Teacher is pointing out here that he not only had the wisdom but also shared it with others, through the writing of this book.
It’s clear that the Teacher was careful in selecting his words. The second half of verse 9 contains three verbs in the Hebrew that are all in an intensive form: he balanced, he searched, and he made straight many wise words. The fact that these verbs are intensive shows that the Teacher didn’t just write whatever came to mind but was intentional about choosing the words that make up this book. It’s also interesting that the Hebrew noun for “proverb,” which we know to be a wise saying, comes from the same root as the Hebrew verb for “to rule or reign.” It is implied that anyone who is in authority should heed these wise sayings, and that is clearly true for the Teacher’s life.
Verse 10 emphasizes this fact: “The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true.” This verse also begins with another intensive verb for seeking just the right words to write down. It literally says in Hebrew that he sought to find the delightful or pleasurable words, though we know from reading the book that this does not mean that he sugar-coated everything to make it sound good to us; in fact, at face value, this book seems like quite a downer. But he states that everything he wrote is upright and true, which I believe we can verify simply by reading it.
This claim is also verified in verse 11: “The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails — given by one shepherd.” The one shepherd these words were given by is, of course, the one true God. We know that God gave the Teacher this wisdom, and the Teacher has imparted it to his readers of that day all the way through time to us and our future generations. These wise words are to be firmly embedded into our lives to encourage us to honor God with all that we do.
Verse 12 gives a warning against other literature that may not be as full of Godly wisdom: “Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.” Just do a quick look on the Internet today and you’ll find millions of books available; none of them come close to the wisdom that is contained in the Bible. Some books help us comprehend and apply the wisdom of the Bible to our lives, while some may actually point us away from that wisdom. Studying all of these books, especially those that are not helping us study the truth of God’s Word, will make us very weary, and they will not help us live better God-honoring lives.
The Teacher’s final concluding thoughts are in verses 13-14: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” This is the point of life for the Teacher, to fear God and do what He has instructed us to do. We know that we will be judged for our actions in this life, so we should strive to have wisdom and to do what is right.
But, for us living on the other side of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we know that there is more to it. We are still called to fear God and keep His commandments, but we also know that when we have faith in Jesus’ sacrificial death, our judgment will be Jesus’ judgment. God will have grace on us for when we mess up keeping God’s commandments. We deserve death for our actions and our disobedience of God, but through Jesus, we will have life. We will be judged, but because of our faith, God will hand Jesus’ judgment over to us - eternal life with Him instead of eternal judgment.
While this is the conclusion of the text of Ecclesiastes, next week I’ll write a summary of the highlights my study through this book. It definitely has been an adventure in wisdom!
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Last week, I finished my series on brainwashing, and I received some spectacular feedback from it. Among the responses was an interest to delve deeper into what I have referenced numerous times throughout my posts but never really dedicated a post on: the Hegelian Dialectic Process. It was articulated and codified by German philosopher Georg Hegel, but it’s really nothing new. I first learned about it when I did the Cadre program with the Creation Truth Foundation 6 ½ years ago. I’ll summarize the entire process in one word: compromise. That is the intention, goal, and purpose of the whole thing: to get people, namely the conservative Christians, to compromise. Here is how this process works.
The main theory is that you first look at a predominate worldview or position that you want to change. This current predominate position is called a THESIS. Then you bring in a completely opposite worldview or position called the ANTITHESIS. Then you bring in a facilitator to be called in to negotiate “peace” between the two sides; this peace is a compromise between the two positions called a SYNTHESIS. The root process of this is “dialogue,” hence the name “dialectic.” The SYNTHESIS then becomes the new THESIS and the process starts all over again.
It sounds great in theory, however the practice of it is something much worse. Dean Gotcher (his website is found here) is a relatively small name speaker on this issue, but he is extremely well read after realizing what was happening to both him and his wife as teachers in the public school system. Something I want to make clear here is that this process is not achieved by intellectual argument or logic, but by feelings. According to Gotcher, what Freud did with psychology was designed to use feelings to justify their problems and how to cope with feelings, but never to confront anything in context of sin. What Hegel and others did was to take what Freud did with individuals and put them all in a group. The same types of questions are asked: “How do you feel about x situation?” It’s always an appeal to emotion and feelings, not to fact, logic, or reasoning.
The dangerous thing about appeals to emotions is that they are easily manipulated, and the ‘facilitator’ is trained to seek them out. A favorite tool is name calling. The facilitator will make disparaging remarks towards one side to get them riled up, creating division, and then calling them back together in the name of peace, yet the facilitator is actually the one creating the division. Paul warned about such people in Romans 16:17-18. I’ve often cited this verse to identify false teachers, but it applies here too. The ones who are using smooth words and flattering lips are creating division. We are to mark them and avoid them. I’ll come back to this point in a moment, because it’s critical.
One of their classic tactics is to latch on to a pleasing sounding idea, and then declare: “If you don’t support me, you are against x thing.” Remember what I said about brainwashing a few weeks ago? In both abortion and evolution, the tactic is: “If you don’t support abortion, you are against women’s health.” “If you reject evolution, you reject all science.” In actuality, abortion and evolution are completely AGAINST women’s health and science, respectively. Look at “Black Lives Matter” as well. Culture says that if you don’t support BLM, you are a racist and against blacks. That’s brainwashing, and it’s part of this Hegelian Dialectic process. They equate their movement and ideas with something everyone agrees with, and mock and ridicule anyone who disagrees with them, when their own agenda has virtually nothing to do with said good thing.
The process gets worse. The whole procedure is to work out a “negotiated” answer, but that answer was pre-determined before getting the two sides together. So, the division was created to get two sides to fight each other. Fighting is obviously bad. But when is peace going to be achieved? Because the facilitator is the one orchestrating the fighting, it won’t cease until the facilitator gets what they want. They do so by planting “agitators” within the groups to get a mob mentality going.
What makes this process so effective is peer pressure. The facilitator doesn’t need to convince everyone of his plan. He just has to get a few on their side and get them to get their peers involved. If you do not participate in the process and play along, there is a process called “jamming.” Voddie Baucham describes this process when he spoke for an ICR conference a few years ago and was addressing how the homosexual agenda has been forced down the public’s throats despite being such a minority group.
Jamming is a process of name calling and marginalization used to isolate people who refuse to compromise. No one likes being insulted, but again, remember that this process is working using emotion and peer pressure. Because many people would rather cave on their convictions than have their feelings hurt, former allies will start to separate themselves because they are starting to feel the pressure from their already compromised peers. In an in-person presentation, Dean Gotcher described how one man in such a meeting knew precisely what was going on, and he refused to cave. Each time that he disagreed, he was given a sticker to wear. Eventually, he never caved but he was covered in stickers and he was sitting by himself. Let me make this clear: as Christians, speaking truth in this time and age, we will often find ourselves alone, constantly insulted and ridiculed, and marked not just as a dissident, but often as a threat to the peace.
In the end, if the process does what it is intended to do, the group will arrive at the already determined conclusion of the facilitator and THINK it was their idea all along. And here is the result in our culture. The conservative side is the one that has compromised. The liberal side may appear to give up some of their demands, but all they actually wanted was the conservatives to cave in, even if just a little. In a short time, the process will begin again with the SYNTHESIS becoming the new THESIS. The cycle will continue. With each step, the conservative side always gets closer and closer and closer to what the left had going on all along. This process will NEVER lean towards the conservative side. And when I say “conservative,” I’m not talking “Republican Party.” I’m particularly thinking of the Judeo-Christian worldview. This process is designed specifically to take a culture away from having a Judeo-Christian worldview and to compromise it with the pagan cultures around, and to eventually remove it entirely.
This process was only codified by Hegel. It’s been in practice for nearly all of history. This process is used in “group therapy” sessions (think like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” where “Big Nurse Ratched” is the facilitator). It is used in board meetings. It is used in schools and even churches. And right now, we are seeing it being used on a national scale. Russ Miller has a video series (each only about 3 minutes each) where he examines Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and showcases this exact same process being used on us. Most of the nation is playing right along with it, including many Christians. Here are part 1, part 2, and part 3. Next week, I am going to zoom in on the facilitator role in this process for a moment before coming back out to examine how this process has been used practically, namely in how Communism conquered Eastern Europe and Asia.
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The world is on “fire.” We are living through a “global pandemic,” violence, and vandalism in the streets, and a questioning of the Christian faith that many of us have never seen in our lifetime. Recently, I came across this quote from someone on social media: “I just know Jesus would have loved all people as they come, and that’s what I wanna do too.”
Now, this quote standing alone is a very good thing. It sounds incredible and amazing until you dig into what this person actually means by saying this. Friends, this person isn’t really interested in finding the truth in God’s Word but in the ideas and philosophies of humans. This is something we here at Worldview Warriors have run across a lot in the past and have been warning about for years. It seems to just be coming to light for many, now that social media has become more popular and prevalent in everyday life.
The following is just one reason I know this person isn’t interested in finding the truth in God’s Word, even though they would claim they are interested in God’s Word. They also shared this: “I think there’s a big fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of sin. One that’s man made and misconstrued.” This was brought up after someone asked this person if they believed that a certain activity that the Bible claims to be sin is still a sin today.
You see, friends, we are dealing with a very serious issue today. In fact, the human race has dealt with this issue for a very long time. The issue is that we think we know what is good and right and true without God. Many today are actually claiming the moral high ground without standing on God. They say they are standing on things that are godly, when they are in fact doing anything but that. They claim love. Many today think that giving license to a sinful lifestyle is acting in love when it is anything but love. They are confused in what living out truth in love really looks like. What do I mean?
Well, Jesus, with the woman at the well is a perfect example of what I am referring to (read about it in John 4). You’ll notice that Jesus didn’t tell this person that living with a man who wasn’t her husband was okay, good, or right. In fact, He didn’t tell her that having 5 husbands was okay either. He wanted to help restore her as a person, help her face her sinful lifestyle, and take responsibility for her actions. He didn’t say to keep living in your life of sin. In fact, she left her water pot (her old way of living) behind to tell others about this Jesus. She wanted to strive to live for Christ.
Friends, just by looking at Jesus’ example here and in other places in Scripture, we can easily deduce that affirming someone’s sinful lifestyle and encouraging them to stay in this lifestyle is anything but living in freedom in Christ. It’s affirming the burdensome chains that a person has around their neck and wrists. God sent Jesus Christ to make us free, not just in the next world but in this one as well. The Kingdom of God is not a place. It is a mindset, it is a spiritual awakening, it is a lifestyle. Friends, leave your water pot behind.
Here’s some more on this idea with Jason’s daughter, Anika DeZurik: “Leaving your water pot behind.” Check it out and be free!
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by Chad Koons
Statues are coming down. How do you feel about that?
Slogans are screaming upon signs, people are marching, and BLM is taking over the national conversation. What is your stance?
Deaths are being brought to greater attention, and people nationwide are demanding reform and declaring that justice be served. So, what do you do?
Pick a side and dig in. Unleash your rage and forget about the consequences. You are so blindly wrong, and you will feel my wrath, which you deserve, that I have been waiting to lavish upon you.
If I think you’re wrong then YOU are the problem and I’ll mow you down, either verbally or physically. I am justified in this, I’ve had ENOUGH.
Let the bodies hit the floor…
Let the bodies hit the floor…
Let the bodies hit the floor…
We simply don’t care anymore.
One nation, divided under God.
I know that you are angry. Depending upon what you are angry about, you may even have a great reason to be. But this isn’t Fox News and it isn’t CNN. These are people’s lives we are talking about. This is a cry into the heart of mankind, created in the image and after the likeness of God Himself.
Have righteous anger. But be angry and sin NOT.
Where is the voice of healing?
Where are the actions of true and lasting change?
We need to WAKE UP. We are NOT battling flesh and blood here.
No, that black person is not your enemy.
No, that white person is not your enemy.
No, that cop is not your enemy.
No, that institution is not your enemy.
No, that movement is not your enemy.
See? It’s on both sides. Racism is an ancient evil, born of Satan and carried along by demonic device.
Yes, we need to reveal the darkness.
Yes, we need to call out injustice.
Yes, we need to warn, protect, and educate.
Yes, we need to stand up for the neglected and empower the downtrodden.
Most importantly, YES we need to be like Jesus during this moment of His-story. Only God can judge, and rest assured that your every word and action will be judged by Him.
For my part, are my words brining life into this death scene? How useful am I really being? As a most wise mentor once told me, “Work like it all depends on work… and pray like it all depends on prayer.”
Sarcasm needs to stop. Pre-judging others needs to stop. Insults need to stop. Can we grow up? Satan has a plan for this. Yet God is up to something bigger, and only the wise will join Him there. You have two ears and one mouth for a reason. I won’t pretend to tell you how to fix this, but I do know who can. God help us, I fear that we are too self-righteous to seek Him. Do not look back on this moment and mourn the good you could have been.
Love God and love people. If bodies hit the floor, it should be yours – in prayer before a holy God.
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We’ve made it to the last chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes! It’s been quite a ride, but we still have a couple more posts to go on this amazing book. It is believed that the Teacher (likely King Solomon) wrote this book toward the end of his life as a culmination of all his wisdom, and in this section of Ecclesiastes 12:1-8, he turns his focus to old age and the frustrations that come with it.
While this section contains many metaphors and descriptions of old age, it starts out in verse 1 with a very simple statement: “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them.’” Whether you’re young or old as you read this, it’s clear that the thrill and energy of youth will waste away as we get older. Compared to when the Teacher first wrote this, many people today are able to remain energetic in their old age thanks to modern medicine and our modern ways of living. But the body will still start to have physical difficulties as we age, and our energy will decline at least to some extent.
What does the Teacher mean by saying “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth”? Some who are young may want to delay putting their faith in God until they’re old since they feel like they don’t need it now. Many teenagers go through a spell of thinking they know everything, so why would they need God? Why would they need to remember the One who created them, when they can do everything themselves? That mentality is exactly what the Teacher is warning against. We need to remember God, our Creator, at EVERY age of life, not just when we’re old and feel like we’ll be closer to meeting Him face-to-face. The reality is that life is uncertain and people can be suddenly taken from this life at any time, so we always need to remember God and strive to live out our faith in this life, no matter our age.
Verse 2 reminds us of the rhythms of life: “Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain.” We see the rhythm of each day with the sun and the moon, and the rhythms of seasons with the sun and light of spring and summer giving way to the cloudiness of fall and winter. The days come and go, and the seasons come and go, and we continue to age in these physical bodies. We need to remember that God our Creator remains the same through it all.
We see metaphors of the body’s decay in verses 3-4: “When the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those looking through the windows grow dim; when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades; when people rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint.” Our strength will gradually leave. Our limbs may begin to tremble as they don’t work as well anymore. Our eyesight may get worse. We will be physically capable of doing less work when we’re old than in our youth. Our hearing may get worse. We will be stuck inside our bodies that can’t do as much as they once did. We may get less sleep at night as we rise early with the birds. Our own voices may get softer and more labored. Basically, every aspect of the body may deteriorate in some way.
Verse 5 deals with fears that we succumb to more as we get older: “When people are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets; when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags itself along and desire no longer is stirred. Then people go to their eternal home and mourners go about the streets.” We may have no fear during our young years, but those fears develop as we get older and have more life experience, and potentially see our friends experience these dangers in life. The almond tree blooming represents the white hair of old age, as in that geographic area, its blossoms have white tips. The grasshopper dragging itself represents the difficulty we’ll experience in moving around as we get older. We may have less desire to do the things we once did. After all this decay of our bodies, the reality is that we’ll die and go to our eternal homes.
Verses 6-7 go back to the theme of remembering our Creator from verse 1: “Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, and the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, and the wheel broken at the well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” We need to continue to remember the God who created us while we are young and before we get old, and before everything in our bodies starts breaking down and no longer working well. The fact of the matter is that these physical bodies will die, whether we experience a long or a short life here on earth. This references back to the words of God to Adam in Genesis 3:19: “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
The familiar refrain concludes this section in verse 8: “‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Everything is meaningless!’” The Teacher has reminded all people, especially those who are young, to make the most of their lives while they’re young, and to remember that God gave us our lives so we’re accountable to Him for them. One day, all of this will stop for us as we experience physical death, which appears to be a meaningless end to this life.
But is our death really meaningless? We need to remember that when the Teacher wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, it was before the time of the promised Savior Jesus coming into the world. He knew of this future promise but it had not yet been fulfilled. For us, that promise has already been fulfilled. Jesus, the Son of God, came into this world to live a perfect life and to die a horrible death so that we could be reconciled to God. While the world we live in is still sinful and everything will decay, physical death is not the end for those of us who believe in Jesus! We will be able to live eternally with God in heaven.
The question for us is, are you making sure your life here on earth is not meaningless? Are you living out the plan that God has for you and living your life to glorify Him and do the work that He has given you before your body decays? Are you constantly remembering your Creator and what He created you to do? If so, then your life is not meaningless, and your physical death will not be meaningless either, as you’ll get to spend eternity praising and worshiping God with all that you are.
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“But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” ~John 6:68
Jesus had just gone through a heated discussion with Jewish leaders in Capernaum and made the statement that in order to be His disciple you had to eat His flesh and drink His blood. The Jews, having the strictest diet in the world, understood precisely what Jesus was saying. In order to have life, you had to make Jesus your very sustenance of life. The crowd left Him – the same crowd that ate the feeding of the 5000 meal, about 20,000 people altogether. Jesus turned to His disciples and asked if they wanted to go to. Peter answered with the above statement. He knew that no one else had what Jesus had.
Over the past month, I’ve been writing about words and the effects of brainwashing. But I want to leave this series in victory, not fear. There is a way to protect our minds from brainwashing, and at the same time restore our minds from the brainwashing that had already taken effect. Words have been used to poison our minds and to fog our brains. Satan has taken words to get us to not believe what God has said. But Satan can only corrupt and mimic and counterfeit. The existence of a counterfeit can only prove the validity of the original, and the original will always prevail against the fake.
There are two things I want to address here: 1) how the Words of Eternal Life can prevent us from being brainwashed, and 2) how the Words of Eternal Life can undo the brainwashing that has already been done. When we have the words of life, the message from God, and it is applied in our lives, no fog, no deception, no brainwashing will overtake us.
How do we keep from being brainwashed, from being deceived? There’s only one way to know or identify a fake $20 bill: know the real one. There’s only one way to escape from a lie: know the truth. Yes, it’s that simple. If we want to avoid being brainwashed, we must know the truth. There are countless verses that talk about knowing God, seeking the wisdom of God, and knowing the words of life. But I’ll give just one. Jesus was in the wilderness and fasting. Satan tempted him to make bread out of rocks and Jesus made this statement: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” This is critical. We are to live on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
The initial deception by Satan put the word of God in question: “Has God indeed said…?” The whole purpose of the tactic is to confuse us to wondering if we heard God correct, question if God was clear enough, and even question if God was even being sincere and honest. If we know what God actually said, however, then no one can move us. This is why so many people will ask us, “Are you sure you have the right interpretation?” “What makes you think you got it right?” Because if we do have it right, it means they got it wrong. Now, I am not calling for arrogance or beating our chest over having the truth. Do not confuse confidence in what God said with arrogance, or let the detractors do it either.
The best way to avoid getting brainwashed is to test everything we hear with Scripture. That includes from us at Worldview Warriors: Jason, Katie, Steve, Chad, or myself. If what we are preaching is not aligned with Scripture, we would like to know about that. None of us have it all figured out, but we stand with confidence that what Scripture says is true and is the standard of all reality. If we test not just the words, but the images and the spirt behind the words, then we can be assured that we will not be duped. If it is false, there will be a red flag warning against it. If it is true, it will resonate with the truth that we have learned. However, we cannot test what we hear with what we do not know. The Holy Spirit will not pull out of our minds that which we never put in, especially if we had the opportunity to do so. We must test what we hear.
But many of us have been brainwashed already simply for no other reason than we went to school or watched TV. There is only one way to undo that brainwashing: renew your mind. It takes a supernatural, recreating work of God to renew our minds. We won’t be able to do it by strength of will. It takes God to do it. We have to recognize that our minds are corrupt, and we’ll never be able to see clearly on our own. However, if we respond and receive the light that God gives us, he will give us more light; and with more light comes more clarity and more of the cleansing of the mind.
The renewing of the mind includes a literal reprogramming of the mind. Pornography literally rewires the brain, but so does studying, meditating, and memorizing Scripture. It will rewire our brains so that it will not go to the things of the flesh. That’s part of why Paul said to think about good things, noble tings, lovely things, anything that edifies and glorifies God. The mind that has been cleansed from the flesh and the brainwashing of the world is one that can focus on God, His plans, His glory, and His Kingdom. The mind that is fully submitted to Christ is a mind that cannot be bought, cannot be moved, cannot be deceived, cannot be conquered, and ultimately will win every battle it fights.
As I wrap up this series, let us not forget that as born-again believers with renewed minds, being transformed and conformed into the image of Christ, we have an advantage. We have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will protect us. He is the One who gives us that red flag when we hear something questionable. He is the One who guards us against false teachings. And when we do fall, the Holy Spirit is the One who will discipline us, correct us, and bring us back into a right relationship with the Father. If we listen to Him, I believe it is possible to live sin-free from this day forth.
But that’s another thing: we’ve been brainwashed into thinking that we have to sin, and we are doomed to fail. Said who? Where is that in Scripture? I’ve said that so many times only because I know from experience how many times I’ve failed and because I myself have been brainwashed to believe that as a Christian we can never live a sin-free life. Is that what Scripture says? Romans 8 says otherwise. I’m not saying we are without sin, because the Holy Spirit’s job is in part to convict us of sin. However, as believers, why can’t we live sin-free from here on out, living in commitment to Christ and never once disobeying His commands with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit? I’ll tell you exactly why we can’t. We don’t believe we can, and we have some sins we still like too much to give up. Let’s discard that lie that we are stuck in sin, and let’s break free from it. Jesus has already unlocked the door. We just need to walk out.
Words are dangerous when in the wrong mouth, but when they come from God, they are the very source of life. Turn to the Words of Life. Go after the things of God. Train your mind to think God’s way, not man’s way. Jesus is the True and Faithful Witness. He is the very Word of God. He is trustworthy and we can believe every Word that He says. Let us break free from the brainwashing of this world and of the worldly false teachings, but instead have our minds be renewed and aligned to the things of God.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
