Ignorant Intellectuals

RV48-01

The kingdom of man, which reaches a climax in the nightmare of the tribulation, is the product of the thinking and the influence of certain specific men who have come on the scene of history. These are men who are inspired in their thinking by Satan. These are men who are intellectuals but who, lacking divine viewpoint, were ignorant men. They were ignorant intellectuals. These men have laid the basis for today's world religion of secular humanism, which is going to find its ultimate expression in the terrible world of the tribulation era. The tribulation does not arise out of nothing. It has a chain of historical relationships. It is the consequence of the thinking of certain strategic men who have appeared on the scene of human history. Knowing about these men and their basic teachings will help alert the individual believer to the presence of their views in society today as you come across them. Many things that hit you in our world today are not properly viewed, and we are not properly cautioned about them because we don't recognize the origin of the ideas.

In Matthew 10:16, the Lord Jesus said to His disciples. "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be, therefore, wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." Be as knowledgeable, cagey, and aware as a serpent going about his business, but at the same time, have the gentle hand that characterizes the actions of a dove. "Proclaiming the truth in love" is the way the apostle Paul put it.

For us to know about the thinking of certain strategic men in human history, whose thinking is the source of the tribulation world, will enable us to avoid being trapped by a lot of human viewpoint thinking which is based upon the ideas of these men. It will enable the Christian to be ready to stand against the majority viewpoint of society, which has succumbed to the thinking of these men. It will give perspective on why God's judgment will be so severe in the tribulation era. The men who promulgated the basic satanic beliefs are now in the agonies of Hades. They have learned better, and in all likelihood, they are screaming out, trying to warn the people here on earth not to believe the things that they taught, and not to follow the advice they gave, but to reject everything that they stood for. For now, they know indeed how wrong they were, but, unfortunately, their voice does not get through, and if it did, people would not believe them, because these ideas seem so right. They have become so much of the fabric of our lives that it will come as quite a shock to us very often, unless we are well trained in Scripture, to realize how hoodwinked we have been. This is the line of thinking from these men that is producing the tribulation world from which you and I are going to be preserved.

Ignorant Intellectuals

1. Immanuel Kant

   So, let's take man number one. The first is a man named Immanuel Kant. This is a rather ironic name, considering what this man came up with – "Immanuel" means "God with us." Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who lived in Prussia from 1724 to 1804. Philosophical thinking before the time of Immanuel Kant was based upon the concepts of absolutes. That is that if A was true, then non-A was false. You couldn't say that A was true and that non-A was also true. They were mutually exclusive. One was right, or the other one was right. They could not both be right. Immanuel Kant came up with the idea that undermined this concept. This is the basis of all cause-and-effect. All cause-and-effect thinking is based upon the fact that there are certain things that are true, and certain things that are not true.

   I remember a man one time, when we had gotten through with a discussion, I said, "Now these people must be wrong, or else these other people must be wrong." He said, "Or they might both be right." He didn't realize that Immanuel Kant bore his influence on this man, because the things we were talking about were mutually exclusive. One was black, and one was white. There was no gray area. One was right, and one was wrong.

   Immanuel Kant came up with the principle that was expressed in the concept that there were no absolute values that could be applied equally to everyone. This concept was accepted in terms of both knowledge, and in terms of morals. Now the Bible says that certain things are true. We sometimes refer to this as "true truth." The Bible says that certain things are right, and certain things are wrong. There is never a time when adultery is right. There is never a time when murder is right. There is never a time when stealing is right. It is wrong. It's an absolute. Kant says, "No, no, no. That is a misconception."

   Empiricism

   Kant interjected into philosophical thinking (into the thinking of the human race) something which up to then was considered absolutely unthinkable. He challenged the possibility of anybody knowing anything at all beyond your own senses. We call that empiricism. So he declared that empiricism was the only source of knowledge. He declared that individual freedom lies in obeying your own inner feelings, and those feelings as they express themselves in and through your senses. Consequently, there is no personal basis for absolutes of right and wrong. What I might feel is wrong, you might feel is right. Who's to say which is right and which is wrong? It's a matter of how you feel about it. You can't say that that is always wrong, and that this is always right. It might be wrong for you, but it's right for me. It might be wrong now, but it's right later.

   So suddenly, all of the intellectual thinkers of the world grabbed hold of Immanuel Kant's idea – this concept that there were no absolutes of right and wrong.

2. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

   Satan man number two was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He was a German philosopher (1770-1831). Hegel grabbed hold of Kant's idea like a football pass, and took it in midair, and never stopped running with it. He ran with Kant's idea to its logical conclusions. He built on this concept of no absolutes of truth. He developed it into this form: He said that there is always an idea called a thesis. This is a concept. This is a declaration of something. Then he said that immediately there arises an opposition idea call an antithesis. So, now these two things are bucking one another. One idea is fighting another idea. It may be an idea that one says this is right, and one that says this is wrong, and now they're fighting each other. Out of that, he says, will arise a synthesis. These two things will get together and form a synthesis. This synthesis this will become a new thesis; this thesis will become the basis of a new antithesis; and, the result of that is a new synthesis, which then becomes a new thesis, ad infinitum.

   Immediately, you see that what Hegel was saying is that there is nothing that you can button down and say that it is so. There is no basis for absolute truth because everything is constantly in flux. The word that is applied to this is "dialectics." Dialectics means debating one concept against another, so, everything is in flux; nothing is absolute; and, you don't know what is up and what is down.

   The concept that he was expressing we sometimes refer to as "relativity." He says that everything is relative. What is right now becomes wrong later, perhaps. What is wrong now may be right later. Everything is relative to the moment. This, of course, destroyed all biblical concepts of absolutes, which is the basis of all cause-and-effect reasoning. As long as men still thought in terms of the Bible, they thought in terms of absolutes. A could not be non-A. As long as they thought in terms of the Bible, they thought in terms of cause-and-effect. This was the source of all modern science. The early scientists were all men of biblical belief. They were born again men, by and large. Therefore, they viewed a creator God out there who was in control of the forces of nature (the laws of nature) which He had instituted, and He keeps those laws functioning. Therefore, the Christian scientists knew that he could go from the laboratory; discover principles of science; and, they would work that way every time. He could take those principles and he could apply them to the human experience and to the human lifestyle. Out of that came the products of modern technology, eventually. If it were not for the biblical concept of the absolutes of Christianity, modern science could not have existed. It is that cause-and-effect principle that has brought about the luxurious life we enjoy today – the products of science.

   Hegel rejected all of this. His idea was that you could not determine anything except by your subjective feelings. So, emotions came to dominate the soul. The very thing the Bible always warns us against is the domination of the soul by the emotions. That is pure spiritual death and human destruction. The fastest way to become an animal is to permit the emotions to dominate the intellect of the soul. Hegel's concept of relativity, and one idea fighting another idea until they finally compromise in some way so that a supposed new truth is established until that one is undermined, completely made it impossible to come to any basis of ultimate truth. With no Creator God in the universe to make the rules, man was now free to practice unrestrained evil. And that is exactly what we got from Hegel. Political entities were free to make their own set of rules relative to what is right and wrong. They made their own morals, and these morals were to serve the goals of the leaders. Hegel outright taught that governments do not have to keep their agreements. Hegel said, "It is alright for a government to make an agreement, but that's a thesis. A little later on, something is going to happen (an antithesis is going to come), and you should not keep your word, and you come to a new synthesis."

   Of course, this is at the heart of communism today. Communist Russia has never kept an agreement that it has made. This is what is so pathetic about not knowing where human modern thought has come from. If people who are in government would understand what is the background of the thinking of the communist, they would understand that Hegel's concept is the concept on which communists function, and that, therefore, anytime you make an agreement with a communist nation, you can expect that agreement to be violated and to be broken. They will never keep their word. They cannot be true to the concepts upon which communism is based, which is this Hegelian philosophy, and still be true to the principles of the Word of God. You have to go with one or the other. So, this is why you can always trust a communist to be a communist; that is, that he will double-cross you. He will not keep his word.

   Now, why are you sitting here and you're so smart about this, and the people who run our country can't get this through their craniums? It's because you've got some divine viewpoint of the Word of God. That's why. And you are a lot smarter than the bumbled bums that are up there in Washington trying to run things, and trying to function with atheistic communism without paying attention to how those people think, and, consequently, what they're going to do. Maybe there's a little breath of reality and light up there now. We'll have to see. But Hegel said that you don't have to keep your word.

   Furthermore, Hegel glorified the state. He made the state godlike in human affairs. The state was elevated under this concept of relativity so that the state really became God. When you cut God out of the picture, you're left adrift. You have to have some anchor point. Once you cut yourself out from the Creator God as the anchor point of the universe, then you have to create some kind of a god of your own. The most natural one is to create the state. Adolf Hitler loved the thinking of Hegel. All of Nazism (national socialism) was based upon the concept of Hegel. And they functioned upon it to perfection. All cause-and-effect thinking, therefore, is terminated, and the Bible's connection between sin and divine judgment is rejected. If you don't have to be responsible for some absolute, then there isn't anything you can be accused of breaking that you have to be punished for.

   Relativity

   Relativity poisoned the thinking in the universities of the nations of the civilized world, so that the more educated people became, the more ignorant they were in terms of reality. So a student today, who must go to a secular university, faces a struggle with his faith in the Bible and in believing that he has in his hand the Word of God, because when he comes into the thinking of these educated professors who follow the Hegelian concepts, this student, unless he is well-grounded in the Word of God, is going to be shaken in his faith. He's going to be well aware of the fact that what the Bible says is not what these people are telling him. These people are sitting up there as the professors in authority, and who is he – a student, hardly dry behind the ears, to be telling the professor what is truth and what is not? The relativity concept is viewed as the epitome of scholarly thinking. Scholarly thinking always wants to say that you cannot say that something is so. You may have noticed that. It is considered scholarly to be open-minded – so open-minded that your brains fall out, as a matter of fact. That's the epitome of scholarship. So, nothing can be buttoned down. Nothing is true. It's always wide open, and it's always in flux, because Hegel says that every idea is going to be hit; you're going to combine it with a new idea; and, you never know where you're going to end up. So, you can only talk for today.

   Well, the basis now for making decisions, politically and in social matters, is in turmoil in the United States, because it is based upon this concept of Hegel. People in this country have now been poisoned by the idea that you can't say that it is wrong to take money from producers and to give it to non-producers who could be producing for themselves. Everything else that we're struggling to straighten out in this country today is a direct result of this concept of no absolutes.

3. Charles Darwin

   The next man who was providing the ideas that are going to create the tribulation world is a man named Charles Darwin. Most of you are acquainted with Charles Darwin. He wrote a book in 1848 called The Origin of the Species. In it, he theorized that the biological world is the result of evolution rather than of biblical creation. He concluded that the Bible story was an error; that it was a human opinion; that all of life did not come instantly into being; and, that the categories of species were not instantly brought into being by the Word of God, but that they gradually evolved from simple life forms into complicated life forms by a natural process of selection and survival of the fittest of the species. Darwin taught that the basic chemical elements in existence at the time combined by chance to form the first living cell. As with all evolutionists, Darwin never explained where the chemical elements came from that were on the scene to form, by chance, and to strike the first quality of life.

   Evolution

   Then he taught that over vast periods of time, in any case, this first life form (this first cell) began changing gradually into the various combinations of all the life forms that are evolved today. It began in the water with one simple form; then gradually it multiplied; it became more complex forms; turned into vegetation; and, began to grow at sea. Then one little thing poked its nose out of the water; crept up on the beach; and, decided it liked it, where it was a little moist. Then its little descendants decided that it wanted to get out of the moist environment, and they got to a dry area. Pretty soon, there were things growing on the ground, and trees grew, and flowers grew, and fruit was produced. Then, gradually, some of those other branches developed into animal lifestyles. Out of the vegetation came animal life.

   This animal life was first very simple. Then it began to develop. It grew into complex forms, and it developed into sea life floating around. Then one of those pieces of sea life poked its nose above the water and said, "That's kind of nice up there," and he crawled out on the beach. Pretty soon, he developed the capacity to be on the outside of the water. He developed into reptiles, and then the reptiles developed into these various amphibian forms. Then some of them decided to start growing wings and feathers. They flapped around, and the reptiles began flying. They said, "Man, this is great. This is worth that." So some of them branched off into flying, while some of them said, "That scares me. I'm going to hang on down here to the trees." So, they hung on the trees, and then some of them became monkeys; some, baboons; and, some of them, chimpanzee. Then another branch branched off and became Charlie Boozer. And there you had suddenly the human race.

   I saw Carl Sagan demonstrate this on television recently in 40 seconds. It was a little 40-second cartoon. I was flabbergasted. I sat there. I was hypnotized. So, that's how it all came about? And here were the marvels from chemicals to human life – the top of the pile. Charles Darwin came up with this conclusion that all complex life forms came from this simple beginning. Man was the epitome of an evolutionary process. It was blind chance working over vast expanses of time – over millions of years. Darwin's theory was only a theory, and he never made a claim for it to be anything more than a theory, because obviously he couldn't go into a laboratory and reproduce this to prove it. That's the only way you can take an idea from a theory category into a scientific principle. He felt that in time his theory would be proven true because transitional life forms would be found in fossil remains. Since the time of Darwin, thousands upon thousands of fossil remains have been found, but there is yet to be found one transitional life form – one form such that you can say, "See here. This bird is gradually changing into a monkey. Here's how it went: step-by-step-by-step – one life form branching off into another."

   So, now the evolutionist is more and more embarrassed because so much time has gone by, and so many fossils have been found, and nothing of the sort has ever shown up. The unbelievers have chafed under the concept of a supernatural origin of life so that they would be subject to that divine authority. So, when Darwin came along with this idea of no God, but only natural processes, they just latched on to it, even though it had some serious scientific problems. In nature, there had been no connecting links found. There never have been, and never will be. The laws of science establish that life forms deteriorate rather than evolve upward. These men knew that. But because of their hatred for the concept of a supernatural God who was making these things to whom they then had to be in subjection – someone who could call the rules and could determine how to play the game, they latched on to this as the only explanation. Some scientists of repute have gone on record saying that the biblical creationist scientists have disproved the evolutionary theory. They have shattered their arguments. I have read one of them that said, "But I must still believe in evolution because that's the only option I have except supernaturalism, and I can't accept the concept of supernaturalism – a God out there who brings these things into being by His spoken word.

   But the laws of science everywhere establish that things go from complex form to breaking down to simple forms. The laws of science demonstrate that radioactive materials only go downward to inert materials. They do not start within their inert material, like lead, and then become radioactive. It never goes that way. It's always breaking down. It's always like a top that you set spinning, and it's losing speed with every rotation, getting slower and slower. It's winding down.

   Furthermore, the fossil evidence shows complex life forms in the same rock strata with simple life forms. And they're trying to figure out how in the world did that happen? Well, I can tell you how that happened. It happened in the flood. Basically, all of the fossils that we have are the results of what was settled in the debris of the flood with those vast ocean currents moving about, so that simple life forms were mixed with complex life forms. That's how they got there. Furthermore, none of the supposed dating processes today are reliable beyond 10,000 years, and we have no evidence that any life forms existed beyond 10,000 years ago at the most, if that long. We have a very young earth in terms of life forms.

   However, evolution is built on the concept of uniformitarianism – that in the past, natural processes have functioned just like they do today. We don't know that. In all likelihood, they have not. Any change in temperature; any change of climate; and, any change of one kind or another changes the effects upon the method of dating. There are variables that we do not know.

   Theistic Evolution

   Unfortunately, there are some Christians who are so obsessed with wanting to be considered scholarly and intellectual, and they want to hold the esteem of the unbelieving scientists, that they have compromised with the concept of theistic evolution. They say that God made the original materials; set it in motion by the very inefficient method of evolution; and, periodically God came in and gave it another kick so that one life form would transfer into another, and gradually evolve a humanoid-like creature. He walked along. He looked human. He had all the parts of a human. He was an animal, and God breathed a living soul into him, and he became the first man. That is theistic evolution. The biblical act that is recorded of creation relative to Adam and Eve has to be taken by the theistic evolutionists as a myth; a poem; and, a poetic myth – not an actual historical fact.

   Do you see the problem they have? That gives us trouble with Jesus Christ right off, because the Lord Jesus Christ referred in His ministry to Adam and Eve as historical people. So, now you've got a problem with the question of who Jesus Christ actually was, which is exactly where these people came to. They concluded, since they know as scientists, that lifeforms did not come by creation, but by evolution, they know that Jesus Christ was mistaken. And if Jesus Christ was mistaken, then they know that He wasn't God. That was the line of reasoning. So, the Lord Jesus was branded as a fine and a good man, but one who had the frailties of all human beings, and was mistaken. He thought that Adam and Eve actually existed.

   These scientists argue about who has the authority to make a decision concerning the matter of the origin of life. I had a worker in this church some years ago who got himself way out in left field because he wanted to be an intellectual. I notice that the people with kind of a low IQ always want to be intellectuals. I don't really understand that. Maybe they know something that we don't. But anyhow, he wasn't really too bright to begin with. I remember him saying with indignation, "If I want to know where life came from, I ask the scientist, because he's the one who knows about that. And if I want to know something about spiritual things and theology, then I ask the Bible." I said, "Well, that's kind of funny. The only people you can ask either one of those questions are those who are the authorities on the scene who know what's going on, and who know the answers to those questions. And when it comes to the origin of life, the scientist, that you're telling me is the authority, is the one guy who wasn't there. But the God who is recording the Scripture is the One who was there. So, it is the theologian who is more qualified to speak on the origins of life than the scientists." And he could not accept that because he did not trust the Scriptures. Yet, that's the point of truth. Who is the eyewitness who can reliably tell us what happened?

   Historic Optimism

   Well, the influence of Charles Darwin was, of course, bad enough in the realm of biology, but it didn't stop there. It was even worse, perhaps, in the realm of philosophical thinking. The concept of evolution was applied to social relationships. The concept that life is getting better; that things go from a bad form to a better form; and, that things are improving, was applied to human life. The concept then evolved such that in every way, in every day, we're getting better and better. This is called historic optimism. If there's ever an area where you come into conflict with the Bible, that is it. Historic optimism says that everything is getting better; that the world is getting better; that people are getting better; and, that things are improving. And yet, when you read the Bible, as you have seen as we looked through the symbols of the seals and the trumpets and the bowls, the world is going to end up in a horrific, catastrophic nightmare. That's where mankind is taking itself. It's not going to get better. Historic optimism, which came out of this concept of evolution, further confused the direction of human thinking. The world is not destined to get better. Man is not destined to create a utopia. Yet, this is the basic idea of secular humanism today.

   Secular humanism resents all concepts and all ideas of the need of divine guidance, or that there is a God that man is accountable to. History has shown that, as human societies become more educated and technologically sophisticated, they also become more degenerate; more cruel; and, more violent. And we are an example of that today.

   The Bible says that mankind began with a full knowledge of God, and then he devolved into being an animal. Human intelligence degenerated. It did not evolve upwards. When Adam and Eve came on the scene, they had computer-like minds. Some of you may have watched the program a few days ago called "That's incredible." It's really an incredible program. They had on it a little girl. I think she was five or six years old, and she has an intelligent capacity that they can't measure. It just flies off the off the rating charts. They had this little girl on just to show some of the kinds of things her mind will do. She has a mind like a computer that just grasps everything, and can put things into relationship. They had one of the masters of ceremonies quote the line to her out of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." I forget what his line was. It was from the balcony scene. She's standing up there, and he's kneeling in front of her. He reads this line. He had to use a book to read it. And then she says, "Oh, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? What is in thy name? If thy name be Romeo, or if it be else. A rose by any other name smells as sweet." She just went on. I thought she was going to stop, and she went off for two more minutes. Then I thought she was going to stop, and she went on for two more minutes. That's a long, long passage. Three minutes later, and five minutes later, I'm still sitting there listening to this girl, ... and it was just word-perfect.

   And then I thought to myself, "Boy, there's the mentality. That's a throwback to the mind that God created in Adam and Eve." Can you imagine a world where people are walking around with computer capacity minds? And yet, that's what we're headed for. That's where you and I are headed for. We're going to get it all back. We're going to get it all restored.

   Darwin comes along with this concept that man is getting better. Here we see that just in human intelligence, we're a pathetic, pathetic crew compared to what man was when God originally created him. The fall into sin caused man and his world to break down, and gradually to come to produce the worst world that ever was. That's the world we live in – the worst world that ever was, not one that's infinitely better than in the past. The end of human history is not an evolution into utopia, but a devolution into the tribulation era. Man's efforts are going to produce a world which will self-destruct without divine intervention. It's going to get so bad that the Bible tells us that the Lord has to shorten the days of the tribulation just to preserve the human race.

   Matthew 24:21-22 say, "For then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time; no, nor ever shall be." We have looked at that recently in detail. Verse 22: "And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved, but for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened." So, the concept of evolution is a false concept that has poisoned the human mentality. Only when the gospel is introduced into a society, this devolution slows down. The Reformation had that kind of an effect. It slowed down the degeneration of human society. It produced, in fact, the marvels of Western civilization as divine viewpoint principles were incorporated into human society. Science functioned on the rational basis of a Creator, and a world which He governed by divinely controlled laws of nature. Cause-and-effect were functioning. The secrets of science could be ferreted out. Historic optimism is a blind alley. It serves Satan's purpose of taking millions of people into hell.

4. Karl Marx

   Let's look at one more mentality: number 4. And remember that all these people are in Hades now, screaming in their torment, but their ideas control our world, and their ideas are shaping our world. It's going to end up consequently, in that world of the tribulation. Karl Marx wrote a book called The Communist Manifesto that was published in 1850. He expounded some social and economic theories which are designed to raise the standard of life. He got such a warm reception to the Communist Manifesto, that in 1863, with the help of the financing of an Englishman named Engels, he published a book called Das Kapital, which struck at the biblical principle of private ownership and of free enterprise. Das Kapital struck at the concept of private ownership for making money. Sometimes that's spoken of as private ownership of the means of production. And it struck at free enterprise – the personal distribution of the wealth that you have secured.

   Capitalism and Communism

   What Marx came up with was a concept that history is a series of waves that come on the scene, and each wave overwhelms a condition in human society that existed up to that time, and just washes out that condition. He taught that, during the Middle Ages, feudalism was the wave that was the wave on which all of mankind was being carried, and that feudalism was washed out by the wave of capitalism. History moved along, and the wave of capitalism washed out feudalism. When Khrushchev was alive, when he was the chairman of the Central Committee of Russia, and he was visiting here during the Eisenhower administration, I heard him give this very lesson – this very principle of Marxist doctrine. He knew it well, and he went into detail describing this very principle to the reporters. He said that the next wave is the wave of the future, and that is communism, which is going to wipe out capitalism as feudalism was wiped out by capitalism.

   So, he said that feudalism was wiped out by capitalism, and capitalism will be wiped out by the wave of communism. What you have here is that the waves of history (history itself) become God. You can ask a communists, "Where did everything come from?" He has the same problem as the evolutionists. Where did the material come from in the first place? He says, "History made it," and (to him) that is a sufficient answer. There's an indescribable force that they just refer to as history. This, of course, is also based on Hegel's concept of thesis vs. antithesis, resulting in a new synthesis, which becomes the new thesis. Marx rejected the soul. He rejected God. He rejected any immaterial qualities in man.

   Dialectical Materialism

   So, the theory of Marx is a combination of two factors. Marx says that there isn't anything in the world but what is material. There is no soul. There is no spirit. There is no God. It's all material. And he combined that with the concept of Hegel of the dialectic. There is no absolute truth. It is all fluid. He combined those two into dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism is the philosophy of Karl Marx and of communism. Dialectical materialism has as its goal a socialist world revolution. The doctrine of Communism says that when socialism rules the world, there'll be no poverty; there'll be no greed; there'll be no war; and, there'll be no crime, because of no exploitation of anyone. It will be a redeemed society. There are more people today studying dialectical materialism (I'll guarantee you) than there are people studying the Bible. That's the problem for our human society. There are more students who are avid students of dialectical materialism and all that it implies, which is all the thinking of these men that we've had before this. All of this has evolved step-by-step, from one idea upon another. They're studying this, and they're seeking to implement it into our society today.

   Marx extended a call to the workers of the world: "Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have nothing to lose but your slavery." That was an exciting concept. He called the workers the proletariat. He called the people who owned the factories and the businesses who gave them employment, the bourgeoisie. The concept is that the proletariats are the mortal enemies of the bourgeoisie, and vice versa. And there can be no peace in the world as long as there is one speck of capitalism left in the world, because capitalism implies bourgeoisieism. It implies that somebody owns private property. He has some means of earning an income. He works for himself. He has the means of hiring somebody else to work for him, and he determines how much he's going to pay, etc. These are all the principles that the Bible lays out. The Bible clearly teaches capitalistic; free enterprise; and, private ownership. All of that is threatened by the concept of Marxism. As long as any capitalism exists in the world, there can be no real peace.

   So, Marx called for the class war: bourgeoisie against the proletariat. And the communists also taught that a person's mental attitude is determined by materialism. Dialectical materialism means that you are today the product of the economic surroundings under which you grew up. So, when they want to know how they should treat you, if the communists were to come in and take over this country, they would want to know, "What did your father do? Your father was a worker in a factory? Your father was a worker? OK. You're OK. Your father was a businessman, in business for himself? You're contaminated. You're poison. We're going to get rid of you. You're bourgeoisie." This is the constant battle between the classes.

   Marx taught that the life blood of the universe was capital. This capital, he said, is produced by the workers whose labor produces products which can be sold at a profit, but the owner gets the profit – not the worker who made them. So, the workers, he said, are being robbed of capital by the capitalists who own the business and the means of producing the products. The capitalist, thus, is viewed as the enemy of human progress and well-being, and he must be destroyed. History cannot move forward to its climax of a wonderful world of a worker's paradise while one capitalist society exists to contaminate that world. And only violent revolution can establish socialism, and ultimately communism, and only brute force can keep the workers in line. That's described as protecting the worker against himself, because the worker in time discovers that communism and socialism only produce one thing: poverty; want; and, a hard, dull, gray life of misery. So, the worker begins to want to return to biblical principles of free enterprise and private ownership.

   Keep your eye on Poland. Do you know what's happening in Poland now? Remember that the Communist Party of Poland is the brain of the proletariat there to protect, and to defend, and to produce the utopia for the workers. The workers are saying, "We're fed up with you. We don't want you representing us. We're going to represent ourselves." And don't you kid yourself for one moment if you think that Soviet Russia is going to allow them to do that. Do you realize what would happen if the Russians allowed the workers of Poland to have an independent union. An independent union means that the Communist Party no longer speaks for a certain segment of the workers. The whole concept that Karl Marx put together would shred overnight. So, get ready with your investments, and get ready for your economic position, and whatever else, because when the Russians cross that border, the fur is going to hit the fan, and it's not going to be the Russian bear's fur either.

   Communism

   The growth of communism has been fantastic. It has grown from a few hundred in 1903 to half of the world's population today. When they were debating back in 1903 who should be permitted to be a communist, and who should not be permitted to be a communist, the initial attitude was, "We have to have everybody we can. We're poor. Everybody hates us. We need money. We need help. We need all the support we can get." A man stood up and said, "Are you crazy? Do you think we can conquer the world with people like that?" And he went on to make a soul-stirring speech that simply reduced itself to the fact that the only people who should be permitted to be members of the Communist Party and act as the heart and the head and the brain of the communist movement, and act in behalf of the proletariat body, are those who are dead men on furlough – men who consider themselves dead. And the fact that they're still breathing just means that they're on furlough from their death, but they're headed for one thing: death. Everything they have and everything they are is committed and dedicated to the communist cause." Everybody left him. He ended up with something like 17 or 18 people. But that man was Vladimir Lenin. And Lenin took those 18 people who were hard-core dead men on furlough, and he has captured, so far, half of the world's population with the poisonous concept of communism.

   That makes us Christians look kind of pathetic. How many Christians consider themselves dead men on furlough? How many Christians are gutting it out day-by-day for one thing – to advance the cause of the Kingdom of God with everything they've got, and everything that God gives them? And Russia is doggedly capturing and conquering one nation after another. The United States, for whatever comfort it may be to you, is the last on the list. They're going to get the United States when everyone else is conquered. Lenin says, "Then the United States will fall into our hand like a ripe plum." We will be surrounded. We will be blackmailed with thermonuclear war. We will surrender because we have surrendered piecemeal. Third World nations are rapidly turning against Christianity and freedom, and pursuing socialism and leftist revolutions. Alexander Solzhenitsyn says that World War III is already lost to the free world. Communism is an avalanche now and it cannot be stopped. Several American administrations refused to listen to this man who grew up under communism. He knew it, and he turned against it. President Ford refused to let him come and visit the White House after he was expelled from Russia because President Ford didn't want to upset the Russians.

   Marxism teaches that the individual is unimportant. The group is the only thing that's of value. The first time I visited the vast open classroom systems here in the city of Irving (brand new schools), I was standing there looking at this system with Stephen while the head of the department was telling us that this is the most efficient way of teaching that they've ever come across. And an idea just struck me. Suddenly, I realized what I was looking at. When she left, I said, "Steve, do you realize what it is we're looking at here. We're looking at the dignity of the group over against the debasement of the individual. We're looking at socialism incorporated into education. We're looking at a system to teach children to grow up and be group oriented rather than to be individual oriented to make your way on the basis of the gifts and the talents that God has given you. The Scripture says that you may have means to help those who are genuinely in need, and you may decide how you will care for your own needs and the needs of the Lord's work.

   Marxist professors are tolerated in American universities in the name of academic freedom, and leftist governments are funded by the United States left and right. Well, it yet remains to be seen whether the wave of capitalism will be washed out by the wave of communism. I'm inclined to think that in this case, Khrushchev is absolutely right, and that this is where the world is going. The Bible tells us that Russia will never rule the world, but the Bible also indicates to us that the system of economics will be a dictatorship worldwide controlled by computers – exactly the kind of a system that communism functions on.

I heard Congressman Wright of Fort Worth give a definition on television recently. He said the difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is that the Republicans believe that everything that they earn and possess, they should keep for themselves; whereas, the Democrats believe that we should share with others. He says that that's the whole difference between a Republican and a Democrat. Man, I looked into the tube, and I couldn't believe that this guy was saying that. He could not put it more exactly. This is the concept of Karl Marx. He sits up there in Congress. He's the number two banana who is representing us. Keep your ears open. You'd be surprised how the voices of these dead men are still sounding forth today.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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