Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 344 - The Roots of Communism and Why It’s Unbiblical

Transcript

Ep. 344 - The Roots of Communism and Why It’s Unbiblical · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: But, ray, as far as communism goes, it goes beyond economics Just slightly.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: First of all and I'd like us to discuss this communism's rejection of God.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: That's huge, you know.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: In its Marxist-Leninist form it's basically built on an atheistic, if you can even call it a worldview there's debate on that but basically it's built on atheism.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Karl Marx is credited with that famous saying that religion is the opium of the people or the masses Opiate.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Opium.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Opiate.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, communism seeks to imitate Christianity in that sense, because you look at the book of Acts, where they had all things in common, but it was given willingly, motivated by love.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: And what communism does is we're going to share everything.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: You're rich, so you're going to die so we can get you goods, and that's what happens.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Atheistic communism has been responsible for more than 100 million deaths down through the years, so it doesn't work because it's tainted by sin as.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Oscar was saying doesn't work because it's tainted by sin, as Oscar was saying it's nice when you're proven right, it's wonderful when others are wrong.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: And you're beautifully and wonderfully proven right.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: See, that was way off key.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: It was bad.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Let me ask y'all a question.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Before you do so, do you ever listen to yourself and then go?
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: That was good, I'm going to move forward with that.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Did you do that with this?
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Joyfully, constantly and incessantly, although I do freestyle sing so I don't have time for your stuff.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: I'd like to hear you one day.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Let me ask y'all a question.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do it, by the way, I am going to make y'all a California word.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Good luck Y'all.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: We don't believe in luck.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Mark, let's say you moved from the US to England and you lived in England for 35 years.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Who would be better in tune with the American accent?
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: You, or someone who never left America, continues to live in America and speaks with the American accent every day?
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Don't answer that.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: That's a rhetorical question.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: So yesterday I was on a podcast with someone you're on the podcast with.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: You're on a podcast with I don't know if you guys have been on with him yet Brad Ogg from New Zealand.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Isn't he a cool guy?
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: But he's especially awesome because of his validation of my New Zealand accent.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Really, validation.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: There's no way he could have done that there's no way he could have done that.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, he said it's on you sound closer to Chinese than you do.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: New Zealand accent how?
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: weird.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: When I was on with him he wasn't intoxicated.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: That's what it was.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm vindicated man, it feels so good.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: It doesn't take much for you to feel vindicated, does it?
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: Oh boy, that was a fun podcast.
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: What a cool guy.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, his podcast is awesome too.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: He uh interviews christians, apologists, but also professional athletes, I think actors and so he's got a gathering in new zealand of listeners that are both christian and non-christian yes, I think he started out doing like sports stuff.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he does an amazing job because he's completely deaf.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: You know what's that?
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he'll be looking for losers.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: You know, you brought up England.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be at the Ambassador's Academy in England with John Harris.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: Let me pull up that date here.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Who's our?
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: UK agent.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: He is our UK agent, and if you are in Lincoln or near Lincoln, england, is this going to air Mark or post at the time before you're there?
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah well, it's May 28th, oh, 28th, 29th and 30th and 31st, so 2025.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Lincoln's, near Nottingham.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: It's north, it's of wherever.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: If you're south, it would be north, and if you're north, it would be south.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Ray, tell us about Barnsley.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Barnsley.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: My wife was born in Barnsley.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Aye, aye she was aye.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Which is northern district aye Barnsley.
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: Side note we do have quite a bit of listeners in Europe.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Quite a bit we do.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: If, if you guys are interested, not only that event, but if you check out the Living Waters Europe page, john Harris, both on YouTube and on the website, does amazing stuff.
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: There's tons of resources available specifically for your cultural context.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: So, whether it's Living Waters Europe's YouTube channel website, I'd love his YouTube channel to take off.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: He does a great job, yeah, so check that out.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: He's doing pretty well.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I think he's got over 30,000 subscribers, which is good.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oscar.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: By the way, your hair looks really nice.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Can't say the same for Grandma's sweater, but the hair, the hair Says the guy who only shops at Severs.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: I'm wise with my money.
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: I'm wise with my money.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: The guy's got a monthly subscription to Warehouse.
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: It's crazy.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Have you ever let your hair grow more than an inch and a half?
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Me.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, my hair doesn't grow out, it grows up, that's good, a Lebanese fro would be epic.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Do it With a side shave.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Can you do that please?
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: No, not a side shave Just up, just tabbouleh gel in it Just a booby gel.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Bring back the flat top dude.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Oh man, kid and play.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: You guys remember kid and play.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: No.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Totally Whatever, yeah, Anyway, I was going to say something, but I can't remember.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Oh so Brad asked me something interesting yesterday, Last question of the podcast.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: He said you, Mark Ray and Oscar, stranded on a deserted island.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Who do we eat first?
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: What would the scenario be like?
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: Who would you eat first.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I'd be tough Ray, of course.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: Well, let me say this I probably want to.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: You're the first one to go right, because you're absolutely useless 100%.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: But, I will say Ray is the closest person to MacGyver I have ever met.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: This is true.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: We need him to survive.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: He has the ability to figure things out that we would not be able to figure out.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: Just give him a paperclip and some belly button lint and he'll be able to survive for years.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: And a chicken, oh man, and a chicken.
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: Two chickens we feed easy to the wolves, tobias time.
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: This island has walls For no reason, for no reason, for no reason For entertainment.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: Just for fun.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh boy, that would be something man.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Let's do it Something to behold.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Let's do it yeah.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: It's bound to be an island by Tahiti.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I said I would be first of all.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: I would immediately try to organize us establish some sort of rule and law and create a clock somehow you were stranded on the Cook Islands for 12 hours and almost died.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Oh that was pretty crazy.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: It'd be Lord of the Flies, I think.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: That's what I said to him.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: That's the first thing I said.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I said why watch Lord of the Flies?
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I said Oscar would be digging holes to try to find some lost books.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Ray would be preaching the gospel to to find some lost books.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Ray ray would be preaching the gospel to crabs and seagulls and mannequins and mark would be looking for a wiener schnitzel to destroy.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: Now, right, right, mark, that's right I have not eaten a wiener schnitzel since they came out with good for you.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: You're holding fast, huh mark.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: I am holding a fast.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: It has not been easy, because I almost think about it daily.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: That would actually be.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: Your struggle is what would we feed you?
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true, yeah, you wouldn't want to eat anything.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: You're the only one that would survive because you can eat anything at any place.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: It absolutely blows my mind.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Seriously, it's an exciting prospect to be stuck on an island.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: I I love Robinson Crusoe.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: There's no internet.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: You know that.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: Oh no, laptops, never mind Forget it.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: That's the end of Ray.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Do you know?
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Robinson Crusoe was a Christian novel Really.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, he sought the Lord and was full of scripture until it came out on TV or the movies.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: But it's amazing.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: Daniel Defoe.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: He was buried at Bunhill Fields in England.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: I'm going to visit it next month.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he died.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: Spoiler alert.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Enough useless talk, friends.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: By the way, we have with us today in the studio a couple of very distinguished guests.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Please welcome Micah and Dominic.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in the house.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Great to have you guys.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: All right?
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, by the way, sorry I didn't do that appropriately.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: A shout out to Jesse.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: I shared with you guys.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I was just at Granger Smith's place.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: What a great brother man.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Was Jesse's girl there?
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Jesse's girl no, but Jesse, the police officer was there.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I sent you guys his video, oh, tremendous.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean just to hear about how he's been impacted by the podcast.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, he got saved through the Mario video, got discipled through the podcast.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: God saved his marriage and then got him into a sound church.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: That's how we connected with Granger and he came over to the studio where I was recording the podcast with him and man it was.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: I mean he was in tears over what the Lord's done.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: So, jesse, god bless you, brother, shout out to you and hope to connect with you again here before long.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Granger's sharp.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, he's super sharp.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll be having Granger on the podcast.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, really, I was very impressed when I did an interview.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's right he had you on too.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was there in person, Ray.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: It's better in person.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: It's good, always good, to be there in person.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: It means so much more.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: All the time.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: All right, France, oh no, no, wait, wait, I have a letter.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Oh time for a cool, classy comment.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: This is what are you guys talking about over there?
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Well, I just about blinded Mark.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I was really close.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: I did the old, but I felt the warmth of his eyes, the three-stitches eye poke.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: I felt the warmth of his eyes.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a letter sent in.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: We love letters that are sent in.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Wait, wait, let me see.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: This is from Abigail, abigail morris.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: She sent us her graduation picture if anyone could see this pictures and, uh, she sent a letter with it in cursive.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I know, oh, yes, no, it's not, it's printed.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Uh, ray, easy, mark and oscar.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Hello friends, sorry I had to do it.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: My name is abigail, I'm 18 years old and graduating this may.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I'm sending graduation cards to everyone who has helped shape me into the person I am today.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I'm sending one to y'all.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: So I'm sending one to y'all.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I remember the first time I watched one of Ray's videos.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: My dad showed it to me my freshman year of high school and I remember thinking two things this is so cool and such a neat and efficient way to share the gospel.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And two, this guy has a really neat accent.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Ray, you can pay me for saying that I take Venmo.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: All jokes aside, watching the Living Waters videos and listening to the podcast has given me so much confidence and encouragement in my faith.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I have now gone on several missions trips, shared the gospel unashamed and with courage, and have learned so, so much through your podcast, including a few good jokes about who God is and who he has called me to be.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: After I graduate high school, I will be a staff member at Summit Ministries in July and August Summit Ministries.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: Hey let's go.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Our brother Jeff Myers.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: He was here with you guys.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I wasn't here that day, but after that I'm not sure what will happen, but you have all modeled what trusting and seeking wisdom from God looks like, and I know he has plans for my life, even if I don't know what they are yet.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Thank y'all so much for your love, faithfulness and passion for the Lord and the lost.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: He has used y'all in so many ways and I'm so grateful for how he has spoken through y'all into my life.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Y'all keep the y'alls going.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I hope to meet y'all someday, but if not here on earth, then I can't wait to worship the Lord alongside you all.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Six foot six hairy chested ray in the new heavens and new earth, ps Easy.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I'll only worship alongside you if a glorified body means a glorified singing voice.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, she's got discernment.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Oh boy, Wise woman.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: All glory to Christ.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Abigail, what a blessing.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: And where's that?
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: We gave it to our friends Anyway thank you for that.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: What did you just do?
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: How old are you?
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I'm putting it in my saved file down there.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Saved file.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: No, it's my little thing down there.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: All right, friends, and now Radically Revolutionary Resources podcast is brought to you by the Tract Starter Kit 350 Tracts.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Do you know what they are, ray, by the way?
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, they're wonderful.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: What are they?
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: They're tracks.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: You have no idea.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Ray came up with it and he has no idea what it contains Million dollar bill, ten Commandments, coin comic, good person track and 101 of the world's funniest one-liners 101 of the world's funniest one-liners yeah, they're really good.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're funny.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: You can.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: We can't have everything.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Who led?
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: the editor to redesign the cover.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: We can't have everything.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Where would you put it?
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Stuff like that?
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: And don't forget the Living Waters mug, from which you can take a chug.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, by the way, Brad and I we did a rap.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: He beatboxed and I rapped about the Living Waters mug yesterday.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: And don't forget the Evidence Study Bible.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: It's liable to bring about revival.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Living Waters TV.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Living Waters.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Would you swallow Oscar?
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: And don't forget, friends, the podcast YouTube channel, guys, this is where you get clips, little clips, snippets from the podcast, where you see us, unfortunately, and hear our voices together.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: But I like these because they're like nuggets.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're cool, little nuggets Four minutes long, yeah, so check it out.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Living Waters Podcast channel, subscribe and share.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: The topic for today is Cozying Up to Communists and we're going to be examining Ray, mark and Oscar's longstanding membership in the Communist Party.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Who told them We'll start with Communist Comrade Ray?
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Cece, cece.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Come with Unist.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, guys, boy, I'm, I'm really excited actually to be tackling this weird, bizarre subject.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: It really is bizarre.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Did you come up with it, oscar?
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Someone came up with it, I don't remember.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I don't remember.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we're going to examine the roots of communism and why it's unbiblical.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: You didn't know that.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Ray Huh Comrade, ray Stunned oh, I love that title for Ray.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: So yeah, so guys, communism Define that first easy.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so Com with.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: Unism.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean communism.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I'd like to kind of get into a little history of it and 1848.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Ray, how did you know that?
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: I knew it was born.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Beginning with Mr Karl Marx, I knew I was born.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: And you sent me a meme Karl Marx's.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, that was a good one.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Wait, what was it?
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, got it.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I remember it.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: No one ever talks about his sister.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she invented.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: No, no, you got to say her name first, okay, okay.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone always talks about Karl Marx.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: No one ever talks about his sister Anya.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: She invented the starting pistol.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Anya Marx.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: That really made us laugh.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: That's pretty good, oh man, I love myself All right, so yeah.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: So basically, 1848, you get Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: They published what was called the Communist Manifesto and this basically introduces the idea of class struggle.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: That's really kind of at the heart of communism, the abolition of private property and basically a society where the state owns everything.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I mean just as a non-starter right.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Like you would think, the common human being would pause a minute and say, wait a minute, like there's something nefarious and suspicious about this.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Then, in 1867, marx publishes Das Kapital.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: So you're talking about the Communist Manifesto they published?
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, Very famous.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but he publishes Das Kapital and then he deepens his critique of capitalism and starts to lay the foundation for really the Marxist economic theory.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: And then from there, of course, you get the Russian Revolution in 1917, you get the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: He overthrows the Russian monarchy, does away with it and then establishes really the world's first communist state, russia, socialist state.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, soviet socialist republic.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was more socialist than communist.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And then 24 to 53, you get Stalin's regime, you know gets radically brutal, and then that transforms Russia into a totalitarian state.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Millions of deaths through you know what were called purges, they forced famines, labor camps, yeah.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And then from there, 1949, you get the communist takeover in China with Mao, and then 50s to the 80s, the Cold War era.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Communism spreads to Eastern Europe, north Korea, cuba, vietnam, the US, and then the Western nations start to oppose it globally, along with the US, and obviously the fear was the loss of democracy.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: And it looked like it was going that direction too.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: When I was a kid, I used to look at a world map and everything red was communist and it was spreading right across the whole world, yeah right.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, 1989.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, mr Gorbachev Ray, finish it, tear down this world.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Wait he was in it you didn't know that, oscar.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of a you know sort of a sweeping overview.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Can you say it again for those who fell asleep?
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, communism.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: What Reagan did was incredible.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: It really was.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was just a huge game chamber, game chamber, game chamber.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a game chamber.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: It's where you've got a game and you put it in a chamber, go on.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I'm done.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: But yeah.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: I remember seeing that it was just wonderful.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Every time I look at it it gives me goosebumps.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, that was definitely an iconic moment.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Speaking of game chambers, I think it's important to distinguish the difference between communism and socialism, cause I think a lot of times when you hear people talk, especially online, they tend to blend those two things together and not understand the distinction between the two.
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: And I also think it's valuable because here's the thing.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: I think, talking as Christians, it's easy for us to wag our finger at socialism and say it's wrong.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: But in everyday life, as you're bumping up against, if you have friends who are democratic socialists, it's important for us to understand what they're aiming for, the longing of their heart.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: Because here's my big thing, my big takeaway for this podcast is, if you're going to argue against socialism, slash communism with capitalism.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: You're going to fail, and you're gonna allow them to fail too, because capitalism is not the answer.
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: The gospel is the answer.
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: And so, in that sense, like approaching the conversation of communism and socialism from a gospel perspective rather than arguing as a capitalist, it's gonna help you in the long run.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: And on that note, as you look at Karl Marx, especially in side note, you guys probably recall, and maybe it's never connected the dots for you, but do you remember my story about how I became an atheist.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: It was reading white papers by Karl Marx, and so my first introduction to atheism was from a social, economic perspective, not a philosophical one.
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: And then it gravitated into philosophy and a lack of religion or a hatred for faith.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: And on that note, like I can think back of Karl Marx's, his angst you have to remember that he was born shortly after the French Revolution and during the Industrial Revolution and the Industrial Revolution was creating a lot of problems, especially in Europe.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: Capitalism was creating poverty.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: We have to recognize this as a fact, because it wasn't just Karl Marx that was concerned about the direction of capitalism.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: A lot of philosophers were concerned about it too.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: And the best way to describe it is like imagine you're a carpenter living 150 miles outside of London, england, and your father and his father's father made a living making chairs and tables, some of them for your local people who lived in your village, but others, you know, somebody would come on by and buy them from you and take them to London where he can sell them right.
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: And one day people stopped buying stuff from you because they're buying tables and chairs that are being made in factories.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: Not yet not yet, but yeah, that's the long game.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: And so now they're buying from these factories.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: They're cheaper, they're falling apart more, but you don't have work, and the only way for you to provide for your family now is to sell your little cottage where you farm some of the food that you eat, move to London and a busy industrial place, and now you're living impoverished, not able to feed your family, working in a factory, making very little, while, to quote Karl Marx, the bourgeois make a lot of money, and so Marx saw this rise of the industrial worker and the rise of poverty and crime, and he wanted to figure out a way to do that.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: And so his goal was to create a classless, stateless, moneyless society based on collective ownership.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: And here's where, just real quickly, and I'll shut up the difference- between socialism and communism.
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: The best way to describe it is that socialism was always seen as a bridge towards communism, but we've never had a true communist society.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: In world history, there's been societies that claim to be communist, but they were always socialist in nature, and so, as an example, a socialist society has state or cooperative ownership of industries.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: A communist society is a collective ownership.
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: There's an abolition of private property.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: We've never had that in world history.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: Socialism believes in a mixed economy, both public and private sectors.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: Communism is moneyless and classless.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: Socialism sees government as an ongoing role of providing welfare and to regulate markets, where communism sees government as a temporary tool to submit capitalism to the way of the people and then eventually eradicate it.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: And so, again, we've never actually seen a full communist party, and the reason why is because of the fall of man Anytime you have an organization that has too much power.
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: They are manipulative and corruptive.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: You mentioned Russia and Maoism.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: They promised socialism.
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, they promised communism, but they ended up with a socialist society where power was with the government rather than the bourgeois, and they corrupted and murdered millions of people because of it.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: I was brought up in a socialist state.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Seriously, new Zealand was very socialist.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Bread was very, very cheap because it was subsidized.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Milk was very cheap.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: We never we didn't.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Bread was very, very cheap because it was subsidized.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Milk was very cheap.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: We got free milk in schools.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: It cost us $2 to have each of our children because everything medicine was subsidized.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: You bought state housing if you wanted it.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: If you were poor, you got a state house which the government led you to have really cheap, and I never saw a homeless person until I came to the US, because there was no very rich people in.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: New.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Zealand and no very poor, and I was very, very happy.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: So it can work.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: But we weren't communists, not even slightly.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah Well there's a difference between communists and democratic socialists?
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah right.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so, ray, tell us about when you voted for Bernie Sanders.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: That's what we would like to hear about your uncle.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: He's got the burn.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: You guys remember that picture of Bernie Sanders with the mittens.
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: Wasn't it at the first inauguration?
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he was in there with his mittens.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: Oh man, it kind of looked like your sweater.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: I borrowed this one, yeah.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So this is really really good and interesting stuff.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Thanks, oscar, for just those details and really kind of delineating between those, and I think it is important for us to remember that everything needs to be thought through carefully.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I think it's easy for us, because we live in a capitalistic society, to almost adopt it without thinking through it carefully.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I'm a capitalist, I love capitalism, I think it's right and good and we've seen the outcome of it, but at the same time, we can't act like there are no defects in it and there's no abuses that could be a part of it, and so I think that's what ends up happening.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Happening is people end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: There's some corruption or whatever, but they don't also, on the other side, examine it deep enough to recognize, you know, the benefits.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: So so this is good and and I think I think it's important for us to think carefully like that.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: But, ray, as far as communism goes, it goes beyond economics Just slightly.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: First of all, I'd like us to discuss this communism's rejection of God.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: That's huge, you know.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: In its Marxist-Leninist form, it's basically built on an atheistic, if you can even call it a worldview.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: There's debate on that, but basically it's built on atheism and Karl Marx is credited with that famous saying that religion is the opium of the people, or the masses.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Opiate, opiate, opium, opiate.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, communism seeks to imitate Christianity in that sense, because you look at the book of Acts, where they had all things in common, but it was given willingly, motivated by love.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: And what communism does is we're going to share everything.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: You're rich, so you're going to die so we can get you goods, and that's what happens.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Atheistic communism has been responsible for more than 100 million deaths down through the years, so it doesn't work because it's tainted by sin as Oscar was saying, yeah, and Mark this desire to be liberated from God.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: That's okay, let's start right there, because I would make the contention and the argument that communism didn't begin with Karl Marx.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: It began in the garden, right when we see Adam and Eve attempting to go away from God, and it says the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: Right, so man tried to seize that which belonged to God.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: I know better than God.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: I want what belongs to God, right?
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: And to Ray's point, as Ray's talking about really a capitalistic society as well, and you think about it in Acts 5-4, while it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: So Scripture would affirm to private property that God does not desire a forced redistribution of goods.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: We're saying it's the government's responsibility to take care of the homeless.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: It's the government's responsibility to take care of my health.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: It's the government's no, no, no.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: This is where really nonprofit organizations come in by and large, which were a big piece of the pie, coming from religious organizations, from hospitals being founded to anything else.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: Or you think of American Red Cross, you think of the Salvation Army having these Christian foundations saying we are overflowing with good works, and that's what the Christian does when somebody has this paradigm shift and moves from darkness into light.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: They want to be rich in good works.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: They can't just pass somebody by right.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Yesterday, you and I, we were in Starbucks and the guy in front of us looked over at me and said do you have a dollar?
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: Because he didn't have enough for his coffee.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: And the teller said you are not allowed to ask for money inside this establishment, to which he finished doing what he was doing.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: He went off to the side and you went right over to him and gave him a track and you told him to get out of there.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: No, you gave him a track and stole his money.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: You gave him a track and stole his money and you gave him an in-and-out gift card.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: That's the Christian worldview where we desire to distribute, not a forced redistribution of God's things.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: Right, genesis 128, fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: God gave man stewardship, not socialism.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: God gave man the ability to see a need and then fill that need, not have the government be in charge.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: You know what always intrigues me?
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: A lot of times you have these extremely, extremely wealthy celebrities who got what was the internet's?
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: last indicator Ray of your work 20 million, 20 million and we've gotten letters that talk about Ray's billions of dollars.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: They need to go see your chicken coop, Ray.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: He's wearing borrowed clothes.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: If you had that kind of money.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: It would be the most luxurious chicken coop in the world.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: I actually.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: We were at Al's house last week and I was taking video of his chicken coop and the little chicks inside the house and the birds and my family was just getting a kick out of it.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: You should put it on behind the scenes.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Oh really, so you've managed to actually get chickens into the house now right?
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, of course, with the chicks and your little horse.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: you said oh boy.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: So what were?
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: You saying Mark should put it on the behind the scenes for living waters tv because my family checks, checks right.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: So anyway, my point was you see a lot of these 28 chickens, now 28, 28 right, can we eat some?
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: No, please not eating my ladies I would love to go and cook one no, no they, they, you can eat their eggs.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's, that's the fruit of the chicken.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, anyways, as I was saying, I'm just mystified by these extremely rich celebrities who got rich through capitalism and now they're complaining about the capitalistic society we live in and they want to implement socialism or whatever.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, so you have that element.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: I think another thing that'd be good to discuss is communism's misunderstanding of human nature, because there's this, yeah, and I'd love you to speak to that, I was gonna, you know there's this perspective that people will just work selflessly for the common good, you know, once you remove distinctions, but you have that sinful nature that doesn't function that way.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm going to quote Kevin Koizis here.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: He wrote a book called Political Visions and Illusions.
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: I think I've mentioned it before.
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: I really think if you're going to read one political science book as a Christian, this is the one to read, because he is a Christian political scientist and he does such a great job of dissecting all of the views that are out there, and one of the things his big emphasis in the book is that every ideology which socialism slash communism is an ideology, along with conservatism, along with libertarianism.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: All of these are ideologies, and one of the things that he focuses on is that the root word of ideology is idol and ideologies become these idols in our lives and what they do, every single one of those ideologies that I just mentioned.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: They tell a story about the world.
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: Communism tells a story of creation, fall, redemption, restoration.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: According to communism, creation humans are naturally equal and cooperative.
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: They are naturally good and can work together.
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: The fall is caused by private property, class inequality, exploitation, ultimately power.
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: Karl Marx talked about hidden laws, that basically, power was naturally oppressive rather than given by God for good.
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: The redemption story of communism is achieved through a revolution or a democratic reform and a restoration.
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: A world of utopia is again that classless, economically equal, just society.
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: Economically equal just society.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: Of course you just mentioned it's a misdiagnosis.
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: He doesn't recognize human depravity.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: Our root issue is greed and corruption and oppression, and he has a false hope.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: His false hope is in this revolution and state-controlled outcomes and social engineering.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: And so, yeah, it's ultimately a misdiagnosis of the human condition which leads to a false sense of hope and worry.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: You're going to find a solution.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: I can't see that famous saying the only thing man learns from history is that man doesn't learn anything from history.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Just look at the track record of communism to see how it just failed.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Because of man's depravity it just cannot produce success.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: The essence of communism is that it rejects God's authority and I love that.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: The way the Ten Commandments begin I am the Lord, your God.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: That phrase, I am the Lord, your God, is used over 400 times in scripture and it's really good to understand what it means.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: It means I am the Lord, the sovereign authority, the one you're going to answer to your God.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: I'm your creator.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: So Richard Dawkins has a God.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: God is his God, his creator.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Every atheist has a creator, but he's not their Lord, and you see it consistently through Scripture you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: And we see the gospel appearing in the words of Thomas when he knelt before Jesus and said my Lord and my God.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: And that's the essence of what a Christian is.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: They take on the Lordship of Christ and one day, the whole of what a Christian is.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: They take on the Lordship of Christ and one day the whole of humanity will bow to the Lordship of Jesus.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: Every knee will bow.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's so good.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Ray, yeah, and it's important for us to remember too that I think whenever man is empowered and he's void of the life of God within him, yeah, he's gonna abuse that power.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's what we're talking about.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: And, Mark, isn't it interesting how those who reach the higher echelons of communist leadership don't live out their own philosophy?
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: They're not living like the other people.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: There's no equality there.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing as we're going through this.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: Right, it's good for the masses, but not for me.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: I know how you should live your life, but yet you're not living the way you're preaching, right?
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: Communism forgets who the real creator is.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: Let's pause for that.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: Think about that for just a moment.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Communism forgets who the real creators and the purpose of life.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: In Psalm 57, verse 2, it says "to God who performs all things for me", and it's a messianic text referring and pointing to Jesus Christ.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: So every sunset, every sunrise, every flower that blossoms, what's happening and hiding in the center of Pluto, is for Jesus, it is a gift to Jesus, it is for Him.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: And we are now along for the ride.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: All things were created through Him and for Him.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: We just happen to be along for the ride to enjoy things right.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: God richly, and he joyfully, will give us things right.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: You ask for a fish.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: He doesn't give you a rock.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: He enjoys seeing you enjoy.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Communism is the exact opposite of that, that there's nothing to enjoy.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: You think of what you're saying?
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: Those people in charge.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: They are enjoying the fruits of their labor and they're removing the labor of anybody and everybody else.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: So communism comes along and says share, or else you are forced to share, you are forced to be part of the system.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: God says enjoy and steward.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: I like that, that we can come along and we can enjoy giving.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: We can enjoy what God has given us and we don't need to worry about that, we don't need to freak out about that.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, go ahead.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: Votibachum.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: He said the gospel makes generous people, not coerced people.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: So the biggest givers, the biggest proponents of, I believe, a capitalistic society which is, I think, the best fit for a society, the best fit for wanting to set up nonprofit organizations or to give and to not even receive a receipt right, not knowing what your left hand is doing from your right is that Christian society?
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: So the gospel makes generous people.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: And when you remove the gospel, which is typically what a communistic society is going to do, you're going to remove Christ from the picture, you're going to remove the only hope for a society.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: And the only hope for a society to Oscar's point is the gospel.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: So the answer is not necessarily a socialistic society, it's not a capitalistic, it's not a communistic society.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: The only hope is the gospel.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: And this is so important because we get sidetracked, thinking that our battle is in Washington DC, our battle is in local authorities who are going to set up laws.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: And I'm not saying don't vote.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Obviously, for those that are listening, I'm not swinging to the other side of the pendulum and you don't either.
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: I'm simply saying that everything we do and everything we interpret and everything we watch has to go through a gospel-centric lens.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: Why am I doing what I am doing?
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: But only the Christian can walk in good works.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: This is important.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Ephesians 2.10 says that we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, that we should walk in them, meaning a non-Christian can do something that looks to be good but it's plastic fruit.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Only the Christian can actually walk in that work, because God prepared those works for them, and when a non-Christian put it underneath the umbrella of socialistic, communistic, whatever it is, it actually adds to their damnation, because that good work is as a filthy rag in the eyes of God, because nobody is capable of doing good except for Christ, who lives his life through the Christian.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: This conversation is a gospel-centric issue and the only answer is Jesus Christ and him crucified.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: So you may be the best capitalist, understand everything about it, and you may be the best socialist and you understand some nuanced area about it.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: And what people are missing out.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: You're both missing out.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: You're both missing the mark because we are not trying to establish a nation set on good moral principles.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Though I vote for somebody who more aligns to my scriptural preferences, I'm trying to establish Christ in each conversation, in each outgoing, in each conversation.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: As I watch a movie, oscar right.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: Find the lie when you're watching a movie, because everything has to point back to Christ or you're missing the mark, no matter how good it may seem in and of itself.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: And then, final quote John Wesley's mom, susanna Wesley.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: She said I don't care how good it is in and of itself, I don't care how holy it may seem in and of itself, if it does not point you and push you to Christ.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: You have missed the mark and the point of what is happening.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Wow, amen, yeah.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: And I want to highlight something, mark, too, within that realm that you just touched on, because you talked about the plastic fruit of the world and doing good deeds versus the Christian.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: We have to remember within the Christian scope as well, right, 1 Corinthians 13,.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Man, you can sell your goods to feed the poor, you can give your body to be burned, you can be spiritual by speaking with the tongues of men and of angels.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: You can have knowledge to understand all mysteries and yet not have love, and it profits you nothing because you don't have love.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: So, even for the Christian doing good works, we have to remember that they can be in vain if the motivation is not love, which I believe has connected to it all the attributes of love in 1 Corinthians 13, patience, kindness, selflessness, so forth, but also infused with a genuine care for the supposed object of your love.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: And so we have to remember that too.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Like, why are we doing these things as believers?
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Because we can be doing them for our glory.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: We want people to see us as this hero, or as generous, or as godly, versus like man.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: I care for your soul, I care for your well-being, and as I do that, I infuse all the attributes of agape love.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: That's huge.
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: Again, I want to take a step back and speak from a place of compassion towards my socialist friends and I do have them.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: As a matter of fact, I have a picture here of my buddy's laptop.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: It's Karl Marx and it says I blame capitalism.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: This is a good friend of mine.
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: It's a good friend of mine.
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: I hang out with him regularly.
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: If you're listening, you know who you are and you know that I love you.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Who pays for the meals?
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: To each according to his ability and to his means, to each according to his need.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, listen, I love what you said, mark, and you're absolutely right the answer to socialism, communism, is not capitalism.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: You see the cracks, you see the imperfections, and I think where socialism slash capitalism starts, is a longing for something good, a longing for justice, a longing for equality, a longing for a world where there's none in poverty, where there's none being oppressed.
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: But ultimately, your ultimate hope is in politics and not in the Prince of Peace, and my plea to anybody who's buying into any of these ideologies is that you cannot have heaven on earth without the cross.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: We've tried it before.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: We've tried it in Babel.
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: We tried bringing down utopia.
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: It started in the Old Testament.
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: We've tried it in Russia, we've tried it in the United States, we've tried it all over the Middle East.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: You cannot have heaven without a cross, and the more we try to do that, the more we fail.
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: So while communism aims for justice, it aims for justice without a redeemer, and the gospel calls for justice through a redeemer.
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: No political vision can save us.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: Only Christ can save us.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: And we can get into the details about again.
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: As I said earlier, the scriptures give us a rubric to critique all man-made structures, including capitalism, socialism, communism, libertarianism, and I've heard friends of mine try to argue from the scriptures for socialism.
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: I've also heard friends of mine argue from the scriptures for capitalism.
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: And this is where I would just tell both parties slow your roll.
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: God's economy is so vastly different than the economy of man.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: I mean, look at the Old Testament.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: You've got the Sabbath year, in which debts are canceled and the land rests every seven years.
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: You've got the year of Jubilee, in which land is returned to families and slaves are freed.
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: You've got gleanings in which you don't maximize profit by growing crops, but you take what you need and you leave the rest to the poor.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: You've got people lending money without interest, and then you've got tithing laws which support priest festivals and the poor, and the new Testament that's all Old Testament stuff.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: How someone?
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: I heard somebody summarize like this God's economy is like this it's provision over profit, that's capitalism, but it's also provision over power, that's communism.
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: In other words, in God's economy we have justice and mercy and beauty and goodness.
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: But what you long for will not happen through policies and politicians.
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: It will only happen when Jesus comes back and brings heaven with him.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, amen, oscar, that's so good.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: That's so good Again.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: You know, we got to be careful to not be kind of Stupid.
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: Well, Good point, Ray.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Stupid's a good point.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: But no, I think we have to be careful not to be secondhand apologists, meaning that we just defend something because this is the right way.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Why is it the right way?
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: It just is right.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: There's no thought, there's no deep exploration into some of those things.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: I can give you an example for those who stand for socialism I quoted it earlier right From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, that sounds good.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Right From each according to his ability.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: You have the ability to each according to his need, but again, what's missing there is the understanding of human nature in that like, okay, everyone who has an ability, like they're going to be honest and declare that and give according to their ability when they're being forced.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: And then everyone according to their need.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: When you have a system that's set up to, you know, in some ways, you know, benefit those who are in need.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Well, you're going to have people that are going to gravitate toward laziness and develop and create that need so that they can receive from those who have.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: And so you know those things need to be thought through and understood and dissected.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: That is right.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: There is worth the price of admission.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: Right that if we remove that heart issue, then you're going to fall flat.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: It's simply not going to work.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: It's like the boy that was always asking his dad for $10, and his dad said hey look, go get a job, Go provide for yourself.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: He's all.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: No, dad, you have plenty of money, give it to me.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: He goes, I'll tell you what, go mow my lawn and I'll give you $1,000.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: He goes $1,000 to mow the lawn.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, he mows the lawn, he gets $1,000.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: Now, wait a minute.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: What I want you to do with that money now is I want you I'm forcing you without saying it you give that money to other people who are not ready and willing to work.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: And he goes wait, wait a minute.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: I worked hard for this and it was as if the light bulb had turned on.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: Right that, wait a minute, I work hard, I should be able to do what I want to do with this money.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: If anyone is not willing to work, they should not eat.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: This is not something that is man-made, this is scriptural.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: 2 Thessalonians 3.10, right.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: So this is not, as one person put it, not capitalistic cruelty.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: It is biblical common sense.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: You work, you get paid.
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: Should you get paid X amount of dollars or less amount of dollars?
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think we should eliminate minimum wage altogether.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: I think Prager University puts a really good picture with that.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: But Romans 1.28 says and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, god gave them up right.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: So a godless system will always collapse upon itself.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: We, always, we must continually go back to exactly what you guys are talking about here, that a socialistic society.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: It seems good, you know, in theory, but it'll never work out on paper as defined by what we're seeing, because it removes God entirely.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: We cannot do that.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: We have to remember that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, above all things, yeah.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: And you know, what's interesting too is I think I may be wrong on this, but from what I was exploring, it seems almost, with the exception of, maybe, north Korea, almost every remaining communist country has incorporated capitalism to some degree.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: So the system itself, like you were talking about earlier, oscar, doesn't really fully work in terms of its foundational philosophies.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: But, ray, there is this misnomer too that capitalism breeds greed, which it can, of course, but you've lived in New Zealand, we've had people in other European countries.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: America is the most generous country on the face of the earth.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's one thing we noticed as soon as we got over here that Americans are incredibly generous, very friendly.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Just while you guys were talking, I was thinking what I would say if I had the privilege to go to some of these angry universities that just spend nothing but day in, day out protesting their anger against, basically, america and capitalism.
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: What would I say if I went there?
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: And I thought it would be interesting, because all I want to do is preach the gospel, and that because of their background, atheistic and evolution, etc.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: However, when we talk about the gospel, what we're saying is Jesus came to save us from the wrath, to come, and as fruit of the gospel there is love, and it's so simplistic sounding, but love is the answer to every dilemma of humanity.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: If humanity could do that, there'd be no rape, no murder, no adultery, no fornication, no theft, no lawyers, no judges, no prisons.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: Everything that we live for would just be cast aside, because we'd have utopia.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: But humanity cannot do that because it doesn't have the love that we need.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a rock group called the Beatles from years ago that sang all we need is love.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: And that was just before their bitter breakup.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: And then the hippies that just said love, love is all you need, same thing.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: And then you get the Charles Manson come in and you just see the whole thing tainted and that resulted in the Jesus revolution where people come to know the Lord.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: But love is the answer.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: And that's the fruit of the gospel and that's why we need to preach the gospel to get people saved by God's grace from the wrath to come and to bring a society that's tolerable until the coming of Christ.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, ray, you think about the words of Christ.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: There are those times I've talked about it before where I just have to step back and step outside of just the grind of the routine and what we're accustomed to and to just hone in on the words of Christ.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: On this hangs all the law and the prophets.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: We hear that in our modern context, but you have to understand godly Jews hearing that in that day on this hangs all the law and the prophets.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: You're summing it all up in this.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: That's the fulfillment of it all Absolutely.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: And you see the divine wisdom in that.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Because if you're walking according to the law of love, which means that you care genuinely, like I said, for your neighbor's welfare and well-being, you're not going to be looking for ways to rip them off or to do them wrong or to undercut them.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: No, you care for his well-being.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: So that takes care of all the commandments that deal with your interactions with men.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: If you truly love God which means what you care for him and for what His glory You're not going to be looking for loopholes to violate his commands and get your own way and pursue your own ambitions and desires.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: You're going to just love God, so you don't need to be micromanaged by the law of Moses.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: I can imagine those in the day of Christ that got it and it was like, of course, it all comes down to true, genuine love, which we saw demonstrated through Christ, and the cool thing is we all love, love.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, love, love love.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: What's love got to do?
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: What's love got to do with it?
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: What's love?
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: but a second-hand emotion.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: Wow, that was so good.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: I'm reminded of, maybe you guys are familiar with.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: Richard.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: Wurmbrand.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, not Richard Wurmbrand.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: I mentioned, yeah, the Torture for Christ.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: Torture for Christ.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: I heard him speak once.
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: I had the opportunity to go to Oklahoma and I met up with Lynn Copeland and she lives not too far from Voice of the Martyrs, located there in Oklahoma.
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: He spent 14 years, most of it in solitary confinement, in a Romanian prison, a communistic society.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: He was ransomed for $10,000 out of Romania in 1965.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: He testified before the US Senate talking about communism and he removed his shirt because nobody believed what he was saying, about what he went through.
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: And he removed his shirt and he showed the scars that he got when he was there inside a prison because he refused to bow down to the dictates of them and not preach Christ anymore.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: He said communism is not love, communism is a hammer which they use to crush the enemy.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: And then he said they gave me drugs that would distort my mind and they beat my feet to a pulp, but I had already given up my mind and my body to Christ so that they could not take what was no longer mine.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: Let's go.
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: That is the overarching, the big picture, 10,000 foot elevated view down as what's happening here on earth.
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: As I visited there, the voice of the martyrs, I was dumbfounded at all of the different ways that they're trying to utilize to go into the 1040 window and to reach people that were unreachable.
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: And they utilized the work of Richard Wurmbrand inside that book Torture for Christ absolutely amazing, millions have been encouraged by it.
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: And they had these different ideas to be able to reach.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: And he said, look, he was a catalyst to demonstrate, to go into the highways, the byways and the gutterways and to compel people to reach.
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: And he said, look, he was a catalyst to demonstrate, to go into the highways, the byways and the gutterways and to compel people to come.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: And they showed me a balloon that they would give away to people, and I have one at home and it has the gospel in Korean.
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: And what they do is they bring these balloons down into South Korea and the one time of the year when there's a big wind shift up into North Korea, they release these helium balloons in South Korea to go over into North Korea and to come down to populate the gospel in the population of the people who do not have access to the gospel.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: Would this have happened should somebody was not tortured?
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: Would this have happened should capitalism not have existed in the way that Richard Wurmbren saw that in the 1960s?
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: I don't know God's going to accomplish his will.
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: But I'm just saying that God utilizes and uses what's happening around us not to raise our fist, but to raise our hands and to say Lord, whatever you want to do, make sure that I make this.
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: Whatever.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: This is a gospel-centric issue for your glory, for your fame, for my good.
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: Whatever you got to do to glorify yourself, amen.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: Good Mark Richard Wurmbren.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Torture for Christ that stirred my soul, man, thank you for sharing that.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: You know I was recently in a communist country.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: You guys know I went to Cuba and I saw firsthand the ravages of communism in terms of its systematic, I think, deterioration of a society.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: And you know the believers there.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like I went and I just kind of observed, but the believers there told us I think the average income is like $7 a month right now there.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: But you know what?
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: What are you guys laughing at?
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: He's already coming up with balloons to put the gospel on it.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: Oh, you're kidding me.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah right, Balloons, no, no.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: But oh yeah, right balloon, no, no, but there's 82 inch balloons, oh yeah, I love communism balloons.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Oh man, all right, so anyway I.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: So I got to see firsthand, um, the, the, just the destruction, I think, of communism, and again not just because of its economic policy, but all these other things we're talking about.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: We didn't even get into the destruction of the family structure, because the state takes over that.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: We didn't get into the creation of envy and class warfare and the danger of centralized power and things like that.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: But, man, you know, what was the most beautiful thing Was watching these believers thrive in the midst of that because they treasured Christ.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: You guys remember I talked about how I got up and I said the church in Cuba is alive, the church in Cuba is powerful, the church in Cuba loves Jesus.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: And then they exploded Amen, and they're not letting it stop them.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are repercussions, but they keep pushing and pushing to where the government is even stepping back and going.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Wow, these people are actually having good impact in our society.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: So I know that there are brethren right now living in communist countries who are listening to our voice, and we just want to encourage you to know that you are loved by your brethren here in the United States of America, that we care for you, that we're standing with you, that we're praying for you and, keeping with what Mark said, they cannot take Christ from you, and so treasure him, cling to him and love them with the gospel, make the gospel known, because the true hope for every nation is the gospel.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: And my thought is after reading Tortured for Christ, is that we need to take advantage of the freedom that we have in this country right now.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: Familiarity breeds contempt, and it certainly does.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: We can take for granted to a point where we do nothing in 24 hours for the furtherance of the gospel, and that shouldn't be.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, amen.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: I love these words by John MacArthur.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: The gospel is not a call to social reform or economic equality.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: It's a call to repentance, faith and holiness.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: Amen, brothers, amen, amen, all right, where would we be without the craziness?
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: Don't forget the tract starter Kit 350 tracts.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: This will get you started.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: Don't go and get our packed sample Tract Sample Pack and give those out.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: Those are for you to recognize what we have and then get the starter kit next so you can go out and give the gospel out.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Don't forget the Living Waters mug Devin's Study Bible.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Living Waters TV, alllivingwaterscom.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: And please, friends, join us on the podcast YouTube channel, the Living Waters podcast YouTube channel, and remember podcast at livingwaterscomcomcomcom where you can share your thoughts and your criticisms of Ray Mark and Oscar.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: And remember, share this with others wherever you listen and all that good stuff.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us, friends.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters podcast, where communist Ray Mark and Oscar have no idea what they're doing.