Welcome to the Equipping You in Grace podcast, hosted by Dave Jenkins. The Equipping You in Grace podcast is a podcast about helping Christians develop a biblical worldview in a conversational tone about issues inside and outside the church. Now, for today's episode, let's join our host, Dave Jenkins. All right, everybody, well, welcome back to the Equipping You in Grace podcast. My name is Dave, and I'm the host for this podcast. And today I have my new friend, Mark. Mark, welcome to the Equipping You in Grace podcast, brother. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Glad to be here. Yeah, yeah. It's great to have you. I'm looking forward to our conversation today. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself, your life, marriage, ministry, and any ministry projects that you're working on? Yeah, so I've been married a little over 21 years to Emily, and we have also an equipping ministry called Hope for Life Biblical Counseling and Equipping, and we've been doing that for about 21 years as well. a little over that. And Emily is a huge part of what we do. I get to do the easy work where I just talk to people and scribble some things down. She has to do the hard work of like editing and making it look good and understandable and all that kind of stuff. So she's truly the better half in this in more than one way. And so we live in California, we have four kids, and again, been doing this particular ministry for 21 years, been ministry for about 30 years. And a couple projects, we write some material, we have a website, and I write articles, have a few books, but we have another book or two in the works, one called sin, love, and counterfeit love, which addresses how we stop calling sin, sin, and calling it something else, and how the problem, and we'll probably touch on it today, but the problem of counterfeit love, which has invaded the church, where it's kind of this fake love that's actually harming people. And then it may be another book on, a full book on dealing with depression and anxiety, how to overcome that as well. Wonderful, brother. Wonderful. Well, that's really good. Sounds like your wife and my wife are pretty much the same because she edits, you know, my books and our magazines. So, you know, she's definitely gifted in that in that way. And I say that as somebody who actually does edit, but she's a better editor than me. And I don't have a problem saying that because she's helped my writing so much. And so she's she's a blessing. Can you tell us about your book, Jesus Was a Socialist, A Life or Death? Truth Everyone Needs to Know About Jesus and Socialism. Why did you write this book and how do you hope it'll be received or is being received? And to be clear, it's Jesus was a socialist with a big question mark. And sometimes, you know, we get a little comment. How dare you say Jesus was a socialist? Wow, that's a good response. I like that response because somebody is paying attention and they're bothered by it. But we wrote it because we kind of saw the patterns developing here over the past few years where, sadly, something that I never thought would happen in my lifetime, but socialism is actually trending. It's like, oh, hey, it's cool to be a socialist. And then like, oh, well, that's that's way out there, the far left or whatever. Then all of a sudden you see people, Christians that you know, going, well, and saying this exact phrase, well, Jesus was a socialist. Wait, what? That's kind of a big statement. Are you sure about that? And so I took that on, and so much hinges on that as the subtitle of the book, alludes to that it's literally a life or death matter, what we believe about Jesus and socialism and all that kind of stuff. So much hinges on that. And so we wrote that and fleshed it out. And I was just kind of going over that in the past couple of days, because I wrote it over a year ago and talked about it a little bit then, but now I'm picking it back up. Wow, all this stuff is happening right now. Not just what I wrote, but all the quotes. I have scores of quotes. It's freaky how this is all being fulfilled, what people predicted and quoted and all that kind of stuff. And so we're glad we wrote it. But how we hope it received is people would be alarmed. They're like, yes, this is absolutely we need to warn other people. Yeah, growing up, and I think it's a really, really helpful book and really needed. But growing up in Seattle, I saw this like head on in studying philosophy at a secular school and just other things. You know, they they were already in Seattle moving towards that direction or in that direction. You know, the specifically the Democrat Party, which dominates Seattle and Western Washington by a margin anyway. Same with Western the level around the Willamette Valley, Portland area. And so many other parts. And I just think it's so alarming because I don't think, I mean, I understand it's everything is like a worldview. Everybody has a worldview. It's like, how can you believe these are like, they boast about how they're the most intelligent people. And it's like, wait, do you understand history? Do you understand where this goes? And so I think that this conversation will be I'm not trying to be offensive to anybody in so far as that goes in saying what I did. Just saying, I think it's shocking when people really understand the reality of it and what it is and where it goes and how destructive it has been historically. And not only that, but how it destroys the truth and harms people's lives. And as Christians, we care about all of that because we love truth and we love God. We love the Lord and we're called to love, you know, that should feel a love for our neighbor. And so I really appreciate the book that you wrote. I think that it's excellent. I appreciate that. Yeah. We'll get into it more, but yeah, people absolutely need to know about it and how it's not just like tomato, tomato. It's a little, this one's a little bit better than that one. They're diametrically opposed. And if I could say so evil, we can get into that. Yeah, absolutely. Towards the opening of your book, you write that nothing will have a more powerful impact on the church and the future direction of the church and the whole world than what Christians believe about socialism and social justice and whether these are connected to Jesus or not. That's a really powerful thing that you're saying there. So why is understanding socialism and social justice so vital today? Well, first, you know, socialism and social justice is kind of like what's happening in California recently. And even this week, to illustrate this, there's something called a gut and amend bill, where the legislature here proposed this one bill on transportation or something like that. And it was voted on, but then they took it and they gutted it and amended it, put something else in, vaccine mandate. So it's It may sound like, oh, this is a transportation bill or something like that, but it's actually something different. So when you hear socialism or social justice, it's like, oh, well, I'm for justice. What's wrong with that? I'm for everybody having equality. That's not what it means. And so we can't just take it on face value, but But then if we equate it with Jesus and Christianity, which is what they're trying to do, then it changes all the stakes. It's one thing if you have a socialist country, but if you're saying Jesus was a socialist, now you're saying then Christianity is socialism. The gospel is socialism. So everything across the board, all of God's Word now has to change to fit this construct that came from people that are rabidly anti-Christian, anti-God, anti-Bible, without exaggeration. But now you have Christians that are going, yeah, but Jesus was a socialist, and if you're compassionate, you'll want to be a socialist kind of thing. So it's like saying Satan Satanism is Christianity, and Christianity is Satanism. It's the same thing, but you use a different word. And I know that sounds harsh. I don't know how else to properly illustrate the magnitude of how wrong and destructive and deadly socialism is. And again, we can get into that. I lay it out in the book. Quotes, facts, whatever people want to see. Yeah, I think that I think that's really good. And I mean, what it does is that, you know, as Christians, we believe that everybody is made in the image of God and has dignity, value and worth. And instead of having everybody having dignity, value and worth, what they want to do is they want to destroy the dignity, value and worth of every person. And like you were saying at the opening and about your book, you know, it's like people don't have people almost don't have value. And like a socialist, they don't have any value in a socialist And I think one of the things that I think what I saw in Seattle was talking with people, especially college students who thought that this was a good thing, is they tend to blend. They think that they can blend a little bit of this, like they go to Starbucks and they get a drink and they want it blended. So in that example, They think that they can blend a little bit of Christianity with a little bit of socialism with a little bit of Eastern mysticism and come out and they have this sloppy mess of religion that not only isn't coherent, but it actually contradicts each other. And we call that syncretism. and eclecticism where they're pulling the best out of all that. We'll just have this one big hodgepodge of all the best and it doesn't work that way. And as well as the reality, what we need to understand about socialism, Marxism, communism, social justice, is one word, totalitarianism. And that's what we're seeing now. We use the word tyranny, but That's what has to happen in a socialist society, because it's by definition a collective. It's total. You can't opt out. You don't have the, you know what, this city, we're going to opt out of that. Or this state, California, Oregon, Washington, we're going to opt out. No. everybody has to be in it. And so it's totalitarian. And you're always going to have resistors. And what happens to those people? Well, you look at history and it's not pretty. And so it's not, you can't just have a blend. It's total. It's totalitarian by definition. And they may start off that way. And we have a chapter towards the back of the book called something like, well, I'm not that kind of socialist. Well, no, there's only one kind of socialism, really. There's little things that it bleeds into a society, but eventually the goal is totalitarianism. Even, I think it was Lenin that said, the goal of socialism is communism. So it's just a stepping stone to communism, which is all again, totalitarianism, more and more control. It's never satisfied. That's what we're seeing going on right now. all over the world, you give this much, even like certain agendas we have being pushed on us, you acquiesce to that, now they're not satisfied, now it's more, now it's more, now it's more. And it's gonna continue until everything is destroyed. And what you're pointing out there is that everything is theological. Some people think, well, only Christianity is really theological, but as R.C. Sproul points out, everybody is a theologian, and I take that a little bit further, what he says, you're either a good theologian or a bad theologian. And I take that a little bit further than that say, well, even the atheists, the socialists, the communists, everybody is doing theology because everybody is trying to understand more about God or their God or something like that. And so everybody is doing, you know, theology. And that's really what you're talking about there is that everybody is engaged in this task of theology and Everybody wants to have truth because Ecclesiastes 3.11 tells us that God set eternity on our hearts. So everybody is seeking for truth and meaning and value. They're just not seeking it from God's vantage point as been revealed in his word, or they come to the word and try to disprove it, and live in rebellion against it. even if we don't use the word theology, but everybody has beliefs. And I agree with you about theology, and everybody has a belief about God, even if they reject God, even thought about God, studied something to figure out God or no or whatever, and they come to the conclusion. So we all have our beliefs. And socialism is a belief, an ideology. And it's not something that even if you say, you know, again, I want to opt out, or that's for those people, I don't want to be political. It's being forced on everybody. You can't, again, you can't just say, no, I'm going to take this one and sit this one out. And even like politics where people say, well, Christians shouldn't be in the politics. And it's like politics are everywhere. You know, you have to define politics. And there's an old joke about politics, poly meaning many and ticks are blood sucking creature. So politics, you know, that kind of stuff. But it's here whether you want it or not. And people that opt out of politics, then they get run over by politics. And again, it's just a belief system that is affecting all of us, it's affecting our kids, our friends, our parents, our church, it's everywhere and we need to be equipped and aware of what's going on. Yeah, that's really good. How do we help Christians who think that socialism is good for the church and the world? Well, and that, you know, it's an interesting conundrum because if you ask that 10 years ago, 20 years ago, it would be like, oh, well, here's some resources to kind of show you. And oh, wow, I didn't know that. Thank you for correcting me. But now you show those people there's just a different vibe if you want to do a different spirit, if you will, in the world where people just aren't discerning and facts And it sounds cliche almost, but facts don't matter as much. It's, yeah, but I feel this way. So if you say, well, look, this is the history. These are the facts. This is what has always happened. It has a 100% failure rate no matter what. Yeah, so what's your point? So, just to say we need to know the audience to help the audience, people are not always facts are not always going to change minds, so we need to know that but more to your point is that we need to equip people, but first we need to be equipped ourselves, we need to understand what is this, what does it really mean where did it come from what's the source. And it's interesting, you know, socialism, Marxism is supposed to help the working class, the working people. But as someone pointed out, and I have a quote in the book, Marx and Engels, who wrote the Communist Manifesto, never worked a day in their life, but they're trying to help the working. But anyways, these people are also anti-Christian, anti-Bible. That's the source, and be that as it may, but how do we square that with scripture? We can't. But also we look at the outcome, all of these things of socialism. And again, and if you read my book, and I go into great detail, tons of Scripture, hundreds of Scripture, showing how it is antithetical on every level to Scripture, to Jesus, to Christianity, to the Gospel. But do people know that? I don't know. They still fall for it, so they must not. And it's not new to this generation, it's happened in the past generation. So equipping, and that's just one word, and I know it's kind of near and dear to you and me, but we need, we're called to do that in Scripture, to equip the body of Christ. And a lot of churches have failed in this, and so now they're up against it, and they have people in their church that are now socialists and are pushing that agenda within their own body, local body of Christ. So equipping is ultimately what we need to do, and obviously knowing the truth, being Bereans, discerning, being able to separate truth from error, helpful from harmful. Yeah, I think one thing that, and that's really good. I think one thing that people need to understand is, is the Democrat party says they're for the middle class, but what they end up doing, and we see this, for example, you know, we may not, you may not, people may not like Donald Trump and, you know, we don't, I don't think that he is necessarily, you know, the best president per se in that, you know, his morals and this ethics, for example. But I do think his policies were helpful in that he tried to help, you know, people to get a job and to do well. He cared about the middle class. But what we see, for example, today and even even maybe in the last, you know, 30 or 40 years with the Democratic Party is they they argue that they are for the middle class, but they actually destroy the middle class. And I think people don't make that Sadly, I think that, like you said, they're not discerning, but just saying that out loud, I know is controversial, but they're not for the middle class. And just look at where we believe that, you know, it's not just, we believe, okay, that our, as Christians, we believe in doctrine, but we believe that doctrine produces something. It should produce, right? Doctrine coming from God's word should produce a sound living in our lives. It should be shown in our lives. It should be adorned in our lives. Right. And the same idea can be shown in in this this idea with the Democrats. Where's the fruit? Well, the fruit is, is that they destroy the fruit of their philosophy, the fruit of their worldview, the fruit of their beliefs leads to destroying people's lives. And you can just see that over and over again, you know, with, you know, look at how they handle the economy, look at how they handle our country, look at how they handle the military. I mean, the examples are abundant. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the thing about one of the sayings about communism, socialism has always been it sounds great in theory. Right. But in practice, it's deadly. It never works. And it can't by definition. And I could go into detail on that. But that's you could say that's also true for most, if not all of the Democrat policies that maybe sounds great in theory. Like, oh, we want to help the poor. Well, that's great. But how do you help the poor? And we can get into that a little bit like when it comes to enabling and so forth. But there's a there's a quote in the book. I can't remember who said it, but it says basically, yes, in socialism, the rich get poorer, but so do the poor. They get poorer. It takes everybody down, but ostensibly, they want to help the poor and whatever you want to call it, Republicans, conservatives on the right, want to help the poor too, which they, by the way, Democrats always demonize Republicans, conservatives, whatever, for not wanting to help the poor. It's like, absolutely, but we have a completely different way of doing it. And we can't just do it in theory, like, oh, here you go, here's money. You're poor, here's money, and now you're better. That sounds great in theory, but it actually makes things worse, and it's been proven time and time again. Yes, in theory, in practice, it's deadly. And we can and I spell that out in the book. And we even have a whole chapter on the history of socialism and beyond. Yeah, good stuff. And it's good stuff in the book, too. So I encourage our listeners and those watching it to check it out. You know, what are what are some of the dangers of advocating Jesus was a socialist? And how does this view bankrupt one of a biblical understanding of the personal worth of Jesus? Well, you know, in scripture we're warned over and over, even by Jesus himself, watch out for false Christs. And he even says that, you know, people say, what's the sign of the end times? And I'm not saying we're necessarily, that's one thing to talk about, but his first thing is do not be deceived. And then the second, he says, there's going to be people that come in my name and they say, here I am, I'm Jesus and all these false Christs, but here you go. Here's if there's ever a false Christ, it's Jesus was a socialist. again, I prove that in the book. If we can talk about it now, I don't want to belabor the point necessarily here, but if we have a false Christ, we're warned of another Christ or another gospel, a different gospel, a different Jesus over and over and over. So, what happens if a person believes in a different Jesus? Are they really saved? And I would argue that it's far worse to admittedly not know Jesus than to know a false Jesus, because now you don't think you need Jesus. Like, no, I'm good. I got it. I'm saved. I know the gospel when you have, actually, if you have a false gospel. And that's what's happened in a lot of these churches, like the seeker sensitive movement. And I'm meeting with a young lady that went there for like 10, 12 years and never heard the gospel. And then she just came out and she's, what happened is now she's saved, but, but she realized she, if she had died a year ago, 10 years ago, she never heard the gospel. She never believed, but she was in church thinking she was a Christian because she went to church and they said, you know, if you want to, you know, love Jesus, then great. And you're saved or whatever they told her. so many problems with a different Jesus. And then what are we going to go tell the world? Well, here's this Jesus, and it's presenting a false Jesus. And we're told in Scripture, Galatians 1, 6 or 9, that those who do that, a different Jesus, a different gospel, they'll be eternally condemned or accursed or anathema. What could be worse than that? So there's the ramifications of presenting a socialist Jesus who is socialism is antithetical 100% to Jesus and everything about it and about him, then I don't know what else would be worse for us as an individual. Absolutely. That's really well said. What exactly is dangerous about socialism? I know that we've kind of hinted at this, but just to be explicit for those who are listening or watching that maybe even want to define that. that for us. Yeah. And it's interesting that, you know, you could say what is not dangerous about socialism and socialism kind of in a nutshell, and there's kind of blurring with communism, but it's everything is kind of forcibly handed over to the state. The state owns everything and or controls the means of production. And there's no personal property, maybe other than a shirt or shoes or something like that. But Really, there's no personal property. Everything is collectively owned. And so part of what the problem there is that there's no incentive. And we're de-incentivized to do, to work, or whatever, because no matter what I do, if I work today or I don't, I still get the same amount. If I go study for eight years, 10 years to be a doctor, a brain surgeon, I get the same amount as somebody that sweeps the floor. So why bust my butt to do all that? And I quote a proverb, quoting somebody that quotes a Polish proverb that says, COPEX is their monetary measure. And it says, if I stand up, I get 1,000 COPEX. If I lay down, I get 1,000 COPEX. Why stand up, right? Well, yeah, why? Why go to work? Why do all of this? But also the other side of that, if you go and you bust your butt and you do all these kinds of things and all that money, whatever you make that the state takes that and they give it to somebody else. And I was like, wait, why am I? And that's happening now, by the way, with our high taxes and inflation and so forth. And we're taking that subtly and giving it to other people that are not working. Some people obviously can't work and that's fine. That's understandable. But a lot of people won't work. or won't work hard, or so forth. So we're subsidizing those people, and a society cannot sustain that. And that's one of the reasons why socialism collapses time and time again. But that's child's play to what ultimately happens is that, like I said, it must be totalitarian. It has to be. And you will always have resistors. You always have people that dissent, so-called. And what do you do with them? You don't go, OK, fair enough. You guys just do whatever you know. And you could talk to people that have come from other communist countries. And there's still people around, like from Eastern Bloc countries. We have some friends that are from like Croatia or Romania or Ukraine or Russia or Cuba, China. These people that have come out of there, they're going, what is going on here? How come people can't see this? Why are people wanting actual social? There's always tyranny. People are not just thrown into the gulags, not just tortured, but they're murdered. Millions and millions and millions of people, without question, are murdered by their own countrymen. Not just a few, 10 is too much. But it's necessary all for the greater good. And if you haven't heard that a lot, you're going to hear that more and more. For the common good, the greater good. And that's what's happening, by the way, with vaccines and so forth. What do you believe about that? But people that believe in vaccines are still saying, no, we shouldn't force vaccines. That's tyranny. That's where it's being forced on people. And we're in these beginning stages, so to speak, if not way past that. And again, the total of people that have been oppressed, ironically, socialism and Marxism portends to free people from oppression, but historically, factually, it has oppressed literally billions of people. Even right now, today, billions of people, maybe at least a billion or more, but are being oppressed by communism, socialism, Marxism under the guise of freedom. We have chapter after chapter after chapter in a book that explains this in more detail and how, again, how it conflicts with scripture. Yeah, that's really a good answer. How should the church respond to socialism? Well, kind of like how we would respond if our house was on fire. And I say that a little jokingly. This is not a minor detail. I saw a quote recently from, I don't know if you know who Tommy Nelson is. He's a pastor in Denton, Texas. And in fact, somewhat an interesting side fact that our next door neighbor was discipled by him 25 years ago. He's a pastor here of a church, big church in town. But he said that wokeism, leftism, communism, all the kind of going there, we can define that, is the most insidious and dangerous threat he's seen in 50 years of ministry to the church and our society. That's somebody that's been around the block, and he's probably 70-ish, he's not that old, but 50 years of ministry and of the greatest threat of the past 50 years that has risen to the top of the list. And I agree, and we've written, already written stuff on that saying as such, but so if something is the greatest threat to humanity, And to the church, what should we do about it? That's how we should say that, right? But what is the church doing about it? A lot of yawning, and I hope that doesn't happen. And I'm somewhat rebuking the church and not all Christian leaders, of course, and there's some amazing pastors and leaders and whatever, they're getting it out and they're not getting a lot of support. They're getting attacked for it, by the way, but sadly, But the church needs to unify and rally around this. This is not just politics. This is not just some individual rights that Christians get mocked for. And my wife pointed out a tweet from Shane Claiborne about doing that recently. But we have this idolatry of individual rights. That's what's really going on. And we should just kind of give in to the collective and the common good for everybody's sake. No, we need to sound the alarm. We need to be yelling and we need to be snatching people from the fire. We need to be equipping, back to that word, we need to be thoroughly equipped in the Bible, but be able to discern quickly, like, what? Socialism? No, that's right. You don't have to read my book or whatever because you know the Bible. You know that Jesus wasn't a socialist because you can go, no, No, no. Here, here, here, here, here. Here's 10 verses for it. Why? Because I've been studying the Bible. Because I've been taught at my church. Because we're aware of all these threats that are out there. Because my Bible teaching church teaches us and encourages us to discern, to think for ourselves. That's what the church should be doing. But sadly, we're at such a weak level and overrun in a lot of ways because the church hasn't been doing this for years. We just finished a book. It's a free e-book, if you want, on our website on the seven deadly sins that are destroying and refining the church. And it shows a history of the past 70 years where we kind of started with kind of letting in humanistic psychology. It's like, oh, well, that's good. Well, that'll enhance scripture. Because the Bible's good, but I don't know if it's really sufficient. And then it led to, again, the seeker-sensitive movement, and then mysticism, and then the millennial... I'm blanking on the word, but where the emerging church came from, and I'm blanking on the... The seeker-sensitive church. the secret sinners of the church, but I'll think of it in a minute. But then that has warped into what I call world approved Christianity, where we have Christians who think that to be a true Christian, you have to be the same and approved by the world because we don't want to offend the world. So they have theology about God and the gospel and so forth that is acceptable to those who hate Christianity. The enemies of God is according to James 4 and all that. And then lastly we have the woke church, where, like we said that's woke ism is basically leftist, it's, it's socialism it's totalitarianism it's, we need to all get rid of, by the way, with woke ism and all that the main enemy is Judeo Christian values. this is another reason why this is so dangerous. And the goal has been to subvert biblical Christianity. If you want to see a common thread through all that has happened in the past year, the past two years, the past five, 10 plus years, it's been that one thing. If we want to limit it to one thing, it's subverting biblical Christianity and all the values that go with it. And you don't have to be a Christian to have these values. A lot of Jewish people, obviously, like Dennis Prager or or atheists have these values, Buddhists, whatever, they have these values, but they are hated by the left. Individual freedom, freedom to think for yourself, free society, free commerce, all of that is antithetical to totalitarianism and socialism, so it must be destroyed. They don't just sit there and reason with you. They will destroy you through false accusations, censoring you, oppression, and so forth. And I know that sounds conspiratorial for people, but there's going to be some day, if it is, someday soon you're going to go, oh, that wasn't a conspiracy. Yeah. And you're so right. I mean, D.A. Carson calls this the intolerance of tolerance. The idea that, you know, there is tolerance, you know, you can be tolerant of somebody's views and that, you know, they have a right to under, because of religious liberty to, you know, share how they want to, you know, believe in the public square and the marketplace of ideas and those kinds of things. However, what we're finding, and you just touched on it so well, is that Christians aren't tolerated. They're shut down. They're told, no, you're wrong. So, what do we do about that? And there's a couple things that I would say. We have to, as you said so well, we have to stand up and we have to understand that actually the most loving thing that as Christians we do because we love the biblical truth and We love the Lord and that love fuels a love for our neighbor. That's the most loving thing then to do, to tell them the truth. You know, we are people of the truth. In fact, the church has started hospitals, we've started universities, schools, and so much more because of these type, because of that foundational conviction. You know, we're not talking, Mark and I aren't having this conversation because We're having this conversation because we're concerned for the sake of the truth and for people. There's some people today who say, well, you know, go get a vaccine and go wear a mask because it's a matter of loving your neighbor. And it's like, well, where's the... They say that's a matter of science. And it's like, well, where's the science? Because what they've shown, even before the pandemic happened, is wearing masks is actually detrimental to people's health. They can't breathe. There's all sorts of problems associated with it. They rush through the vaccine and more. So what do we do about this? I mean, in my inbox, this is probably the biggest issue. And I think the thing there's a couple of things that I think we have to do. We have to be bold, not bold for ourselves. We have to be bold to stand on the truth. It takes real courage to do that. And you should pray as a Christian. Pray for boldness. Pray that God, by the Spirit, would enable you to be a bold witness for Him because of the truth. And you need to find out the truth about these things. And second, do it motivated by love for God and love for His glory. and love for the truth. And three, we need to have not only our pastors and elders and other things like that, other people like that in ministry and those things and local church and outside of it, they need to steal their resolve. Steal their resolve because, you know, like you were saying earlier, These things are going to come, and they're already here. They're already showing. We're going to talk here a little bit about the markers of it, but it's already happening. So you better prepare yourself. You better be getting in your Bible daily and reading it. I call that a delightful duty. It's a delight to get to know God and His Word and to enjoy Him. But it's also a duty because He calls us to Himself. He's changed us. He indwells us by the Spirit as Christians. And so we should get in His Word. We need to prepare for battle as a soldier of Christ. That's what the military, the U.S. military does. They prepare their shoulders before they go to battle. You got to go through basic training, but you also have to go through continued training and even go through training before you go out to battle. And that's what we need to do as Christians. We need to be in the Word and that prepares us for the battle. And I think those are some things I would say about you know, how the church, to that question, just to highlight even more what you said. Right, and that's good. And, you know, I think we Americans, and myself included, we've had it so easy. And, you know, our whole lives, we're like, what are you talking about? I could go over here if I want. I can go there. All these things, and now it's like, wait a minute, this is what the rest of the world has been experiencing, much of the world, and it's happening. And on the trajectory, if nothing, if this stays the same, we are going to be in a totalitarian state. And that's not a conspiracy. By definition, we're losing freedoms unless something happens. The churches have been the ones that historically have said, you know, really not patting ourselves on the back, but it's been Christians that have stopped abolished slavery and other societal ills and evil. It's Christians that have stepped up and said, and there's been Christians that have been complicit, too. But the Christians, we as Christians have done it before, even like you said, building hospitals and so forth. We are the ones that we don't wait around for the government to change the government. We need to speak up. Because it's happening to us whether we want it or not, and not just for ourselves, but for those around us. And as a friend of mine said, I don't know if I'll get the metaphor right, but we're planting trees that will never enjoy their shade. It's going to be for our grandkids and so forth, the other generations, not for us, but we do that in faith. And real quick, Speaking of abolition of slavery, John Quincy Adams, maybe you've heard the story, he was fighting against slavery to abolish it, but it wasn't ever going to happen in his lifetime, and he knew it and other people knew it. So someone said to him, why are you doing this? You know you're not going to see slavery abolished. And he said six words, famous words, duty is ours, results are God's. And it didn't happen in his lifetime, but it did happen. And because of Christians and people before him in England, you know, 30 years before that, and well before us and others, that evil was abolished. That tyranny, that kind of tyranny. We're facing this different kind of even worse tyranny, worse slavery. Yeah, that's really, really good. Really good. How should we respond to the idea that the early church engaged in socialism? Laughing. I'm kidding. Hey, we're having a little bit of fun here. Okay. We are. And I'm in the middle of having a serious conversation. A little levity. Because if you any objective look at scripture, at first, you read one verse and say, oh, they had all things in common. boom, there you go, communism, all right. Well, as you know, text without context is pretext, and not just the context there, but that chapter, but beyond, and there's so many things that are wrong with that. If you know what socialism is, communism, so forth, and what Christianity is, what the early church, the book of Acts, and I laid them all out, there's a dozen or so in the chapter on that. One, socialism is required, it's not voluntary, but the church, 100% voluntary. Two, socialism is all government-derived, and the church was 100% apart from the government despite the government. And one of the things that stands out the most in all this, there's again over a dozen, but the church, the early church, the church today, it was all about, and this is a lot of irony in this, all about saving guilty people, guilty souls from death for all eternity. But socialism has caused millions of lives to be murdered, millions of innocent people to be murdered. You can't get more of a contrast. The early church was all about preaching the word, spreading the gospel, building church, making disciples. Socialism, communism hates that. That's the first thing they go after. So on and on down the list, everything is not like, it's a little bit, okay, we'll give you that. No, diametrically opposed. 100%. Also, you know, it's been tried many times, before and after Marx, but even in America, in Indiana, of all places, in Oregon, where you are, kind of, maybe not a Christian, probably some Christian ones, but non-Christian, in the 60s and 70s, the Jesus people, and in fact, my wife was literally born into a hippie Christian commune cult right here in the town. And that was one of their mantras was all things in common. The men went out and worked and gave the dear leader their paycheck. And the women stayed at home, had babies and knitted things and homeschooled. And they bought or rented four homes back to back. They took out the the fences and they had a big common area and all that kind of stuff. And this was such a wonderful thing. But of course, like all attempts, it was filled with so many problems and it blew up. And 40, 50 years later, so many people are hate Christianity, hate God, hate Christians, hate the Bible, divorce. There's a handful of people, maybe, I don't know, two or three people are still married. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. So real life people even today are destroyed by socialism. It's not just something that we can try again, and it'll work this time. No, it has, even within Christian context, and back then, by the way, it was the cream of the crop, you had the apostles, disciples, they were the leaders, they were talking directly to God, they were healing people if they wanted, and even then it failed, because Ananias and Sapphira, as you know, they They had the freedom, they weren't forced to give it, but they gave their money, but then they lied about it and died and so forth. So it does not work. It can't work because of human nature. There's a quote in the book, I have a whole chapter on human nature, but there's this quote, it's funny, but by this man, I don't know if he meant it to be funny, but he did this research and wrote a book called The Ants on the little creatures. And he said, Karl Marx was right. It's just that he had the wrong species. It can't work with human nature. Our hearts are not full of love and joy and peace and selflessness. It doesn't work that way. And once you get, we start out equal, but once you have more than me, that's not fair. I want it. So on and on it goes, but there's no way it'll work and no way it worked then. And even if it did, and if it didn't, but let's just say if it did, wouldn't we see it that the apostles going out through the book of Acts and spreading socialism. Hey, everybody, this is how you set up your government and you need to give all your money to the government, not to each other, but to the government. And we need to depend on the government, not on God, but on the government. And the government needs to have all this power. And even all the history of Israel, they too would have not a theocracy or be led by a prophet or king, it would be all socialism. One big, great collective. No, we didn't see that. We never see that. Yeah, that's that's that's a great answer. Brilliant answer. How does understanding the idea of enablers that you talk about in your book help us understand better counterfeit justice and love and the wrongness of the socialist agenda and how it leads to deception, destruction and death? Well, you know, a lot of times when people say, oh, hi, I spoil my kids, you know, that kind of thing, or I spoil my grandkids. Well, you know, when you think of next time you go, OK, when you say that, can you drink spoiled milk? Will you go drink spoiled milk every time you say that? happen, right? You can throw up and all that. And that's child's play, no pun intended, for enabling. When you enable somebody, you enable a child, you don't discipline the child or you say, you know what, little Johnny, I'm going to do your homework for you. You know what, that's too tough for you. I'm going to do that. You know, no, just you sit there and watch TV and play video games and I'll bring your food to you and don't don't bother yourself, you know, we enable that with maybe we have good intentions, but we're destroying that person, enabling the word simply means empowering but in our context in our society today, rightfully so. empowering destruction. So we're giving power to destructive thinking and behavior. That's a deadly thing. That's why that is so deadly. So how this plays out in enabling where it fits with counterfeit love and counterfeit justice is where one, it's a distortion of personal responsibility. We often blame those who are innocent, and we justify those who are guilty. And proper, accurate blame and responsibility rarely ever happens. That's why today, who's being demonized? Who are the people that are holding up society? Christians, the ones who are working hard, the ones who are doing this and that. We're the ones that are evil, not people that are doing evil. So we have this inverted society where evil is good and good is evil, love is hate, hate is love, sin is love and all that kind of stuff. So, but when you have somebody that's enabling someone else, you're giving them power when you should hold them accountable and you should say, oh, wait, that was wrong. And here's some consequences and here's a solution and so forth. You go, oh, that's okay. We accept that. We want to accept and tolerate that. So you're giving power to that destructive behavior rather than saying, wow, that happened. Okay, well, here's some consequences. this is going to have to happen and get back to this place. That's how we all learn and grow. And yes, God forgives us, but He also calls us to repent. And scripture says in Proverbs 20, 13, he who conceals the sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. So, we do have this responsibility to confess, to repent, God does forgive us, but in order to be reconciled, we need to do that. But if we're just going to give people money, like I said, the whole COPEX, where, okay, well, you know, I'd rather just sit at home and not do anything. Let's see, I could go picking around numbers. I could go work for $20 an hour or stay at home and do nothing for $15 an hour. Gee, let me see what I'm going to do. And maybe I'll do some side hustles. So I'm not working, which is harmful for that individual. And it's harmful for society and everybody else. Their motivation goes down, down, everybody, the workers and the non-workers go down, down, down, down, down. And then it implodes because you can't sustain that. That's a really good answer. I mean, I don't think I have too much to say in response to that because you gave such a good answer, but how are both socialism and Marxism incompatible with the biblical worldview? Well, again, I alluded to some things before, but to start off the source and I alluded to humanistic psychology before all of those theorists, Freud and Adler and all that, they all hated God, hated Christianity. But should we embrace that ideology in our life? No, it's counterproductive. It's an antithetical to scripture, to God, to Christianity. Same thing with Karl Marx. All the socialists, they have it in for Christianity. And understandably so, because religion and freedom don't mix with totalitarianism. So you can't have totalitarianism and freedom. You can't have the gospel and a collective where it's based on a bunch of errors and falsehood, and you can't have Jesus. Because who is the number one group that is attacked and destroyed in every totalitarian society? Christians and Jews. There's a saying that says, first they come for the Saturday people, then they come for the Sunday people. And that's what historically has happened. And often, you know, Jews who have a high view of their scripture, and there's plenty of non-practicing Jews, whatever you want to call them, that they're not religious or whatever you want to call them. And even Christians are not really practicing or whatever. But those that have a high view of scripture and of traditional Judeo values, those are attacked by Marxists and socialists. Verbally, right now, we're being censored. We're being shunned and shamed. and even punished if we do this and, you know, you can't do that. And even I saw something where Candace Owens the other day, she some company wouldn't test her because she of her conservative values. General Flynn, I think I saw his his bank cut him off because of his values. I mean, and those are little snippets, but that's kind of broaching things, testing the waters to see the kickback. Again, I overuse this word, but antithetical, the opposite, polar opposite, they're oil and water. It's heaven and hell that you can't go, yeah, there's some mixture. No, never the two shall meet. Amen. Great answer. What are some markers or signs of socialism and markers that we see in our society so that people can be aware of – they can actually see, okay, this is what – this is how this is being – like we talked about. It's a fruit of their philosophy of their worldview, so people can see that tangibly. Yeah, it's a good question in that, you know, there's different ways to answer and a lot of their subtle ways and their overt ways, subtle ways are the encroaching tyranny of forcing people to do this, forcing them to do that, taking away freedoms, even to protect yourself, even being censored on social media. And is that socialism per se? Well, it's all kind of this mix and this blur where these people want what they want ultimately are A global society they think that we should have this collective global society, kind of john lennon imagine there's no heaven and no hell we're all just living in one as one and there's oh it's just wonderful and. And if you know human nature, you know that's not true, we have a whole chapter on that. So that's why they want these open borders. They want a mixture of this or that. And but who who are those crazy people that are holding it up? Conservatives who have, you know, there are certain values and a high view of scripture and all that kind of stuff. They are the ones that have to be oppressed, suppressed, censored and worse. So what that happened, that's why critical race theory is one of those things. And that is this lie. And I'm blessed to see so many parents at school board meetings standing up of whatever racial background or what have a skin color. And they're like, this is crazy talk. This is evil. This is racism, which it is. Critical race theory, supposedly to get rid of, fix the race problem is actually, we're going to do that with more racism. Okay. But ultimately what it does is it puts the oppressed, it puts everybody into one of two categories, the oppressor or the oppressed. And you and me, buddy, we have like all five of the worst categories. So we're the oppressor, we're the elite oppressors, and we're the first to go. But if you're, you know, gay, a woman, minority, whatever, that you have these points. That's also what they call intersectionality, which is a part of that's another thing to look for as a sign of that intersectionality, where people are given more elite status, they're judged, You and I are judged and condemned for things that we don't basically control. Even though, remember when I want to write an article Sunday called, whatever became of it's wrong to judge. Remember that when it was wrong to judge? And even, you know, you ask somebody, are you saying I'm wrong to judge? Yes. I judge that you're wrong to judge, and they don't get it that they just judged you for judging and all that. So that's part of where we are as a society. But it's now, no, we have the right, the righteous duty to judge and condemn you because you're so evil, because you're white, because you're a male, because you're a conservative, because you're a Christian, because you're a heterosexual. That's evil personified. And then we judge these other people to be favored. They get benefits and extra blessings and so forth because A, B, and C. So you're either in one or the other, and then so therefore the goal is, so they pit one group against the other, and this group needs to destroy this group. And that's how we achieve this peace, by destroying each other. And if you think about it, and I put it in the book, that socialism and their quest to take over and gain power and so forth and gain adherence, they employ all of the seven deadly sins. If you want to look it up in Proverbs 6, 16 through 19, all of those and more, That's what they employ to divide and conquer, to shame people, to falsely accuse them, all of those things. That's what they do, and it works. It wouldn't have worked 10 years ago. It wouldn't have worked 20 years ago, maybe 10 years ago, definitely not 50 years ago, but it's all over right now happening through that. So that's critical race theory. it's intersectionality, social justice, like I mentioned before, it's like, yeah, justice and society, I'm all for that, you're for that, but what they mean is something else, right? And it usually means, well, let's look at how much you, oh, wow, you make this much, okay, we're going to take that and we're going to give it to these people, or, oh, those nice books you have there in the book, we're going to take that, we're going to go sell it and give that to somebody else, because it's not fair, it's unjust that you have that. And we kind of talked a little bit about Tim Keller, He would be a proponent of that one way or another, and that may shock your listeners, and we'll have something out on that soon about some of his quotes and everything on how he calls that unjust and that we're robbers if we don't do that. So I'll explain that, and we have a whole chapter on that on justice and mercy in the book. So that too is another one. So it's all over. And even if I could say so, this is little when people have a Black Lives Matter little black square and I don't know you all that well, I don't want to say that I know everything about you, but I know that you're for the notion that the reality that Black Lives Matter. But as far as the group to support that group, which is admittedly Marxist, they admit it and they admit that they're against they want to take down the traditional nuclear family. They hate that. in their own words. And they are trained Marxists according to them. And just like all Marxist entities, the elites have all the money. The people at the top are multimillionaires. They have multiple, this one lady was caught having multiple million dollar homes and so forth. But even while proclaiming to be a Marxist, where equality for all, equal economic equality. But yet, it's not. So again, it doesn't work because of human nature. I don't begrudge her of having that money, but when she's touting this while doing that, that's a problem. So these are some of the markers. But the other thing is to think about, to look for, how is it in your church? Is it creeping into your church? And that's, well, no, if you knew my church, well, what I've learned is that a lot of churches, including my own, have people in there that don't, they believe the opposite of roughly, I mean, they claim Christ and not that they're not saved or whatever, but when push comes to shove, they believe more like Bernie Sanders. They have a little Bernie Sanders sticker. And I've seen that a lot of churches in town, I know a lot of pastors and churches and they're, These guys and the churches are conservative for the most part, but they have people that are socialist supporters, Bernie Sanders supporters on their staff as elders, as down for A, B, and C, not for what you and I believe. And that's interesting, it's sad, but also it's gonna come to a head. Those people are spreading their ideology in this, and it's a little leaven that works its way through the whole lump of dough, and it's happening in your church and mine most likely. Not necessarily in your church or mine, but just in general, but maybe in your church or mine. That's, that's a really good answer. And you're talking, I remember, recently, the CDC came out and said that, you know, they can come and your personal property, I think you've might have heard this, it made the national news, that they can come and they can tell you what to do on your property, and you can't decline anybody to live even on a tent in your front yard or something like that. And it's like, wait a minute, not only does that destroy the idea of personal property, which I mean, again, to your point about work, why do we work? So that we can have a place to live and obviously to provide for our family. do good to society, and we would say so much more. But not only do you just undervalue people's work, you give the person that didn't work for it a benefit that they didn't earn. Anyway, my point is, just to what you were saying, your excellent answer is, you know, it's interesting then that it's kind of interesting in an ironic way that these are the same people that are advocating for equality for everybody, even though if they don't work, just give them whatever, give them whatever that, like you were talking about personal responsibility, give them whatever they want because they deserve it. And it's like, wait, in our society, the way that we function is you work for what you have to work, and then you can buy a home. When you sign up to spell this out, to get a house, to get a loan, you have to have a job and you have to verify your income with the lender. And instead of doing that, You're saying that the person that the person who owns the house has gone through that process and a bank won't give you the house, but then they deserve to live. The CDC is arguing that that whole process is actually wrong. And so nobody is really equal. Equal equality is only for the people that that don't haven't worked hard. So only they are equal and they're supposed to have what you've worked for. Ultimately, yeah, and it's all convoluted and everything, and it's kind of what led to the big economic collapse, whatever it's been, 12 years ago, 12, 13, whatever, with the housing thing, where they stopped having, oh, let's look at your credit and whatever, and they called them ninja loans, where there was no income, no job, and they would give you a loan, and it doesn't matter, because they just wanted people to have homes. And it was a Democrat push thing, a liberal thing, Because Out of Compassion is a perfect example of enabling where not only to destroy these people, now they buy this $300,000, $500,000 home. It's just a matter of time where they can't afford it. And then so they have to move out, they have to displace their family, and all these horrible things that happen to their family. But we're doing it out of compassion. Well, the compassionate thing, that's the opposite. As well as now our whole society, our America did, but also in fact the rest of the world and all these people went through a horrible time for you. And now we're coming back to the same cycle again. Also with the CDC, speaking of overreach, they've been given somehow, they're just an entity, but they've been given power to decree certain things over certain people. And they came out recently and were saying, no, you can't evict people. Even though it's unconstitutional, you can't evict people. And there was some kind of moratorium or whatever, but that is what it is. But then when it ran up, ran out, it went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court still said, no, okay, these people can collect the money that they've earned. And the CDC overrode the Supreme Court. You can't do that, but nobody's doing anything about it. We're in a lawless society. And it's no mistake, by the way, that in 2 Thessalonians 2, when it's talking about the apostasy and all that, that the man of lawlessness will appear. Well, I think it's already been prepared with lawlessness, so people are going to have an easy time adjusting to the man of lawlessness. That's well said. Well, brother, where can people go to find out more about your work online or either on your website or on social media? Yeah, we have a website, hopeforlifeonline.com and hopefor, F-O-R, not the number, hopeforlifeonline.com. And I guess we have social media. My wife handles all that, but you can find it through our website. We have articles and books there if you want more information on that and anything we have to offer. Wonderful, wonderful. You know, Marcus, just as we wrap up, there's a lot, you know, that we've covered. But just as we wrap up, do you have a few takeaways for those who are listening and watching this? Yeah. You know, I know it sounds kind of extreme, but it is. Again, it's not just me saying it and, you know, take Tommy Nelson's word for it or whatever. But this is the greatest threat that we've faced as a society. And it's not just it's not unique as far as other countries have gone through this. But the way socialists know, and Marxists know, and leftists know, they can't just take over society. They have to do it subtly, even without firing a shot. And so what they have to do is take over the church. And how do they do that? Well, they have to have a different Jesus. They change Jesus into a socialist. And by the way, Gorbachev said that. He said Jesus was the first socialist. He's not, of course, but he was the leader of the Soviet Union before it collapsed. So they're going after the church. They're going after Jesus. If you care about the truth, if you care about the church, if you care about Jesus, if you care about the gospel, if you care about those around you, whether they're saved or not, then you need to know that Jesus was not a socialist. You need to stand up against what's happening right now. This is literally life or death without exaggeration. It's happening, it will continue to happen. If nothing stops, then we're all gonna be, those of us that believe the way you and I do, Dave, we're gonna be in some gulag or worse. And that sounds crazy, but it's happened in every other country. It's happening in Cuba right now, it's happening in China, it's happening in Vietnam, you name it, it's happening. Because freedom can't be allowed in totalitarian type environments. It's really well by the way, one other thing. The one I forgot was post post modernism. That was the ideology that also has crept into the church with which form the emerging church post modernism we're basically. there's no absolute truth, and kind of go on your feelings, all subjective-based, and that has devastated the church, and that started about 20 years ago, and it still is killing the truth in a lot of ways. Yes, yes, that's well said, brother. Well, Mark, I've enjoyed the conversation today. Thank you so much for your time and the excellent answers that you've given to serve our audience and to equip them in the truth, and may God richly bless you in the work that he's given you. Well, thank you, thank you very much, appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the Equipping You in Grace podcast. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe, rate us on the app, and share this with your friends and family on social media. 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