23-1119p Transcript

Preacher: Scott Reynolds

(1:27) We have been bringing to you sessions of a webinar series entitled (1:32) The Seven Threats of Our Time by Dr. Del Tackett, (1:36) the author of The Truth Project and The Engagement Project. (1:40) Tonight we will conclude the fifth session of The Seven Threats called (1:47) The Rise of a Demonic Worldview and The National Rift.

(1:52) And Del continues from what we said this morning. (1:56) We again have to refresh ourselves with God’s nature. (1:59) We just talked about the unity and diversity and the modus operandi of God (2:05) that he brings about fruit and glory.

(2:10) So this unity and diversity of God is what has brought us, (2:15) as a result of God’s creative, active powers and decrees, (2:20) he’s brought us these social institutions that the Scripture speaks of (2:26) and delineates for us. (2:28) The members and the roles and relationships with each other, (2:32) both within that system and the relationships to the other systems, (2:36) this is part of the unity and diversity of God that we find. (2:40) For example, the diversity of the male and female that is probably the most (2:45) diverse aspect of our humanity brought together in unity in the family.

(2:53) The state, the king, and the citizens, God and man, the infinite God (2:58) and the finite man brought together in a relationship that is mind-boggling (3:03) that God would allow us to join with him in a relationship. (3:08) Every one of these social institutions is a reflection of the unity (3:13) and diversity of God, the modus operandi of God, (3:18) that God desires the fruit of his creatures. (3:23) I would submit to you that every one of these social institutions has been created (3:28) for the purpose of bringing forth fruit for God’s creatures.

(3:34) It is easy to see in the family. (3:38) That is what we read. (3:40) Hang on a second.

(3:42) That is what we read about in Malachi. (3:44) Why did God bring the male and female together, the man and the woman together? (3:49) The answer in Malachi is because God was seeking godly fruit or godly offspring, (3:57) the fruitfulness of the family. (4:00) The sphere of labor where the owner of the goods hiring others to help him (4:04) in his God-given design to bring forth fruit.

(4:08) You plant wheat and it brings forth fruit. (4:11) You take the raw goods of leather and metal and you make shoes. (4:15) The state protects each of these institutions and their property.

(4:20) It protects them in such a way that they can be fruitful. (4:25) In the church, the leaders are to equip the saints so the saints can be fruitful. (4:30) God and man, we think about the fruitfulness of the spirit of God in man (4:34) bringing forth the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, and so forth.

(4:40) So it is this modus operandi of God working through the institutions that he has created (4:45) to bring forth his fruit, and that fruit then brings glory to God. (4:52) When we look now at Satan and his scheme and his modus operandi, (4:59) his intent, of course, is to destroy unity rather than the unity that God wants. (5:05) Satan brings about war between people, disunity.

(5:08) He brings about quarrels and accusations. (5:12) He brings about isolation, separation, hate, racism, (5:16) and all those things that are the opposite of the unity that should exist (5:21) as a result of God’s decrees and desire. (5:24) When we think of diversity, Satan brings about a perversity (5:29) rather than the godly, righteous diversity, male and female, for example.

(5:35) And the bringing of them together, Satan will bring about a perverse nature (5:39) associated with all of those things. (5:41) Satan hates the fruit of God’s creatures, and so everything that Satan wants to do, (5:46) it is to destroy those institutions. (5:50) He destroys the relationships.

(5:51) He will bring about perversity associated with those relationships. (5:56) He will bring about evil. (5:58) He’ll bring things together that should not be brought together, (6:02) and he will attempt to destroy the proper roles.

(6:06) For example, we saw Uzziah and Saul, and he will bring about a consolidation of power. (6:13) He will turn the church upside down, and so he attempts to destroy (6:20) the fruitfulness of God’s creatures and, therefore, destroys their glory. (6:26) In the typical form of statism, I think that this is not a political thing.

(6:33) This is a demonic thing. (6:35) When the state consolidates its power, absorbs all the institutions underneath itself, (6:41) that’s not a political thing. (6:44) That’s a demonic thing.

(6:45) Oftentimes, then, the demonic result is that the state retains enormous power, (6:51) destroying the fruitfulness of those institutions, (6:55) and now we see labor co-joining in that. (7:00) So now let’s look at history. (7:03) We’ll try to do this as quickly as we can, but it’s very, very important to understand (7:08) the historical context of what is happening in our culture today.

(7:13) We could begin with Satan in the garden, and if we want to go back to that point (7:19) and examine again, that that’s what Satan did in the very beginning. (7:23) He came to Eve, attempted to destroy the role associated with God and man, (7:29) that he laid before her of the ruse, the scam, that she could be like God, (7:35) that she would not surely die, and so Satan began to pit Eve against God, (7:42) and then, of course, we can see the relationships that were destroyed, (7:46) the relationship between Adam and Eve. (7:48) They point a finger at each other, and then Cain and Abel and so forth, (7:54) and the whole mess began.

(7:57) But we’ll pick up with the German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. (8:05) The important thing, that almost sounds like something you’d hear on Harry Potter, (8:09) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. (8:13) Anyway, it is time.

(8:16) The important thing to understand about Hegel is that he is the one who laid before the world (8:23) the notion of the dialectic, and don’t get caught up on the terminology. (8:29) This is the world’s terminology. (8:31) He does explain the idea, say what the idea is, (8:37) and you don’t necessarily need the word dialectic.

(8:41) These are important things to understand. (8:43) They are basic things to understand what is happening today. (8:47) Hegel is primarily thinking in terms of ideas, but we’re going to see how important it is (8:55) because Hegel had a deep influence on Marx.

(8:58) The basic understanding of the dialectic in Hegel’s teaching is that you have a thesis. (9:06) You have an idea, and it happens to be the current status quo idea, (9:13) and then you bring in an antithesis idea, an opposing idea that rises up against that thesis. (9:23) There is a major conflict as those two ideas almost have a war with each other, (9:30) and in Hegel’s mind, there is a resulting synthesis idea, an idea of a higher order.

(9:37) So it is a progressive, and you can think of it as a progression of ideas, (9:43) how ideas progress, and almost evolutionary thing that Hegel laid for being evolutionary (9:52) for the development of the ideas. (9:55) He’s talking about how an idea develops, and you have conflicting ideas, (10:00) and they wore out, and then you have a resultant. (10:04) So Hegel will be kind of a first notch here in our historical context, and that brings us to Marx.

(10:12) I have written, Del says, about the history of this and the demonic influences upon Karl Marx before, (10:18) but to remind you, Marx bought the notion, the Hegelian understanding of the dialectic, (10:28) but he put it into his own context of competing classes of people in place of Hegel’s competing ideas, (10:37) where he pit the proletariat, the working class, against the bourgeoisie, the capital class, or the owners. (10:45) And in the Marx dialectic, that conflict or that war, the revolution, (10:53) came as a result of the proletariat rising up in revolution against the bourgeoisie, (10:58) and that would result in a higher order. (11:02) Ultimately, it would result in socialism and then communism.

(11:14) And we’ll talk in a second about that being the ultimate goal. (11:20) Communism, that is. (11:22) It wasn’t that simple to achieve, because in the Marxist dialectic, (11:29) there is a series of conflicts or crises, (11:37) and those terms you’ve probably heard a lot in the news, (11:44) because we are swarming with conflicts and crises.

(11:50) And a strategist on the Democrat side even said, never let a crisis go to waste. (11:57) So Marx and Engels believed, and others at that time that joined Marx and Engels in their thinking, (12:05) that what would really occur would be a series of conflicts, (12:10) all according to the dialectic, this idea of ideas battling each other. (12:18) And each of those conflicts would result in a little higher order, (12:24) until eventually that those series of conflicts or crises would result in utopia, (12:32) which Marx called communism.

(12:35) That’s where we are left finally with just the commune, everybody living in a utopia, (12:42) nobody owning anything, everybody having the same amount, (12:46) there’s no conflict, no struggle, and that was the utopia. (12:53) And in the Marxist dialectic, this whole series of conflicts, this whole series of crises, (13:00) one following after the other, was the stage that Marx referred to as socialism. (13:07) You want socialism? (13:10) A characteristic of socialism is conflict and crises.

(13:16) That’s how it moves on. (13:20) Conflict and crises, socialism. (13:23) And so socialism was the means that would get us ultimately to the utopia of communism, (13:29) and those conflicts and those crises were necessary in order to get there.

(13:35) But those crises and those conflicts were primarily this series of events (13:40) that would slowly but surely destroy these institutions, (13:46) the family, church, labor, community, God and man, and the state. (13:54) And so that is why you will read in Marxist writings about the abolition of the family. (14:01) It was all about the destruction of the social order, (14:05) because it was the social order, they say, that was bringing about the oppression.

(14:12) And all of those things that Marx was promising, the new gospel that he was promising, (14:18) the new utopia, would free us from all these oppressive institutions. (14:24) And so to Marx and to Marxists, a family represents an oppressive system that has to be destroyed. (14:33) The church is an oppressive system, opiate of the masses, right? (14:37) Marx wrote in his dissertation his hatred for God and for all the gods.

(14:44) And so socialism was the series of crises, whether they were brought about, manufactured, (14:51) or whether they were crises that now needed to be taken advantage of, it was a conflict nevertheless. (14:58) It would take the status quo and through that conflict provide a synthesis (15:04) that would move us onward and upward in the path of socialism, (15:09) which meant every conflict would result in a little more destruction of one of those institutions, (15:16) a little more destruction in the authority structure, (15:19) a little more destruction in the roles and responsibilities represented by those structures. (15:26) Of course, from the biblical worldview, we would say these are God’s designs, (15:31) these are God’s institutions, and that is why this is a demonic worldview (15:38) that is attempting to destroy the design of God, to destroy the institutions of God (15:45) that were created by God to bring about the fruitfulness of its creatures (15:50) and therefore bring about the glory that is due to God.

(15:55) So we read in the Communist Manifesto some excerpts. (16:00) The proletariat. (16:03) Now again, remember that Marx, when Marx and Engels were alive in the early 1800s, (16:08) there were some pathologies that were going on.

(16:12) We were in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. (16:16) The church really had not stepped up soon enough. (16:19) There were work houses.

(16:20) There were wrongs associated within the world that Marx was looking at. (16:25) But I believe that Marx then became a pawn in Satan’s hands to bring about a demonic solution (16:34) that it wasn’t a real solution at all. (16:38) But the words then in the Manifesto refer to this time.

(16:44) Continuing the excerpt. (16:47) The proletariat, the oppressed class, (16:50) will use its political supremacy to wrest all capital, all property from the bourgeoisie, (16:58) the oppressing class, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state. (17:07) Now, some people are confused by this because they understand that communism supposedly, (17:15) in the utopia, there is no state anymore.

(17:19) But remember that the means to get there is socialism, (17:25) in which the state has the consolidation of everything brought underneath its control. (17:31) That’s the only way you can reach utopia, is to have statism, to have socialism, (17:37) to have the state control everything, including the means of production. (17:42) And then continuing from the Manifesto, being very honest, it says, (17:47) of course, in the beginning, this, the seizing of all instruments of production, (17:53) cannot be effected except, these are their words, (17:58) except by despotic inroads on the rights and property.

(18:02) And a despot, by the way, is an absolute ruler who rules in a cruel and oppressive manner. (18:10) In other words, you’re going to lose all your property. (18:13) Imagine, you don’t have anything.

(18:16) It’s easy when they take it away, except the song doesn’t go that way. (18:22) And then the statement from the Manifesto, (18:26) we openly declare that our ends, the communist end, the commune that we seek, (18:31) the utopia that we seek, can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. (18:41) Well, when you read this in the Manifesto, (18:45) you need to understand that those social conditions that they’re talking about (18:50) are the social institutions that God has created.

(18:54) And it is the overthrow of his institutions that are a part of the socialism, (19:00) the means by which the Marxists would reach their utopia. (19:04) It requires the destruction of those existing social institutions. (19:12) So we look at Marx here for a second.

(19:15) If you read Richard Wurmbrand’s biography of Karl Marx, (19:19) Wurmbrand, you recall, wrote the book Persecuted for Christ. (19:24) He was active and working, trying to do whatever he could to help those who were persecuted for Christ. (19:29) He saw tens of thousands of people slaughtered at the hands of this demonic worldview.

(19:35) And Wurmbrand decided he would write a biography about Marx (19:38) because it was Marx’s worldview that was bringing about all this persecution (19:45) and death and pain and suffering that he was seeing. (19:49) In that biography of Marx, Wurmbrand even talked about the demonic influence upon Karl Marx. (19:55) He did not hold back in talking about his view on that.

(19:59) He paints probably the classic biography of Karl Marx. (20:03) And even Robert Payne, another biographer who wrote about Marx, (20:07) describes and talks about how people around Karl Marx believed either he was possessed by demons (20:14) or he was influenced by demonic activity. (20:18) Karl Marx was a drunkard.

(20:20) His son died, most believed, just because of the fact that Marx never held a job (20:26) and that his family was in continual poverty. (20:30) And yet he pursued what probably has to be at the top of the list (20:35) in terms of what we would call demonic thinking in our world today. (20:40) I believe he was a pawn in the hand of the enemy nevertheless.

(20:47) So, out of the Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, are ten things. (20:56) Here are ten things. I won’t go through these all.

(20:59) But they very boldly are the things that we’ve already talked about. (21:09) Abolition of property, heavy progressive graduated income tax. (21:14) And that was the means by which they were going to take the property away from the bourgeoisie.

(21:20) Abolition of the all right of inheritance. (21:23) And by the way, you can begin to check off the things that have already happened in our country (21:28) And number four, confiscation of the property of all immigrants and rebels. (21:35) Immigrants will give all kinds of things to you.

(21:37) But if you want to leave here, we take all your stuff. (21:41) And if you rebel, we’ll take your stuff. (21:44) Centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank.

(21:49) Centralization of the means of communication and transportation. (21:53) And we see that a lot in online media today. (21:59) Extension of instruments of production owned by the state.

(22:03) And there are several other things there. I’ll continue. (22:06) So, let me summarize Marxism as a worldview.

(22:12) It’s based on naturalism and materialism. (22:15) It’s based on the dialectic and the necessity of conflicts and crises. (22:19) And these would bring about the next upper rung of socialism.

(22:24) The leveling of people, the pitting of people against each other, the class warfare that was necessary. (22:30) Part of those conflicts. (22:32) Statism, socialism leading to utopia.

(22:35) And socialism and the rise of the state and power was the means by which they would finally reach utopia. (22:41) And to paint capitalism and private property as a fundamental evil that needs to be destroyed and needs to be brought down. (22:52) That’s their worldview.

(22:54) To summarize Marxism itself, you can do it in three ways. (23:00) First, you pit people against each other and make people believe that they’re oppressed and they hate the oppressor. (23:06) Whatever class it is that owns property, whatever class is ruling, that’s the evil class.

(23:13) Everyone else is part of the oppressed class that needs to rise up and destroy that upper class. (23:18) The second thing associated with Marxism is the notion of destroying all those social institutions. (23:26) And number three, the third thing is the new ethic.

(23:29) And if you see if this doesn’t put what we’re seeing in the legal realm today in perspective. (23:44) The third thing is the new ethic. (23:47) And if you studied any of Stalin’s writings or Lenin’s writings, this becomes even more clear.

(23:52) Some people would think it was even framed by Lenin and Stalin. (23:56) The ethic of Marxism is basically that everything that leads towards utopia, everything that promotes socialism is good. (24:08) It is divine.

It is to be pursued. (24:11) Anything that hinders that movement towards socialism is evil and must be destroyed. (24:17) And so, for example, Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, said something that is now very, very in concert with the teachings of Marx.

(24:27) In 1988, he said, what being a socialist means is that you hold out a vision of society where poverty is absolutely unnecessary, (24:37) where human beings can own the means of production and work together rather than having to work as semi-slaves to other people who can hire and fire. (24:49) And that’s the pitting of people against each other. (24:53) Of course, you can’t really own the means of production because you can’t own anything as socialism, communism.

(25:02) And the final one, and this is not to be understated, is utopia is the end game of this view that the Marxists hold. (25:14) And they hold it with fervor. (25:16) And they hold with fervor that anything that hinders the movement towards that utopia is evil and must be destroyed.

(25:26) So you wonder why some people who go out and burn cities and pillage and get slapped in the wrist don’t even get in jail. (25:41) And then you have other people who walk around the capital, are let in by the capital police, are still in jail. (25:53) How long ago was that? (25:56) Whatever promotes the movement is good.

(26:02) Whatever hinders that movement is evil and must be destroyed. (26:10) Okay, what happened is that the Frankfurt School, these were German Marxists, they moved in World War I to Switzerland and eventually came here to Columbia University. (26:23) And the key figure there is Antonio Gramsci.

(26:28) And the issue here that Gramsci primarily laid forth is why isn’t Marxism working in America? (26:38) And one of the problems was that you couldn’t convince the prosperous middle class that they were somehow being oppressed. (26:47) I mean they had running water, they had vacation, they had cars, they were wealthy compared to the rest of the world. (26:52) And so it was difficult for the Marxist proletariat bourgeoisie characterization to get any footage in the Western culture.

(27:02) And so they needed a new oppressor and they needed a new class of oppressed. (27:07) And so what happened is, and this is probably best laid out at the foot of Gramsci, (27:13) is that the new hegemony was the white upper class and the systems that they produced and any minority was therefore the oppressed. (27:23) And so for the first time in America, rather than being this melting pot of people coming in, (27:30) all of a sudden began to identify as a minority, identify as an oppressed class.

(27:37) And listen to Kimberly Crenshaw. (27:40) And I don’t want to lay everything at her feet, but most people say that Crenshaw is the founder of what we call critical race theory today. (27:50) Critical race theory is based upon Gramsci and the Frankfurt School’s critical theory.

(27:57) Critical race theory is that the entirety of the American society is based upon the oppression between races. (28:05) And that was the 1916 project’s fundamental presumption there in the critical race theory. (28:14) Crenshaw is also the author of Intersectionality that states all oppression is connected.

(28:28) All oppression is connected. (28:31) In other words, these, all these, racism, sexism, classism, and gender are different ways, (28:39) are all different ways that you can associate with being part of the oppressed class. (28:44) Because what we see in this world view is trying to do is to pull increasingly more and more people into the notion that they are the oppressed and to rise up against the oppressor class.

(28:59) And so we’ll finish the historical thing here with Patrice Cullors. (29:05) Cullors is the co-founder of Black Lives Matter. (29:11) Did I say that right? (29:13) Black Lives Matter, which brings us to the present.

(29:17) When she was asked how she would respond to the concern that Black Lives Matter would fizzle out due to a lack of ideological structure, (29:26) she says, we do have an ideological frame. (29:30) Myself and Alicia in particular are trained organizers. (29:34) We are trained Marxists.

(29:36) We are super versed in, we are super versed on ideological theories. (29:43) On the BLM website originally, there was no surprise there to find that they were talking about abolishing the family. (29:52) That has been since removed from their website.

(29:56) It’s a little bit too out there in the open. (30:00) And he has some statistics here. (30:03) I’ll just do a few because I don’t want to get wrapped up in numbers.

(30:07) But the point is socialism is gaining favor in the United States. (30:11) Cullors asked people if they had a favorable impression of socialism. (30:20) Sixty-seven percent of the progressives did.

(30:23) Fifty percent of Democrats, seven percent of the Republicans. (30:28) Those who had a favorable impression of capitalism, the Republicans 76 percent, (30:33) Democrats, it wasn’t that much different actually from the 50 percent that for socialism was 46 percent. (30:44) And with Generation Z, it’s gaining favor, socialism, communism.

(30:51) The millennials, when asked if they were likely to vote for a socialist, 70 percent said yes. (31:01) And that was up 10 percent from 2018. (31:06) I’m sorry, up from 10 percent.

(31:08) From 10 percent to 70 percent this year, 2023. (31:18) So from 2018 to 2023, it’s up 60 percent. (31:23) Well, from 10 percent to 70 percent.

(31:25) That’s why I don’t want to read these numbers. (31:28) All right. (31:30) So this is the utopia that is being sold.

(31:34) This is all in the notes, and the link is in the program that was sent out, and it will be on the website no later than tomorrow. (31:44) So if you want to see the notes that have the charts and stuff, you can go to our website, call me up, ask me, and I’ll send you a link. (31:56) All right.

(31:56) So this is the utopia that is being sold. (32:00) John Lennon, in his song Imagine, says, Imagine no possessions. (32:07) I wonder if you can.

(32:09) No need for greed or hunger. (32:11) A brotherhood of man. (32:13) Imagine no heaven.

(32:14) Imagine no countries. (32:16) You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. (32:19) I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will be as one.

(32:24) It’s a nice picture. (32:27) The Socialist Party of Great Britain wrote this about the song Imagine. (32:32) Imagine, the song, was unquestionably Lennon’s finest moment.

(32:39) Its lyrical and conceptual clarity shone sunlight of vision upon our dark and violent world. (32:45) It urged us to imagine a world without property, without religion, without nations, living in peace. (32:52) It postulated an economic order in which both greed and hunger would be impossible.

(33:03) Socialists also share this vision. (33:05) They support the cause that approaches humanity towards the goal of a classless economic order (33:12) in which wage, labor, money, and buying and ad selling have been replaced by free people working together (33:20) to meet their needs without the constraints imposed by the market system. (33:26) In short, a world of peace, equality, abundance, and ecological sustainability.

(33:34) You may think we are dreamers, but we are not the only ones. (33:37) I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will live as one. (33:43) Look up the history of any place that’s gone communist and see what it’s like.

(33:55) Okay, let me close with this. (33:57) Because we find ourselves today in a nation that has a worldview rift. (34:04) And the biggest problem with this is that it totally takes God, it’s not just take God out of the equation.

(34:13) It specifically is targeted at God and everything that God has done. (34:20) It seeks to erase everything that God has told us he wants us to do. (34:29) That’s why it’s demonic.

(34:31) It’s anti-God, it’s anti-Christ. (34:34) Okay, so let me close with this because we find ourselves in a nation that has a worldview rift. (34:40) And my position is that for the first time we’ve had a true worldview rift in this culture.

(34:47) And what are we to do about it? (34:51) Well, it brings us, and this is not a promotion of the Engagement Project, but that’s why we did the Engagement Project. (34:58) Because I think it’s the only way in which we’re going to confront the world we find ourselves in. (35:05) 2 Timothy 2, 24 through 26.

(35:09) The Lord’s servant must gently instruct his opponents and hope that God will grant them repentance, (35:18) leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, (35:26) who has taken them captive to do his will. (35:30) And this is the acknowledgement of Scripture that we are dealing with a demonic force around us. (35:38) It flat out states it is the devil that has taken them captive to do his will.

(35:45) And it’s going to be the prayers of God’s people, the gentle instruction of God’s people, (35:51) asking God that he would grant them a change of heart. (35:57) Colossians 4, verses 5 and 6. (36:00) Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. (36:07) Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, (36:12) so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

(36:17) And this is the vision the Lord has given to us, (36:20) and why he has called us to be engaged with a small number of people, (36:26) those who live around us, to build deep relationships with them, (36:31) to be diligent in our prayers for them, (36:35) so that God would begin to work in their life and open up their heart and open up their mind, (36:41) even the depraved mind, that they might begin to ask questions (36:45) that their worldview is not able to answer, (36:49) and to love them with a biblical love and to be able to speak truth and wisdom into their life. (36:58) It’s not a political thing. (37:00) We’re not going to solve this at the ballot box.

(37:05) Do we believe in the power of God? (37:08) Does God not have the power to change? (37:10) Who can change the leper’s spot? (37:13) Who can do that? (37:17) So this is the Lord’s vision. (37:19) That’s the biblical vision of how God’s people are going to impact the world. (37:24) Again, remind ourselves that we are not a people that are without hope.

(37:29) Every time we talk about each of these threats, (37:32) it is easy to be overcome by the weight of what is happening around us, (37:37) because it is happening around us. (37:39) We open our eyes, we see it. (37:42) We need to understand and realize that we are pilgrims in this world, (37:47) but we are still here, and we are placed here for a reason.

(37:52) We are placed here for a purpose. (37:54) And God has given everything that we need, (37:56) everything that we need to follow what he’s asking us to do. (38:01) And so my recommendation is to be of good hope.

(38:08) Be of good cheer, be of good hope, (38:10) even in the midst of this perfect storm that is raging around us. (38:14) Let your light so shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works (38:19) and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (38:22) And he closed out his webinar with a prayer, (38:28) and I’m going to read his prayer as we close.

(38:32) Father, we pray, Lord, that all of this that we’ve gone through (38:37) will be of value to us as we walk in this world. (38:41) We pray for those who find themselves often discouraged and despondent (38:45) in terms of what is going on, (38:47) that you would strengthen them with the courage that comes from the understanding (38:51) of who you are and who we are. (38:56) Those of us who are in Christ, that, Father, we would be ambassadors for you.

(39:01) We would begin to focus on the small number of people, (39:05) those who live around us, to build those deep relationships, (39:08) to pray for them, to seek, Father, favor in their eyes, to love them. (39:12) And pray, Father, that you would begin to stir them, open their eyes, (39:18) soften their hearts, that we might be able to speak, season our speech with salt, (39:24) so that we might know how to respond to each individual. (39:29) All for your glory, Father, none for ours, all for yours.

(39:34) In Jesus' name, amen. (39:39) The invitation is extended to anyone who is subject to it. (39:43) Come while we stand and sing.