The Hegelian Dialectic, Part 1

The sermon today, Hegelian Dialectic, will have necessity have to be two parts. My problem today will be, where do I stop? I do not like to go overtime, so... And I plan for it to be two parts to begin with. This is the kind of sermon that is not for the brain dead or the weak-minded.

By weak-minded, I don't mean... I mean, you could have what my dad had a third grade education and get it, I think. But at the same time, you really have to think and to stay awake and to follow. Because to a large degree, we follow better when we're turning Scripture after Scripture after Scripture. And if he just starts talking up there, we tend to just sort of fade away. But so don't fade away on me, please. The subtitle of Hegelian Dialectic would be, How Dialectics Shape Your World. Is there a philosophy behind the seeming contradictions that permeate our world, and especially the Western world?

Or are world events merely the result of helter-skelter decisions that men make along the way? Does Satan have a grand plan to deceive the nations into worshiping him? Are we to believe that he will achieve his goal of becoming the object of worship by time and chance or by accident? This sort of happens one day, that we wake up and we all have to worship Satan. Well, despite what the Bible clearly reveals concerning the deceitful nature of Satan, we have people, apparently, who believe that Satan will achieve his goals out in the open, sort of by chance or accident.

So we tend to live our lives as if we are oblivious to what shapes our world. Satan is the God of this world. That's 2 Corinthians 4.4. Believe the Bible or believe somebody else. I believe the Bible. It says that Satan is the God of this world. He transforms himself into an angel of light in order to deceive. He feigns to be an angel of light. He feigns to be a great liberator, as you heard in the sermon at. There's no question in my mind that Hitler was, to a large degree, influenced, motivated by, perhaps even possessed by Satan the devil.

So let's note key passages of Scripture about cover-up and deception. The first one, Revelation 12.9, virtually everyone in this room who is baptized could quote this Scripture. Revelation 12.9, the great dragon was cast out that old serpent called the devil in Satan, who deceives the whole world.

He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him, the demons. So Satan is a great deceiver. His principle strategy from the Garden of Eden to the present time is subtlety. It is deceit. He transformed himself whatever way he needs to. He's like a chameleon. If he plants, he hops on a rosebud, he might be red. If he hops on the leaf of the plant, he might be green. He might look like the Geico-lizard.

So you can go any way you want to go. Now let's go to Ezekiel 13 in verse 9. One of the principle strategies along with this deception is to cover up. It doesn't really appear to be what it really is. So in Ezekiel 13 in verse 9, In mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, that divine lies. They shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel.

Neither shall they enter into the land of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord God. The prophets, the leaders, who divine lies, who say everything is all right, who whitewash what is going on. Because even because they have seduced my people, saying peace, and there was no peace. There's probably been more words spoken about peace in recent years than any other single word.

Peace and, coupled with that, freedom. And one built up a wall, and, lo, others dobbed it with untempered mortar. Untempered mortar just sort of slides off. It doesn't have staying power. It covers up for a little while. Say unto them which dob it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall. There shall be an overflowing shower, and you, O great hailstone, shall fall, and a stormy wind shall rend it.

Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be set unto you. Where is the dobbing? Wherewith you have dobbed it. So God is going to reveal all of these things in the due time, but we should not be ignorant today. We should know. Notice now in Ezekiel 22 and verse 23, Ezekiel was sent as a watchman to the house of Israel, and if prophecy is dual, in many ways, of course, that it is. Where is the watchman of Israel today? Where is the watchman for the world?

Who is really warning the world? What about the devices of Satan? What are his strategies? What is he up to? In Ezekiel 22 verse 23, I'm sorry, I was 23 and verse 23. We'll do 23, 23.

Well, I'm telling you, I've got a problem.

I am becoming dyslexic, but anyhow, Ezekiel 22, I'm sorry, Ezekiel 22 and verse 23. I reversed it. And the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Ezekiel 22 verse 22 to 4, Son of man, say unto her, You are the land that is not cleansed or rained upon in the day of indignation. There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion, ravening the prey. They have devoured souls. They've taken the treasure and precious things. They have made her many widows in the midst thereof. There are many different ways you can make widows by changing the laws of marriage. You can make widows, well over 50% of the divorces, I mean, of the marriage is the Indian divorce today. And even though the marriage laws may remain somewhat the same, by teaching a lax morality, not putting a difference, as it says in one verse down here, between the sacred and the profane. Marriage is a sacred institution, according to the Bible. In addition to that, you can make widows by sending the husbands off to war. Today we're sending husbands and wives off to war.

So it says there is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion, ravening the prey. They've devoured souls. They've taken the treasure and precious things. They've made her many widows in the midst thereof. Her priests have violated my law and have profaned my holy things. They have put no difference, no difference between the holy and profane. Recently they had a gay pride march in London, and a grandmother wrote quite a stinging letter about it. Instead of her being praised as one who stood in the gap, instead for traditional morality and many of the things that enabled Britain to come through World War II and have that resolve and will, the police showed up at her door, harassed her unmercifully, and she is still in doubt as to whether or not they may even prosecute her for just writing a letter of protest. They showed excerpts of this gay pride march on network television, where these guys were, they only had on their skivvies, they just had on brief, and I mean brief brief, shorts, and you know, had their faces painted, some of them marching, kissing each other along the way. This absolute debauchery, Sodom and Gomorrah, all over again, and you speak against it, especially in Europe. Europe's already passed the hate laws. You could easily wind up in jail, and as I mentioned last week, the hate law legislation has already been passed by the Senate, and President Obama said that he would sign it. So there's a little window here between now and when and if he signs it. Verse 26, we've already read, and we see very clearly here, there is cover up, there is deception, there are conspiracies.

stat I believe that the main reason why the beast power kills the two witnesses is because they're revealing to the peoples of the world the truth about the great deceivers, the great deception, and the great deceivers who feign to be God, the one who sits in the temple of God saying that he is God. With the advent of the internet and information becoming more and more available to the average person, you hear more and more about conspiracies and cover-ups, the corporate capitalists, the think tank intellectuals and politicians, and more are more and more alarmed by the charge of conspiracy in many areas. Now, I started giving sermons on some of this in the 70s, and many thought I was going overboard. I gave a sermon about the monetary system and the Federal Reserve, and one guy said, you know, you could be killed for what you said here today. They don't want it known. Now, all kinds of people are openly writing about it, revealing that the Federal Reserve is a private corporation. The only thing federal about it really is the fact that the President appoints the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and it's confirmed by the Senate. You know, things that used to be considered the domain of conspiracy nuts are openly discussed. I gave another sermon on the Council of Foreign Relations somewhere in the late 70s or early 80s. The Trilateral Commission, Globalism, World Government, all of that's out in the open now. Members of the Council on Foreign Relations show up on CNN and Fox, MSNBC, and they are the expert giving their view of whatever the issue is that they are discussing.

One of the main jobs of mainstream media today is to wage war against those who would dare expose the real goals of those who claim to have our best interests at heart.

They want to expose them as nuts and quacks, but instead of these people really having our best interests at heart, they really want to gain control and destroy humanity. Satan wants to destroy us. I mean, make no mistake about it. And if he's the God of this world and if people are doing his bidding, the ultimate goal is destruction. Are we really aware of Satan's strategies? How do I know absolutely that these things are going on? It's because every baptized member basically of the Church could quote Revelation 12.9 that Satan is deceiving the whole world.

But then many approach the world as if Satan is dead. That he is like he's not the God of this world. Like he's not the master deceiver. It's not like he's on a mission to have the whole world worship him.

One of the big controversies in recent weeks centers on Charlie Sheen's charge that the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September the 11th was an inside job. I'm not taking sides either way. I'm just giving an example.

But Charlie Sheen, of course, being out of Hollywood and having celebrity status and notoriety, people sit up and take notice. Sheen wrote a letter to President Obama urging him to set up a special investigation. Other Hollywood types have joined in with Sheen. I don't believe there will be any special investigation conducted. A few nights ago, well, actually it's been a few weeks now, oh, the O'Reilly Factor dedicated several minutes to debunking Sheen's quote, crazy madness. Perhaps Sheen is all wrong, but it illustrates the tactics that are used. I look for more and more censorship on the internet. China and other nations are already seriously limiting access to certain websites. They've already closed them off. The average person in many of these countries cannot access certain websites. We need to and must understand that the great epics of world history were to a large degree shaped by the prevailing philosophy of the day, the prevailing philosophy of the day. Now, if you go to Genesis 6, please go there, Genesis 6. The prevailing philosophy of the day before the flood is revealed right here in verse 5. Genesis 6. God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The philosophy was eat, drink, be married, tomorrow we may die, let's have a good time, let's live it up. It's as if God is dead and he doesn't really care. And it grieved God to the point, verse 6, that word repented there, it does not have to do with repented with evil. It means to be sorry, to be grieved, and grieve the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And he said, I'll destroy everything. And then the big but in verse 8, but Noah and his family found grace in the eyes of the Lord. You go to Matthew 24, Matthew 24, the Olivet prophecy, many of the signs that Jesus gave before the end of this present evil age when the disciples ask what shall be the sign of your coming in the end of this age, and Christ begins to speak in Matthew 24.

Notice verse 37, Matthew 24, 37, But as the days of Noah were, well, like it was back then, the thoughts and intents of the heart of man were continuing on evil, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying, giving and marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark and knew not until the flood came and took them all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. These are the words of Jesus Christ. Isn't that the words of any man? It's the words of Christ.

So hopefully we can begin to understand. The pre-flood world was destroyed by a philosophy of licentious wickedness that permeated the earth through the line of Cain. You know, Cain, instead of admitting that he was a sinner when he brought his thank offering back, you read about this in Genesis chapter 4, he brought a thank offering, whereas Abel brought a sin offering. Abel's offering was accepted, Cain's offering was not accepted. Cain became enraged, jealous of Abel, and killed him. And when asked about Abel, he said, am I my brother's keeper? You know, what's the big deal here? Am I supposed to keep up with Abel? And of course, God knew what had happened all along. And so an evil line developed the line of Cain that resulted in the flood and the destruction of humankind at that time, except for eight souls that were saved alive. The philosophical views of Aristotle and Plato influenced the culture of the Western world for centuries.

Aristotle taught that the earth is the center of the universe, and it became, in fact, to a large degree, the doctrine of the Catholic Church. When men like Galileo and Giordano Bruno came along and showed with the aid of the telescope that the sun was the center of our solar system, the earth revolved around the sun, and of course, the moon revolves around the earth. The earth rotates on its axis. When they discovered this, instead of the church, the Catholic leaders saying, oh, wonderful! Now we know the truth about these things, about the universe that we live in. Oh, no! Put them to death. They were threatened with death, and one was burned at the state. But Galileo recanted at the last moment that they say under his breath, he whispered the truth. So he was not put to death, but he was threatened with death. Eventually, the irrefutable evidence of the physical world caused the Catholic Church to change its doctrine. But some men died in the wake of challenging the orthodoxy of the day. A similar thing happened with regard to translating the Bible into the language of the common man. The Catholic Church kept the Bible away from the common man. They developed their own version of the Bible and discouraged the people from reading the Bible. Get your knowledge from the official voice, the official vehicle of the church.

And even in England, when people, when men began to translate the manuscripts into English, some, including William Tyndale, were burned at the stake. They gave their lives. That wasn't all that long ago, some 500 years or so ago.

There will be men in the Church of God who will be persecuted even by Church members because they dare to stand for the truth instead of the traditions of men, legends, and fables. Brethren, this is where it is. It is in the infallible, irrefutable Word of God.

So what about our time? What is the prevailing philosophy of the day that has wrought the kind of world we live in?

Books could be written and have been written, but few of them reveal to you what is really behind the chaos and confusion that runs rampant throughout the world, its institutions, its organizations, its governmental institutions, and all facets of society at this critical, crucial juncture of history. See, none of these really expose Satan's strategies. A lot of them expose the conspiracies and various machinations of men. But to really get down to where we've been the first part here today, that Satan is the God of this world. He's a great deceiver, and he works through human beings. Many of them are well-intentioned who really think that they, some think that they are doing the will of God. You know, it talks about in John 16, they'll cast you out of their synagogues, thinking that they do service to God.

Because, and one of the main reasons goes back to jealousy, thinking that if the truth were told, they would lose their positions.

Well, brethren, the truth about all things, you, me, and everybody else, that truth that is not hidden in the blood of Christ will be revealed. There's no way to cover it up.

So we come to one of Satan's main strategies today, and we're going to talk now, trying to get this backdrop in mind about what Satan is doing and that he is the ultimate enemy. You know what Paul said in Ephesians? We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers in high places, wicked spirits in high places. So he is the ultimate deceiver, but people can easily fall into his trap. So what does the Hegelian dialectic have to do with how our world is shaped and Satan's strategies to deceive the peoples of the world into worshiping him? Let's first of all look at the word dialectic. The word dialectic comes from the Greek idea of dialogue. In fact, in Greek, the word dia or dyah can mean two. So a dialogue is basically conversation between two people, but dialogue also can mean to argue. So a dialogue, when the philosophers got together, they often went back into it with each other arguing their point of view.

The dialectical method involves the notion that movement or progress or process is a result of conflict of opposites. So how are we going to move from point A to point B? It is through a series of conflicts that point A states a thesis, point B states an antithesis. These two collide, and they argue back in two. And then eventually out of this comes a synthesis, an agreement to whatever extent, and you move forward. And thus you have change. So according to this dialectic, that change on the world scene comes through this process of opposites opposing each other. So dialectics is a method of thinking and interpreting the world of both nature and society. Now listen to this, a method of interpreting the world, both nature and social forces. It is a way of looking at the universe which sets out from the axiom, the belief that everything is in a constant state of change and flux. You know, one of the sayings is there's nothing so permanent as change. And we hear the expression, everything is changing. And in fact, astronomers now recognize and have seen the fact that the universe is, they call it expanding, and it's continually changing as far as what we call outer space and that what is out there. But it's not only that, dialectics explains that change in motion involves contradiction. And once again, change can only take place through a series of contradictions.

So some examples at the present time. At the present time, you see contradictions raging over the Democrats' health care plan. You have even some what they call the blue bellies, the blue Democrats opposing the plan. You have a number of Republicans.

The citizenry has risen up to some degree, and you've seen the tea parties in opposition to the health care plan. So you have this set of contradictions over the health care plan.

It was released this, the House's version of it was released this week over 1900 pages. Who can read it? And if you can read it, who can understand it? Then you have the pro-life versus pro-abortion. Are you going to let them live or are you going to kill them? Put it in plain language. Pro-life and pro-abortion. These two contradictions.

See, the main difference really between the upper echelon of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party at the present time devolves down to certain moral issues.

When it comes to the greater thing about the overall direction the world is headed, it's sort of like the George Wallace quote. It's not a dime for the difference between all of them.

You have the heterosexuals versus the homosexuals. The liberals versus the conservatives. And on it goes. Now, are all of these contradictions just time and chance, or are they by design?

President Obama stated in his campaign speeches that he was going to bring America together. It would not be business as usual in Washington that he would lock arms with the common people. He would work for the common good. In short, he was saying he was going to change the way Washington works. Yet the dialectic theory of history states that change in progress results from a series of contradictions that results in a new synthesis. Has there been a period in time in which the peoples of the world locked arms together and just in unity marched toward a common goal? There's always, almost always, been a series of contradictions and eventually coming out of the contradiction. Now, there have been a few exceptions in history over this. During the days in which they were rebuilding the temple, the Restoration Temple, God raised up two prophets, Haggai and Zachariah, and the people did come together. They rallied together and they built that Restoration Temple. There have been times of war, like you heard in the sermonette, in which certain peoples rallied together and they came together for a common cause and unified they faced the enemy.

But for the most part, you've had this wrangling throughout history, and we'll see more of this.

So we could ask the question, is President Obama larger than history? In the course of this world, from the Garden of Eden to the present day, the world has revolved around competing contradictions since Satan's rebellion. Truth versus error. Light versus darkness. Righteousness versus unrighteousness. Good versus evil. God and that thin, tenuous line of Christian soldiers that you heard about in the sermonette versus the Satan, the devil, and his armies.

God is allowing contradictions to run their course. He's allowing those who do not love the truth to be manipulated and led into the grand illusion of the ages. Now, the grand illusion of the ages is going to culminate in Satan being worshipped. In which the peoples of the world will unify behind the beast and the false prophet.

And everyone whose names are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life will worship that system.

So the dialectic process asserts that instead of a smooth, uninterrupted line of progression, the progress of humankind is not in a straight line. It's interrupted by sudden and explosive periods in which slow, accumulated changes, what might be called quantitative changes, undergoes a rapid acceleration in which quantity is transformed into quality. Now, the world is in that state right now in which we have this sudden explosion in which they say that the quantity has mounted. The evidence is so mounted that the systems of the past have failed. So now we're going to move you into a new age, into a new way of thinking, into a new way. We're moving from the age of Aquarius, which was dominated by Pisces in the belief in God, to secular humanism, that man is his own Savior, that man is the one who can deliver you, and he can be the one who saved you from that which threatens you. In other words, human history and so-called progress results from a constant state of contradictions that are eventually resolved into a new synthesis. Now, the laws of dialectics were already around long before the German philosopher William Hegel, it's George Wilhelm, Frederick Hegel, came on the scene. Hegel lived from 1770 to 1830, 60 years. He was the person who systematized the principles of the dialectical method and applied them to human history and specifically government.

His philosophy was the forerunner of Karl Marx's theory of human history. Karl Marx is noted as a father of communism. It was first Marx and Engels who gave dialectics a scientific, that is to say, a materialistic basis. Now, did you catch that? In order for anything to be scientific, they would say it has to be have a materialistic base.

Through the course and annals of human history, there have been four basic systems that have attempted to explain and to answer the great questions of the ages. Now, I believe I gave you a handout back in my first few weeks here of the great questions of the ages, 15 questions. Some of the questions are, does God exist? What is God's purpose? Is there purpose in a universe? What is man's purpose? What is good? What is evil? What should be the role of the state? What should be the role of education? What should be the role of marriage and family?

The first system that tried to answer these questions, of course, was God in the Garden of Eden, who told Adam and Eve, you look to me for the knowledge of good and evil. You look to me.

Now, the competing almost immediately, the contradiction came along in Genesis 3, and Satan, more subtle than any beast of the field, came to Eve. He said, what has God told you, Eve? Well, he said, don't eat of this tree in the middle of the garden. If you eat of that, you're going to die. Satan says, you won't die immediately, the contradiction.

So, false religion, the false spiritual world, has tried to answer the great questions, and thereby, have billions been deceived. I went to a doctor yesterday in Maryland, and we just sort of accidentally got into this, and she recommended that I go to Dr. Pham. I said, well, you're a fool, and he's Pham, and he's your husband. So, I'm going to Phoo Pham. She said, well, in my culture, we don't change our names usually. We just put a hyphen there, and it says too much trouble. Anyhow, I've got to change my driver's license and all different credit cards and this kind of thing. It's just easier to do. It says, I know you're a minister, and you don't look at it the way, but I'm a Buddhist. What doesn't make any difference to me? So, false religion is a great deceiver. Who's the father of false religion? Satan the devil. A third great system that's tried to answer the great questions of the ages is philosophy. Philosophy asks far more questions than it can answer. And then now, the present god of this world is science in the sense of, oh God, we don't know if God really exists or not, but we know that we can trust science because science has brought us all of these marvelous things. And we're going to trust science. We're not going to live in the ignorant world of the past. We're going to trust science. Well, Hegel was an idealist who believed that the spiritual realm was the highest form of reality. He believed the opposite, really, of what Marx and Engels said, that the spirit world is the highest realm of reality.

Now, I teach fundamentals of theology at ABC, and part of this material that I'm presenting here today is what I present in that class concerning what are the theories of reality. Well, basically, there are two realities. The spirit world, but the spirit world has two divisions, the spirit of God and the spirit of Satan the devil.

And then, of course, there is the physical world, what we call the physical or the material world. Marx, on the other hand, Karl Marx, father of communism, was a materialist who applied Hegel's dialectic to human activity. As previously noted, the Hegelian dialectic is most often summarized in terms of thesis. Here's a thesis. Here's the main prevailing thought. Here's the antithesis in opposition to it. Abortion versus anti-abortion, pro-life, and they clash. Herosexuality, man and woman, that should be the state of marriage versus homosexuality, and they clash, and so on, the various contradictions. So Marx came along and applied Hegel's dialectic to human activity.

The thesis might be an idea or a historical movement. Such an idea or movement contains within itself incompleteness and gives rise to opposition. In other words, what we've already stated, the antithesis. As a result of the conflict, a third point of view arises a synthesis which overcomes the conflict by reconciling a so-called higher level truth contained in both sides. So it's like out of thesis, antithesis will come a higher level. Well, when it comes to the clash between heterosexuality and homosexuality, what's going to be the higher level here?

What's going to be the higher level?

What about abortion and pro-life? What's going to be the higher level?

Seems to me you're either going to believe the Bible and the truth of the Bible, or you're going to go one way or the other with that.

Of course, what is happening is that they are trying to cram down our throats, the antithesis, and make you accept the synthesis, which would be to accept everybody the way they are. And we'll get a little more to that, probably next sermon.

Now, you might be sitting there and say, this just sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to me.

But as we shall see, the Hegelian dialectic has played a large role in shaping our world. More importantly, at least a basic understanding of the Hegelian dialectic will help you to understand how the world works in the 21st century, and it is one of the main tools that's being used to sway public opinion. Karl Marx employed the Hegelian dialectic in developing his theory of economics. You might recall that Marx wrote a book called Das Kapital. It defines a theory of economics called dialectical materialism, and we commonly call it communism. You know, everybody in this room has heard about communism, and they talk about the communists and the anti-communists and the Cold War and those various things. But you know, there are very few people who can explain just the most elementary points about dialectical materialism. What is it about? What is the theory behind it? Marxism belongs to a kind of history called historical materialism. And historical materialism asserts that history or social change occurs through human forces not because of God, not because of destiny, or some unknown or non-human force. However, we know that from time to time, God does plant ideas in the minds of human leaders. He planted an idea in the mind of Cyrus, King of Persia, to let the Jews go back to Babylon and rebent the world. He planted an idea in the mind of Cyrus, King of Persia, to let the Jews go back to Babylon and rebuild, I mean, go back to Palestine, Judea, and build a temple.

He has planted ideas, that is, God in the minds of people, and especially the prophets, over the course of hundreds of years. We also know that Satan influences the thinking of human beings. So there is a spiritual influence that humans can tune into that is above the material. It is what the philosophers call the metaphysical world, the world beyond the physical. And Hegel had it right with regard to the spiritual reality is the greatest reality. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom.

Let's go to Ephesians chapter 2. We see here proof from the scriptures that Satan does influence thinking, and that every human being at one time or the other tunes in on his wavelength and is influenced by.

See, Satan has all the tools at his disposal at the present time as a God of this world. You remember that he offered Christ the kingdoms of this world. How could he offer Christ the kingdoms of this world if he were not the God of this world?

You see, the people of God today we meet in scattered places. We find halls, wherever we can find halls, and we scramble to do that. We set up, we take down, we have all kind of dedicated people who do this, many of you sitting here today, that make it possible for the rest of us to just come here as if we owned the joint and sit and enjoy Sabbath services.

But the people of God through the ages have gone from house to house assembling together. Very few times have the Christians. See, the Jews did have two temples, but the Christians did not have a building that they could point to, basically through the ages, now 2,000 years down the line. Now, thankfully, we have a few churches, even one in this city, that the Church of God owns. So to hear the Word of God, the Word of God is precious. It is so precious.

And basically, the people who hear about us today who have not had some previous worldwide Church of God experience, they are surfing the Internet. And perhaps they want to know about a Sabbath-keeping Church, or they see something, well, man doesn't have an immortal soul, and you don't burn forever in hell fire.

And what is the reward of the save? You don't go to heaven. You are changed into glorious, radiant spirit, being in you, ruling rain with God and Christ on this earth, all over this earth, out of the New Jerusalem, eventually.

And that truth is precious, and it's hard to find in today's world. But Satan's way, his spirit, ended everywhere. Everywhere.

In Ephesians 2, verse 1, And you hath he quickened, made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sin, where in times past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, that great spiritual force. It is metaphysical. It is beyond the physical. The spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. The spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. You cannot necessarily see it, taste it, feel it, comprehend it through the five senses, but the fruits of it are abundantly clear. All you have to do is go across the street. Well, across the street is a graveyard. That's where we're all going, and we're all going to die eternally, except through the grace and mercy of God. And just out the way is a beer joint. And just up the way is a flea market, in which most people today, Saturday and Sunday, are now the world's main shopping days, because their noses with the grindstone five days a week on the job.

There's a, you know, it's work and play, work and play. And Satan's way is everywhere. Verse 3, among whom also we all had our conduct and times passed, and the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. So we've all been there, done that. Now we've come out of that. Now it just grieves me to no end, and if it grieves me, what does it do to God? To see one who has tasted the marvelous gift of life, been called into his marvelous light, to plunge back into this world of darkness, that great contradiction which wars against righteousness and truth and light. Oh yes, there are powerful spiritual forces at work.

Mark's theory of history is called historical materialism because it is interested in how humans have created material culture, tools, objects, material things that we use to live our lives every day, and in how this material culture has formed the basis for historical change.

So in the next sermon, we will pick it up at that point. We will briefly review today, and we will pick it up at this point, and we will get more into the present age of how this process is working. Where you have Fox, CNN, MSNBC. They bring on their news program. Oftentimes, they have the talking head, Wolf Blitzer, CNN, O'Reilly on Fox, or that guy, Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. Anyhow, Keith, and they have guests who come on, and whatever the topic is, should we send more trips to the troops to Afghanistan? What about any issue you want to name? You have this side, you have that side. They clash, you are supposed to decide. And then, in addition to that, the audience is polled. You call in, you email us, you let us know where you stand. We will report the results of the survey at the end of the program or next program, and thereby, you are influenced, and your thinking is shaped. Maybe not you, hopefully not you, but the peoples of the world are. And finally, they come into this lockstep of, oh yeah, that's okay. Let's go this way. Let's go the way of the devil. Let's refuse life. Let's choose death. Cemetery looks like a good place to end up, you know. I really don't like it. Now, my neighbor has really dressed up for Halloween tonight.

He has witches in the front yard. He has tombstones. That should tell you a lot about Halloween.

But we have chosen a different way. We're not involved in thesis, antithesis. We're involved in the truth of God. We're involved in the straight and narrow way, the way that's revealed in the pages of the Bible.

So, brethren, let's don't fall prey to any of the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis that this world has to offer. Let's know and know that we know that we are walking in the light of God.