This is the Heritage Foundation's description of a conference coming up in 2019 (it is "secular", not Christian, but is a politically/culturally conservative think tank) and I thought that their view was such a juxtaposition from that of the Evangelical Machine (TGC, T4G, Keller, Piper, MacArthur, Ron Burns, Chandler, Mohler, etc). When you push for sodomy and feminism and when you tolerate divorce and pedophilia, you automatically attack God's nature and order of things, because you are rebelling against what He has deemed right and proper (Gen. 1, Matt. 19, Rom. 1, 1Tim. 2, Titus 2, 1Cor 14). As a matter of fact, the foundation for all false teachers and their teachings is a low regard for God's Word and a high regard for man's.
"Socialism is a distortion, in a collectivist direction, of human beings’ natural need for familial connection with others. But socialism and the family are incompatible. The family requires independence from governmental interference in order to flourish, and parents know its needs better than government officials can. Meanwhile, the breakdown of the traditional family leads to greater need for state assistance. The ethos of self-gratification that weakens commitment to the family also leads to increased desire for services from the state. Hence it is no accident that, historically, advocacy of socialism has always tended to go hand in hand with hostility to the traditional family structure. Anyone opposed to socialism should defend the traditional family and anyone concerned to defend the traditional family should oppose socialism."
“You cannot subsidize irresponsibility and expect people to become more responsible.”
- Thomas Sowell
This is why Scripture teaches against socialism. God demands man be responsible for himself and said if you aren't willing to work, you don't get to eat. Man is to work with his own hands so he can provide for his family and the needy (true needy) especially in the local church. Marxism is opposed to biblical Truth. It is godless, idolizes the government and is corrupt. It's leaders have oppressed, starved and murdered millions of people over the years. While promising equality and justice, it is anything but.
What is the answer to this? Solo Scriptura: Scripture only. Obey the voice of the King of kings, for He has already commanded by way of the apostle Paul:
Col 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
2Co 10:5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
This necessarily means guarding your mind against such things by not spending time in such foolish empty garbage--the trap set by the enemy to seduce minds by appealing to the intellect. It is nothing more than standing there and considering the ancient serpent's claims he made to Eve, "Hath God said?" as he appealed to knowledge OUTSIDE of God's Word.
1Th 5:22 abstain from every form of evil.
1Th 2:9 For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.
Eph 4:28 Let him who steals steal no longer; but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who has need.
2Th 3:7 For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you,
2Th 3:8 nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we might not be a burden to any of you;
2Th 3:9 not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, that you might follow our example.
2Th 3:10 For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone will not work, neither let him eat.
2Th 3:11 For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.
2Th 3:12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.
1Th 4:11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
Eph 4:28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Rom 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
Mar 14:7 For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have Me.
1Ti 5:8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
1Ti 5:16 If any woman who is a believer has dependent widows, let her assist them, and let not the church be burdened, so that it may assist those who are widows indeed.
Pro 18:9 Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.
Pro 20:4 The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.
Rom 14:12 So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
1Sa 8:10 So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking for a king from him.
1Sa 8:11 He said, "These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots.
1Sa 8:12 And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.
1Sa 8:13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.
1Sa 8:14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants.
1Sa 8:15 He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants.
1Sa 8:16 He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work.
1Sa 8:17 He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.
1Sa 8:18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day."
"I fear lest in any of you there should be even the least measure of despising the one lost sheep because of the large and philosophical methods which are now so loudly advocated. I would not have you exchange the gold of individual Christianity for the base metal of Christian Socialism. If the wanderers are to be brought in, in vast numbers, as I pray they may be, yet must it be accomplished by the bringing of them in one by one. To attempt national regeneration without personal regeneration is to dream of erecting a house without separate bricks.In the vain attempt to work in the gross, we may miss the practical result which would have followed working in detail. Let us settle it in our minds that we cannot do better than obey the example of our Lord Jesus given us in the text and go after the one sheep which has gone astray."
~Spurgeon, "One Lost Sheep", April 28, 1889
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