HomeSermonsRod Dreher
"Rod Dreher" Tagged Sermons
THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES
On the eve of his forced exile, Solzhenitsyn published a final message to the Russian people, titled: LIVE NOT BE LIES!
In the essay, Solzhenitsyn CHALLENGED THE CLAIM THAT THE TOTALITARIAN SYSTEM WAS SO POWERFUL THAT THE ORDINARY MAN AND WOMEN CANNOT CHANGE IT.
Nonsense, he said; "The foundation of totalitarianism is an ideology made of lies. The system depends for its existence on a people's fear of challenging the lies. Our way must be; NEVER KNOWINGLY SUPPORT LIES! You may not have the strength to stand up in public and say what you really believe. You may not be able to overthrow totalitarianism, but you can find within yourself and your community the means to live in the dignity of truth. If we must live under the dictatorship of lies, then our response must be: "LET THEIR RULE HOLD NOT THROUGH ME!" Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Rod Dreher in his book also titled "LIVE NOT BY LIES" writes: "A Soviet émigré who teaches in a university deep in the US heartland stresses the urgency of Americans taking people like here seriously.
"You will not be able to predict what will be held against you tomorrow" she warns. "You have no idea what completely normal thing you do today, or say today, will be used against you to destroy you. This is what the people in the Soviet Union saw. We know how this works."
On the other hand, my Czech émigré friend advised me not to waste time writing this book.
"People will have to live through it first to understand," he says cynically. "Any time I try to explain current events and their meaning to my friends or acquaintances, I am met with blank stares or downright nonsense." Rod Dreher
John Lennox comments:
"According to 2 Thessalonians, the power of the state will be vested in a man who sets himself up against God. Playing God has always been a temptation for powerful leaders.
Thus the fourth beast can be seen as the final manifestation of human rebellion against God. Both 2 Thessalonians and Revelation point out that the man-beast is energized by the dark power of Satan and is a master of deception.
Arnold Fruchtenbaum in his book "THE FOOTSTEPS of the MESSIAH" Writes about the fourth Empire, which he calls "Imperialism"
"Rome fulfilled only the first stage, and it would be wrong to assume that the fourth empire ended when the Roman Empire fell. Hence, one must ask what made the fourth empire, beginning with Rome, different from all the previous empires?
The key difference was in the TYPE OF GOVERNMENT initiated by Rome. When the Babylonians conquered an area, they did not set up Babylonian rulers, but allowed nationals to govern their owned countries. In its conquest of Judah, Babylon first appointed Zedekiah and later Gedaliah as rulers. The Medo-Persians proceeded in the same manner and allowed Jewish governors, such as Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah, to rule the land. The Hellenists worked in the same way. Instead of appointing Greek leaders, they allowed the Jewish high priests to govern the people. Rome, however, began a new system of government called 'IMPERIALISM' and this system is what made the fourth empire diverse from all the others. When Rome conquered a nation, Roman consuls were sent in to rule the area (Pontius Pilate, Felix, Festus).
While the Roman Empire initiated this policy of imperialism, it was merely the first of five stages of the fourth empire. Hence, a better name for the fourth empire would be "IMPERIALISM" or, even better, "THE IMPERIALISTIC EMPIRE."
Both Daniel passages make it clear that the fourth Gentile empire begins with the end of the third and continues until Messiah comes to set up His kingdom. The imperialistic empire is to go through five successive stages and it is now necessary to study the five stages individually to see where history fits in this development.
CREATED TO IMAGE GOD
Rod Dreher in his book titled: "Live not by Lies" writes:
"Over the past few years, America has seen the rise of a chilling 'soft totalitarianism' -something more 'Brave New World' than '1984'.
Identity politics are beginning to encroach on every aspect of life. Progressives attempt to marginalize conservatives, traditional Christians, and other dissenters, sneering at the idea of civil liberties protecting their beliefs. Corporations now censor opinions with which they disagree. Technology is inching us toward a surveillance state, and consumerism has dulled our spirits and made us willing to accept a secularism imposed not by gulags but by 'softer' means.
Despite these warning signs, many American Christians fail to recognize the dangers, and even fewer know what they can do to resist. Meanwhile, the men and women who survived communist oppression have been sounding the alarm that their souls and their liberties are already at stake."
Later in his book he makes this observation:
"The modern age is built on the Myth of Progress. By "myth," I mean that the concept of historical progress is foundational to the modern era and built into the story we tell ourselves to understand our time and our place in it. Believers in the Myth of Progress hold that the present is better than the past and that the future will inevitably be better than the present.
The myth is a powerful tool in the hands of would-be totalitarians. It provides a transcendent source of legitimacy for their actions, and frames opposition as backward and ignorant. Understanding how communists manipulated the Myth of Progress is important to grasping how today's progressives roll over the opposition.
Those steeped in the teachings of Marx believed that communism was inevitable because History – a force with godlike powers of determination – required it."
The author Milan Kundera published the book "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (originally written in Czech)
"A leftist is a shared belief that humanity is on a "Grande March" toward Progress.
The Grand March is the splendid march on the road to brotherhood, equality, justice, happiness; it goes on and on, obstacles notwithstanding, for obstacles there must be, if the march is to be the Grand March."
Rod Dreher makes this comment about the "Grand March":
"If Progress is inevitable, and the Communist Party is the leader of society's Grand March to the progressive future, then, the theory goes, to resist the Party is to stand against the future – indeed, against reality itself. Those who oppose the Party oppose progress and freedom and align themselves with greed, backwardness, bigotry, and all manner of injustice. How necessary – indeed, how noble – it is of the Party to bulldoze these stumbling blocks on the Grand March and make straight and smooth the road to tomorrow."
LTC Robert Maginnis "Progressive Evil": "In 1956 Russia's Communist leader Nikita Khrushchev said: "We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within…"
Progressives are fulfilling Khrushchev's promise by making this country impotent, a socialist state controlled by amoral wealthy elites who seek to overthrow America from the inside out by redefining our rights, our institutions and ideals."
Dr. Michael Heiser "The Unseen Realm"
"Humankind was created as God's image. If we think of imaging as a verb or function, that translation makes sense. We are created to image God, to be his imagers. IT IS WHAT WE ARE BY DEFINITION.
The image is not an ability we have, but a status. We are God's representatives on earth. To BE human is to image God.
This is why Genesis 1:26-27 is followed by what theologian call the "dominion mandate" in verse 28. The verse informs us that God intends us to be him on this planet. We are to create more imagers in order to oversee the earth by stewarding its resources and harnessing them for the benefit of all human imagers."
Rod Dreher in his book titled: "Live not by Lies"
Believers in the Myth of Progress hold that the present is better than the past and that the future will inevitably be better than the present.
The Czech playwriter and future post-communist president Vaclav Havel published an essay in 1978 titled:
"The Power of the Powerless; Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe"
"A person who lives only for his own comfort and survival and who is willing to live within a lie to protect that, is a DEMORALIZED PERSON.
The system depends on this demoralization, deepens it, is in fact a projection of it into society. Living within the truth, as humanity's revolt against an enforced position, is, on the contrary, an attempt to REGAIN CONTROL OVER ONE'S OWN SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY."
A.W. Tozer in his book "The Dangers of a Shallow Faith" writes:
"Christian liberty is freedom to live in the Spirit, unhindered by externals. Christian liberty is freedom from fear of the government, freedom from fear of your sins, freedom from fear of God's service, freedom from fear of the devil, freedom from black cats and birds and amulets and spells and charms and wizardry, freedom from religious bondage of every kind, and freedom from the iron yoke of traditions. Christian liberty is freedom to live in the Spirit and worship God in Spirit and Truth.
FREEDOM IS RESPONSIBILITY
Freedom is a MEANS to live within the truth.
As we have learned last Sunday, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian philosopher and author who wrote the "GULAG ARCHIPELAGO" and with it exposed the rottenness of Soviet totalitarianism wrote: "The foundation of totalitarianism is an ideology made of lies. The system depends for its existence on a people's fear of challenging the lies." Alexander Solzhenitsyn
In his book "The Deeper State" Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis gives us this definition:
"Globalism is a synonym for globalization, the system of global economic interconnection that is embraced by liberal groups like labor unions, climate change alarmists, and the wealthy, self-righteous elite. Many of those same advocates mistakenly claim globalization is a dispassionate concept that describes the associated increasing connectivity throughout the world that makes our lives better. That's at best A HALF-TRUTH."
"The core of the world's globalist community is a worldwide network of self-consumed elitists and their mass of naïve supporters – international financiers, the royal landowners and wealthy political figures who seek TO CONTROL EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE ON EARTH.
They use their wealth to exercise CONTROL OVER THE GLOBE'S POWER CENTERS -corporations, the media, education, governments, religion, medicine, and even the military."
In 1964, then Senator Barry Goldwater published a book titled:
"WITH NO APOLOGIES". In it he exposed the globalist agenda.
"David Rockefeller's newest international cabal (The Trilateral Commission) is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing CONTROL of the political government of the United States…
The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to SEIZE CONTROL and consolidate the four centers of power: political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical. What the Trilateral Commission intends is to create a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation states involved. As managers and creators of the system, they will rule the future."
Well, in 1991 David Rockefeller, the founder of the Trilateral Commission, confirmed what Goldwater published 27 years earlier
"We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those days."
The work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto determination practiced in past centuries."
Quoting Lt.Col. Robert Maginnis one more time:
"The problem is that most of the public hasn't a clue about the danger posed by elite globalists, which reminds me of something Adolf Hitler,
the genocidal Nazi dictator, once said about the German masses:
'HOW FORTUNATE FOR LEADERS THAT MEN DO NOT THINK.'
It's time the masses awaken to the globalist threat and think about the likely consequences of their agenda." Lt.Col.Robert Maginnis
Before I read to you her definition of TOTALITARIANISM, let me give you the definition of AUTHORITARIANISM.
AUTHORITARIANISM is what you have when the state monopolizes political control. That is also known as dictatorship – bad as this is, totalitarianism is much worse.
"A totalitarian society is one in which an ideology seeks to displace all prior traditions and institutions, with the goal of BRINGING ALL ASPECT OF SOCIETY UNDER CONTROL OF THAT IDEOLOGY. A totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than defining and controlling reality. TRUTH IS WHATEVER THE RULERS DECIDE IT IS. Wherever totalitarianism has ruled it has begun to destroy the essence of man."	Hannah Arendth "The Origins of Totalitarianism"
Rod Dreher in his book "Live Not By Lies" unmasks those people this way:
"Back in the Soviet era, totalitarianism demanded love for the Party, and compliance with the Party's demands was enforced by the state. Today, totalitarianism demand allegiance to a set of progressive beliefs, many of which are incompatible with logic – and certainly with Christianity. Compliance is forced less by the state than by elites who form public opinion, and by private corporations that, thanks to technology, control our lives far more than we would like to admit."
"Soft totalitarianism exploits decadent modern man's preference for personal pleasure over principle, including political liberties. The publish will support, or at least not oppose, the coming soft totalitarianism, not because it fears the imposition of cruel punishments but because it will be more or less satisfied by hedonistic comforts."
"Soft totalitarianism makes use of advanced surveillance technology not yet imposed by the state, but rather welcomed by consumers as aids to lifestyle convenience – and in the post pandemic environment, likely needed for public health. It is hard to get worked up over Big Brother when you have already grown accustomed to Bid Data closely monitoring your private life via pass, credit cards, and smart devices, which make life so much easier and more pleasurable.
In Orwell's fictional dystopia, the state installed "telescreens" in private homes to keep track of individual's lives. Today we install smart speakers into our homes to increase our sense of well-being."
"The death of God in the West had given birth to a new civilization devoted to liberating the individual to seek his own pleasures and to managing emergent anxieties. Religious Man, who lived according to belief in transcendent principles that ordered human life around communal purposes, had given way to Psychological Man, who believed that there was no transcendent order and that life's purpose was to find one's own way experimentally. Man no longer understood himself to be a PILGRIM on a meaningful journey with others, but as a TOURIST who traveled through life according to his own self-designed itinerary, with personal happiness his ultimate goal."
"For the first time, humankind was seeking to create a civilization based on the negation of any binding transcendent order.
The Bolsheviks may have been godless, but even they believed that there was a metaphysical order, one that demanded that individuals subordinate their personal desires to a higher cause." Philip Rieff
Rieff is famous for writing: "Even the church leaders were lying to themselves about the ability of the institutions they led to resist the therapeutic."
In 2005, the sociologists of religion Christian Smith and Melinda Lunquist Denton coined the phrase: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism
"If true freedom is defined as freedom of choice, as opposed to the classical concept of choosing virtue, then the door is wide open to reforming religion along therapeutic lines centered around subjective experience. This is why so many conservative Christians did not see, and still cannot explain, the ongoing victories of transgenderism in the culture war. The transgender phenomenon, which requires affirming psychology over biological reality, is a logical culmination of a process that started centuries earlier.
Christian resistance on a large scale to the anti-culture has been fruitless, and is likely to be for the foreseeable future. WHY? Because the spirit of the therapeutic has conquered the churches as well – even those populated by Christians who identify as conservative. Relatively few contemporary Christians are prepared to suffer for their faith, because the therapeutic society that has formed them denies the purpose of suffering in the first place, and the idea of bearing pain for the sake of truth seems ridiculous." Rod Dreher "Live Not By Lies"
LIVE NOT BY LIES
In September of this year, Rod Dreher published a book titled "Live not by Lies."
"Identity politics are beginning to encroach on every aspect of life. Civil liberties are increasingly seen as a threat to "safety". Progressives marginalize conservative, traditional Christians, and other dissenters. Technology and consumerism hasten the possibility of a corporate surveillance state. And the pandemic, having put millions out of work, leaves our country especially vulnerable to demagogic manipulation". Rod Dreher
Here is the method of resistance he gleaned from those people who lived through totalitarianism:
• SEE: Acknowledge the reality of the situation.
• JUDGE: Assess reality in the light of what we as Christians know to be true.
• ACT: Take action to protect truth.
"Though lies may conceal everything, though lies may control everything, we should be obstinate about this one small point:
let them be in control but without any help from any of us…
It is the easiest thing for us to do and the most destructive for the lies. Because when people renounce lies, it cuts short their existence." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Even if, Solzhenitsyn continued, "we do not march into the squares and shout the truth out loud… let us refuse to say what we do not think…let us each make a choice: whether to remain consciously a servant of falsehood…or to shrug off the lies and become an honest man worthy of respect from one's children and contemporaries."
Such a person, Solzhenitsyn wrote:
•will not sign, write or print in any way a single phrase which in his opinion distorts the truth;
•will not utter such a phrase neither in private conversation nor in public, neither on his own behalf nor at the prompting of someone else, neither in the role of agitator, teacher, educator, nor as an actor;
•will not depict, foster or broadcast a single idea in which he can see a distortion of the truth, whether it be in painting, sculpture, photography, technical science or music;
•will not cite out of context, either orally or in writing, a single quotation to please someone, to feather his own nest, to achieve success in his work, if he does not completely share the idea which is quoted, or if it does not accurately reflect the matter at issue;
•will not allow himself to be compelled to attend demonstrations and meetings if they are contrary to his desire;
•will immediately walk out of a meeting, session, lecture, performance or film if he hears a speaker tell lies, or purvey ideological nonsense or shameless propaganda;
•will not subscribe to or buy a newspaper or magazine in which information is distorted and primary facts are concealed.
While these are not "all possible and necessary ways of avoiding lies," wrote Solzhenitsyn, "whoever begins to cleanse himself will easily apply the cleansing pattern to other cases." And then he warns,
"It will not be the same for everybody at first. Some will lose their jobs. But there are no loopholes… Either truth or falsehood: towards spiritual independence or towards spiritual servitude. If we are too frightened, then we should stop complaining that we are being suffocated. We are doing this to ourselves …"
Paul Craig Roberts, an American economist, and a professor of economics at several U.S. universities wrote in a recent article:
"The question each of us needs to ask ourselves, and one another, is why do we get so much misinformation about Covid from public health authorities, political authorities, and press prostitutes?
We get a lot of misinformation from health practitioners, because they get the bogus information from health authorities and from researchers ASSOCIATED WITH BIG PHARMA.
Take the issue of masks.
If the masks people are wearing protected against bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens, there would be no point in N95 and higher rated masks. Medical authorities know this, so why are people told, indeed forced, to wear ineffectual masks?
Public health authorities know that the Covid death rate is greatly exaggerated. In the USA, only 9,000 were due to Covid alone.
So why do public health authorities withhold this information from political authorities and the public, and why do reporters not ferret it out? The information exists. It just isn't reported.
Covid is being used to serve many interests. Among them, Covid is being used to complete the universal Police State by digitizing money. Once electronic money takes the place of currency, checks, and coins, your financial privacy and your control over your money and wealth will disappear.
Are Americans capable of learning? How many lies do they have to be told before they begin to wonder?" Paul Craig Roberts