The Rise and Fall of Civilizations: What Can History Teach Us? - Melvin Lehman | KFW 2020

Gracious God Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name we ask Your abundant blessing upon Brother Melvin this evening. Would You be very, very near to him, Father, fill him with Your Spirit. Remove anything that would tarnish his ability, that would prevent him from being all that You desire him to be. Remove every taint, every stain, Father, and just wash him and bless him and make him a vessel for Your abundant glory tonight.

Father, would You bring clarity to his mind? He's got a vast topic, and I pray that You would give him focus so that he might know where he needs to direct his attention and other things that might need to be just lightly touched.

Would Your Spirit just guide him and bless him in every way and bless all of those who are listening and being instructed. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. So just quickly, again, there'll be a Q&A after the message, and we invite you to submit your questions. Please try to have those in as early as you can, perhaps even by 7:45 or 8 o'clock. As early as you can get those to us would be appreciated.

Brother Melvin, you have an opportunity here to instruct me, to instruct all of us. God bless you, brother. Good evening to all. In Jesus. Now, it's a real blessing to be a part of this. I'm truly honored and humbled to be asked by the committee to share in this way. You know, this meeting was held in Roxbury for quite a few years, as has already been said, and that was right in my backyard from where I grew up. But this is my first time. I'm embarrassed, and of course it is my loss.

So glad to be here. And I would like to begin with a prayer that has become rich with me. That prayer comes from Psalm Chapter 71, and I'm going to begin to share my screen so that those of you who have video access will be able to see some of what we're working on here. So on screen now you can see the opening lines of Psalm Chapter 71:17. I'd like to pray this with you and for myself personally, and I'll explain in just a moment. Let's pray.

O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth, and hitherto have I declared Thy wondrous works. Now also, when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not until I have showed Thy strength unto this generation and Thy power to everyone that is to come.

Most of you know that I've been a teacher for a number of years, and this prayer is so rich because I am not that old yet, I don't think, but I am gray-headed. And this is one more opportunity that the Lord has given me to declare the wondrous works of God to this generation, and I pray to all that are to come.

Give me a moment to start the slideshow here, and we'll move into the discussion.

So there are four questions that I have been saying have been very, very important questions that we need to be asking ourselves. And in some ways, this evening's speech, talk, teaching will surround these questions. They are, who is Jesus?

What is the church? How do you define the church? Who are its members? And I think that the question of the questions is, and who says so, the question of authority. To my back, I have a timeline, and I'm not going to for the sake of time, I'm not going to give much description there. But just so you know that I'm going to do a little bit from the Old Testament, beginning about 850 BC, and then we're going to kind of move up through and look at several different pieces of history. I should say here at the outstart, this is a really broad discussion, the rise and fall of civilizations.

So like all historians, I pick and choose among the different little pieces that have mattered a lot to me over the years and have impacted me. I realize that many of you who are excellent historians would probably go to a different place than what I do this evening. But it seems to me as though it would be very important to begin at the right place.

The most important event in all of history certainly was the incarnation of Jesus Christ. And so here just the title, The Centrality of the Work of Christ. I feel like I'm speaking to the choir, and so unnecessary to unpack a whole lot of this. But just to clinch that point, we begin there in any discussion of what can history teach us.

Just a couple of things that you see there. Any correct position on Jesus begins. He's Creator. He was incarnate. He lived among us. And John argues forcefully, we saw him, we touched him. He's flesh and blood. He died. Resurrection, ascension, exaltation, sovereign.

All of these things, I'm sure you agree with me. Hebrews 1:1 to 4, present in the creation and history. Colossians 1, capable of reconciling all things to himself. Philippians 2, that great confession, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is by all means far too short of an emphasis on that central piece, the Lord Jesus Christ. But I want to be sure to make that point here at the outset.

Then I'd like to move to an Old Testament lesson on revivalism. Now, some of you who perhaps have the outline, you're going to see me reverse a few things as we teachers do at the last minute. We switch this or that or the other thing. So I'm going to begin with a little bit of a story, a contemporary story.

Summer fall of 1966. I'm but a lad of 11 years old, and a couple of interesting things are happening in the Chambersburg area where I grew up. I'm a farm. I grew up on a dairy farm, Clyde Lehman's Dairy Farm.

Enjoyed that. 11 years old. Brunk Tent Revivals located about where the Shalom Christian Academy is located today. And my father took us to these tent revivals. And mind you, I walked the sawdust trail as an 11-year-old there at the Trunk Revival, at the Brunk Revivals, and I have never turned back from there, never regretted that decision.

As I grew older and reflected on those tent revivals, something emerged that I just would like to share with you. If you had been there in those days in the summer of 1966, you would have seen hundreds, perhaps on some evenings, 1,500 people gather in that tent. And Brother George Brunk would preach powerfully. And we were moved. And I remember watching young folks who were older than me but streamed down the aisles to the front of that tent and older folks alike as they came to the altar, so to speak, and there poured out their hearts before the Lord. This happened night after night for a couple of weeks.

You would have thought that indeed, Franklin County was right on the verge of a massive revival. And I certainly do not want to discount the good work that was done and the hearts that were stirred there by what I'm going to say here next.

But what was disheartening is it was just a few years. And mind you, that group of people, which I grew up among, actually, there came to be a great, I don't know, disintegration, perhaps is the word to use there. This was about 1968 through there. As I grew older, I reflected on that and wondered, huh, what was it that went wrong? Or maybe nothing went wrong. But it seems to me as though that group of people that birthed me and just for the record's sake, I have deep, deep respect for my roots in the conference that is mentioned here, the deep teaching that I received, the instruction I received.

It was with sadness as I grew older and realized that this disintegration, something was wrong. That sent me to thinking, and I began to wonder about the concept, the contemporary concept of revivalism. It led me to think about Elijah on Mount Carmel one day as I was meditating in the scriptures, First Kings Chapter 18. You know the story well. I don't have to repeat it, but maybe just a few of the highlights. It's an old the nation of Israel, is that a low spiritual Elijah boldly confronts Ahab, Jezebel.

There's a saga here that we're not telling the entire story, but the day comes when he confronts Ahab directly and says, "Let's have a contest.

Let's decide where this nation is going." And he laid out the conditions. They meet on Mount Carmel, and you know the story of what happened. I just have one simple point to make. In terms of revivalism, I challenge you to talk what Elijah did there on Mount Carmel, complete with a miracle, fire from heaven, the people as a group, the whole mob, if we want to call them a mob, they come away shouting, "The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God."

It certainly looked as though revival was about to break forth in Israel. And again, I do not want to discount this great story. What a story of faith in action on the part of Elijah. What troubles me is this.

There really was not much change in Israel when you study their history. This event happened in around the middle of the 9th century BC, 850, plus or minus a few years. Likely, you already know this. It's hardly 100 years, a little over 100 years. And Samaria collapses to the Assyrians.

And not long after that really is the fall of Jerusalem. Here's what troubles me. What do we learn from history? Well, what I see here is we ought not to count on some big event complete with all of the everything that would outdo anything that any TV preacher has ever done.

Have all of that in place. We better not count on that winning the day over the long run. We better count on people who are dedicated to the Lord Jesus Christ, have confessed Him as Lord, have studied their Bibles, and have committed themselves to follow Jesus at all cost over the long haul, over the long haul. Please don't hear me discounting the place of special meetings where we call people to Christ. But history teaches us something here, and that is don't trust or don't count on those periodic revivals as actually carrying the day. Israel lost, and I'm afraid we will too if we don't do the hard work of discipleship. This is a bit of a transition here, and I really, really, really need to keep moving.

So forgive me if I go too fast. I'd like to talk just briefly about four eras of peace on earth. And you historians are quite familiar with these pieces. So it's just a little bit of a framework here for us to think from. So the four, Pax Romana, the Pax Mongolica, the Pax Britannica, and the Pax Americana. You'll read about these even in a secular text.

And so I've referenced them here for a couple of reasons. I want to look at A and B in particular, well, and particularly B because that's the one that I think we are likely the most unfamiliar with. Pax Romana, approximately 200 years, 27 BC, beginning with Caesar Augustus and ending with Marcus Aurelius. And incidentally, Marcus Aurelius was probably the most systematic persecutor of Christians. There were others, of course, but his was systematic, widespread.

The 180 AD marks the end, so to speak, of the Pax Romana and a change of fortune for the Romans. First, there is the Hun invasion. The Hun invasions, the Huns were a Central Asiatic group of people, not Mongols. They were Huns.

And their pressure from the east toward the west dramatically changed things there in the Roman Empire, particularly for those of us of German background. And it's a fascinating thing because that pressure from the Huns moving from the east toward the west, pushing on the German tribes, caused them to begin to seek some safety from the Roman people. And so what I grew up in school knowing as a barbarian invasions actually were quite different than a bunch of barbarians with clubs and horns on their heads and things like that marching over the Danube and beating up the Romans. Not really. The word vulgarity that those of you have a screen in front of you that you see kind of really captures it.

Actually, the Romans invited the Germans across the Danube River, and some of the Germans begged to come across the Danube River and later the Rhine for fear of the Huns. And hence that long 200 years of German movement into Roman territory and the events that followed. Far too much there to spend much time there, but fascinating piece of our own history there. I failed to say, of course, the Bible calls the Pax Romana the fullness of times.

Great statement, and I've pondered it often. So how was it the fullness of times? Well, certainly because of the advent of Christ. But here we are, some 2,000 years downstream, and things have happened since then. Second, there is the Pax Mongolica.

And notice that we flash forward here to 1200, 1200 to 1350. In the next slide, I want to say more about that. See there the Pax Britannica, approximately 100 years according to the scholars. I don't know. I kind of think it's a little longer than that, really. But this is the British piece from the Napoleonic era up through World War I. And then some speak of the Pax Americana, the 20th century, or some think of that as after 1945. Don't have time to unpack much of that. Do want to talk about the Mongols just a bit.

As I've already stated to you, I think this is excuse me. This is an era of history in which we are not all that familiar with the events, but there's great lessons in it. I'd like to just offer a few of them to you.

Those of you who are watching the screen and the video, you are able to see an animated map showing the growth of the Mongol Empire, 1200s, 1300s, a huge empire spreading itself out over the face of the earth. And a piece of it that I want to just mention to you is you'll see as it repeats itself there how it spreads down into China.

And so the Mongolians, we wouldn't think of the Mongols as being this powerful today, but a nomadic people who rode horses and who conquered people. They spread themselves out over the world, and they actually conquered China. What you can see that I have in the text there, conquered in quotes. And I have it for a reason because I think there's an insight here.

First, just a little reflection on my own childhood. So growing up in the 1960s, those of you who remember that, you'll remember if you went to public schools how we occasionally had those drills where bells went off and whistles rang, and we dived under the desk.

And we were thoroughly schooled in the fact that the communists had their guns trained on us and that we had to be very, very careful and be ready to resist them. You remember that. Now, with that backdrop, come back here to this story of the Mongols and their conquering of China.

Think of the Mongols as people that ride horses. They know how to shoot an arrow off of a horse like not even an American Indian would be able to do. They're fighters, nomadic fighters who travel fast and rapidly over the face of the earth, conquering and destroying and looting and so on. When they conquered China, though, militarily, rather than destroy them and tear the whole place apart and burn it down, they occupied it for around 100 years. And in that occupation, they, of course, set themselves up as governmental rulers, and they get some of the Chinese dignitaries and trained government officials to help them.

Over time, they change. The Mongols become Chinese. I can't help but tell you this very, very interesting little piece. It's probably made up to make the point, but it's a good way to see it. So the Mongols, nomadic, they don't take baths.

They don't clean themselves up. They know almost nothing about bathing. Well, when they take over China and they start walking down the streets, the Chinese walk by them and hold their noses like this. And after a while, the Mongols say, "Well, what's the deal?" "Well, you ought to take a bath." "A bath? What's a bath?" "Well, let me show you."

As you might expect, as those Mongol dignitaries settle down into the bathtub and experience the warmth of water and crawl out clean, after a while, they say, "You know what? This is not a bad idea after all." Long story short, the Mongols are defeated by the Chinese. The Chinese culture captivates the Mongols, and they are drawn irresistibly toward the Chinese way of life.

My point, it's not guns that change the world, brothers and sisters. It's not horses and bows and arrows and military strategy or any such thing. It is ideas. It's the strength of ideas. It's the strength of culture. And of course, you know where I'm going with this.

What if the Western world had said to themselves, "We're Christians. We know the Lord. And you know what? If those Russians want to come and conquer us, we'll let them do that. We're not changing. We serve the Lord."

What if, in fact, that had been the approach rather than gun for gun, missile for missile, you know the story? I suspect the world would be very different. Let us not ever forget the Kingdom of God is a kingdom born of the ideas and teaching brought forth by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and beyond that. And I believe, I thoroughly believe it has the capacity to change the world. And I want to be on that side. That's the story from Pax Mongolica.

Just mentioned in passing, it is also the rise of world trade. And the reason I mentioned this is because we probably always think of the Eastern world as being a little bit backwards. But you know what? They really were leaders, at least up until the 16th century, 15th century. They led technologically. They led in a lot of ways. And the Mongolians weren't that bad. They actually made it possible for world trade to happen because they patrolled the Silk Road. And it is said a lady could carry 1,000 coins in her purse and walk the Silk Road under the Mongols, and she was safe. That's better than our world is doing today.

And I've said, let's move on. I have two stories, except I'm only going to tell one of them for the sake of time. And this is on the sovereignty of God, one that perhaps is pertinent for the day in which we live, the Black Plague and Antisemitism. And again, for those of you who are online and can see the screen, you see an animated map of the spread of the Black Plague. We've seen a lot of maps these days in respect to COVID. Well, here's one. And I want you to notice something that's fascinating. You will see every time it goes through this animation that there is a space that was not affected by the Black Plague.

You see Krakow. And if Warsaw was on this map, you would see it as well. We got focused pretty much on central and southern Poland. You see this area that was not affected by the Black Plague. But there's a story behind it, and it's kind of a fascinating one or a story that follows it.

Likely, you know that Antisemitism or anti-Jewishness or pogroms, attacks on Jewish people, were longstanding, long before the Nazis of the 20th century.

Jews were not liked. And because of their culture and lifestyle, that is tending to kind of be a separate group of people. Mind you, their communities were not affected by the Black Plague as strongly as was the general population.

Aha, speaking of conspiracy theories, oh my, they're targeted and blamed. The finger is pointed at them. They're blamed for poisoning wells. They're blamed for all kinds of things that were associated with the spread of the Black Plague. And you can read about how they were persecuted, whole groups of them gathered up in cities and burned in the middle of the city and so on. So they're persecuted. Mind you that they hardly had a haven. But those in Eastern Europe, they're around Krakow and Warsaw, Poland, Eastern Europe. They said, "Huh.

Well, listen, if you need a place to live, come and live with us." And so thousands, tens of thousands of Jews made their way toward Eastern Europe, which is the explanation as to why there was such a large Jewish population in Eastern Europe come the 20th century and the Nazi atrocities that we are familiar with. Fascinating. What was God thinking in all of this?

His thoughts are above mine and yours. His ways are above mine and yours. And so it's not that I would second guess it. But why does this plague proceed like this and then let this gap? And how is it that this concentrates the Jews? You can see my line of thinking there. God is sovereign. He will accomplish his goals.

If you're looking on the paper, you will note that the second story is the Battle of Waterloo. But I'm going to pass over that story. Essentially, though, maybe I would want to say to you, to us all, that we ought to be careful about the heroes that we embrace in the stories that we read.

History makes out that there were these great men, be they politicians or army generals or this or that, who were the movers and shakers of the world. Give credit where credit's due. But then remember this. If you read almost any of these stories with some care, almost every one of them has embedded in them somewhere an event that clearly was from the hand of God, His sovereign will at work. The short story in the Battle of Waterloo has a tremendous amount of rain on the eve of the battle, delayed the action of Napoleon, and likely was the decisive point that meant his defeat there, not the wisdom of the Duke of Wellington. Credit where credit's due.

But still, the main event was that rain. That's the kind of stories I love to tell my students and then point to say, who is sovereign in history? Who rules history? It is God. And perhaps I will say to us Americans, let us remember in this very difficult time politically and a great deal of confusion and all of that, our call, the call to us to pray for our leaders and to remember that Jesus Christ is Lord. He's sovereign of the universe.

And in fact, He will bring to pass that which is in His heart and mind to do in the days ahead. Let us never waver from our confidence in that great truth. I'd like to transition now to a few defining eras in church history, in church history particularly. And just think about those. You'll see two of them in yellow. And I put those there particularly because I'd like to emphasize them rather than the others. However, just a quick run-through here. So the Constantinian heresy. And again, likely most of you are familiar with this, fourth century. And clearly, the wedding of church and state and a confusion about what it means to follow Christ begins to emerge, a massive confusion.

I personally think that one of the greatest heresies that hit the face of the earth, that hit Christianity, began here when the position was rejected that Jesus, where Jesus taught unconditional love for one's foes, friends, so forth and so on. This was the beginning. A second pivotal point was the rise of Islam, the sixth and seventh centuries.

One could likely make an argument, I think, that Islam may have died of its own if it had not been that Christians decided to meet Islam on their own terms, violence with violence. One wonders again, what would have happened if, in fact, Christianity in the sixth and seventh centuries, when this movement was beginning, Islam was beginning, if the message had gone out all over the world that we Christians will have nothing to do with, I guess at that time, spears and lances and weapons of that sort will have nothing to do with it, our Master has taught us otherwise, our Lord has directed us otherwise. One wonders what would have happened instead of the event that I wish would have happened.

And that is that the hearts of the world would have been won by people who love unconditionally. Rather than that, you see the Crusades, 1100 to 1300. Every time I teach this to my world history students, every time I read this story, I weep. I really do.

How is it that over 200 years, the best of Christianity, the cream of the crop, even Bernard of Clairvaux, joins in this effort to bring war against the Islamic people there in the Middle East? Oh my, it just troubles me deeply, troubles me deeply. One wonders again how the world would be different today if Christians would have lived out what Jesus actually taught.

You know and I know that the Islamic people have never forgotten this event, 1100 to 1300 AD. The Reformation, I'm going to talk about that here in just a moment, and the Great Migration to the Americas and World War I. So we'll take those three and think about those a bit. The Reformation, some fascinating things to be learned there.

I recently read in this text A History of Christianity by Paul Johnson. I'm not exactly a Paul Johnson fan, but I find it fascinating to read from different perspectives. And what really fascinated me as I looked at the index, at the chapter titles and so on, when it got to the Reformation, he speaks there of the third way.

And I was so excited because I thought, oh, Paul Johnson gets it, that there really was this third path that the reformers took, that they sometimes call the Anabaptism. Well, mind you, when I got to this section and began to read there, he really identifies the third way as the way of Desiderius Erasmus. Now, I have long been fascinated by Erasmus's doctrine and position and in many ways have deep respect for the position. I was hoping that Paul Johnson would actually follow through and make the connection to show that if there was anybody who carried forward Erasmus's ideas except for staying in the Catholic Church, it certainly was the Anabaptist.

Hardly a word. I was disappointed. Need to let that alone. The four tenets of the Reformation, you can see listed here. I am not going to talk about these at length. I think that you are familiar with them. The fourth one I do want to point out to you, the Bible is final authority in questions of doctrine and practice.

I'll pick up on that here when we look at the unintended consequences. Lessons from history, listen carefully. Decisions are made. People do things. Sometimes they think they're very right and preach so and seem to have no concept of the unintended consequences. What may happen? Have we thought through the issues? Now, I want to be clear.

We can't possibly know everything ahead of time. We have directions in scripture. And I happen to have confidence that if we follow the directions that Jesus has given and if we walk in His footsteps, those consequences that follow are in His hand and He will care. He will see after them. I sometimes wonder, though, if we just don't think deeply enough. Look at these. If you have a paper in front of them, you already see them. Mass education became an ideal and goal number one. I'm reading these for those who may be listening and have no access to print or anything. Two, the exaltation of the individual personal conscience trumps group consensus. Third, the promotion of democratic ideas.

Fourth, the exaltation of the family built on romantic love. That's a fascinating one. Not going to build on it at all this evening. Fifth, the separation of church and state in matters of government. Sixth, the dignity of the laboring man. Vocation is holy. Seventh, laity participation in worship, the rise of humility. Whatever issues we may have with Martin Luther, we need to give him credit here. He worked hard on this point.

Eighth, the birth of denominationalism. Ninth, seeds of nationalism. Tenth, the seeds of socialism. A little time to develop all these two, all these, just looking at two of them, two in eight. Number two, the exaltation of the individual personal conscience trumps group consensus.

Little time to develop this, but very, very fascinating. I'll just go to the bookend. So early on, this felt like great liberation and likely was. Now, the individual needs to learn how to respond to God and to His word. Amen. On board. If we carry this forward into the 20th century, this meant that there was this ended up being a redefinition of salvation in some ways, I think, that are problematic and troubling. Not time to develop that, but think on this. You know and I know that we struggle with this today.

And it goes back to some of these things. Number eight there, the birth of denominationalism. Remember that the fourth tenet of the Reformation was that the Bible is final authority in matters of practice and doctrine. Wow, that answers all the questions.

And I can just feel the euphoria of those who set the idea forth because there's a great sense in which it's true. But by now, we know that that simple statement is not a cure-all. The question is, remember, who's interpreting? Who does say so at the end of the day?

And today, we have multiple interpretations and understandings of the scriptures. And it has resulted in denominationalism. Now, again, it would be interesting to explore this at length. But if I go back to Erasmus for a moment, and here's where I have a heart for Erasmus.

He was one of the only leading reformers who got it. Why did he never leave the Catholic Church? And mind you, I'm not defending him for not leaving. That church had issues. He was not sure how you could actually move away from the Catholic Church or from the established church into this new system of thought without somehow having anarchy in the church. He never could resolve that in his mind.

And so he said to his fellow reformers in so many words, "Brothers, I understand. I understand, but I fear that if you keep following this path, you're going to end up with an endless," and he didn't know the word, "I'll fill it in, denominations."

Ha, this is something that we should think about.

8 o'clock. And Brother Brian said I could go to 8:10. So I'll just need to keep moving. Here's something fascinating for you. So the Great Migration, I don't know if you've ever thought of this or not, but the movement of white Caucasian Europeans from the Old World or Europe to America is almost unmatched in history unless it would be the movement from east to west and into Siberia by the Russian peasants.

But a fascinating, fascinating thing, this migration. And chief among it, and this is just kind of extras for you for today, you'll see here a marker. Mind you, I'm about two hours from it. It's down here at East Liverpool, Ohio, right on the border of Pennsylvania and Ohio, where the Ohio River passes through. It's the marker where the American surveyors began to survey the west.

Now, the actual marker is in the middle of the river, they say these days, but nobody goes to see this marker. It would be worth seeing it. If you look at the picture there on the right-hand side, you will see there that patchwork there in Ohio and Indiana and places like that, all those squares that emerged there. Here's what I'd like to say to you about it. This was the greatest land sale that the world had ever seen. I think I have in my notes something like this, the end of nobility and feudalism and a fascination and opportunity for personal property for the penniless. This was the first time ever in the history of the world in a massive way that a government put up land for sale and made it possible for the average person, for almost the penniless person, if he had a will to work, he could buy some land, mind you, live on it, improve it, and it was his.

This was the genius of the movement west. And here, it's really hard for me not to get onto one of my hobby horses, which is you see all those little pieces of land? Aha, a new nobility is arising, the great landowners of the west.

Oh my, you know where I'm headed there, those of you who know me.

The demise of the small farmer in America is a mistake. The demise of the small farmer in America is a mistake. I'll let it at that for you to consider. Fascinating to me. Enough for the Great Migration, but consider it.

World War I is a real transitional point. Francis Schaefer was probably the person who kind of clued me into this to begin with. And as the years have gone by and I've thought over this and talked my way through World War I, you can't miss it. You can just simply look at the change in dress, women and men, from prior World War I to post-World War I, a dramatic change of events during this period of time.

What were some of the things that happened? Again, not enough time to say much about these, but humanism comes to maturity. Why do I say this? Well, Charles Darwin had published On the Origin of Species in 1859. It became popularized among intellectuals, but not the general population.

The big arguments among the masses begin after World War I. And humanism really has a heyday and becomes widespread. Nationalism bears fruit. Most historians will trace the rise of modern nationalism back to the Napoleonic era going forward. But there is no question that German nationalism, as it came into World War I and after World War I, wow. And let us not be fooled.

We are subject to this phenomena way more than what we think. I have been dismayed at times at the level at which we are willing to align ourselves with the American military. Oh, really? Ought we not to rethink this a bit? Brothers and sisters, never forget, we are first citizens of the Kingdom of God.

And of course, we do our duty as American citizens. I have no doubt about that. But let us not be drawn into this scandal. Let us not be drawn into this spirit that is upon our nation and the world that we are witnessing in our day. Enough said. Socialism becomes the socioeconomic norm.

Those are two big of words. I shouldn't have used those. But in general, we're seeing this today. Let me just say this for whatever it's worth. Aside from all of the issues associated with COVID-19, my greater concern is the great opportunity that has been opened for the advance of socialism in America. This happens to be close to my heart. And I want to say just a few words about it. First, we ought not to forget that Nazi Germany, you know, that Nazi actually stands for the National Socialist German Workers' Party.

And you would do well to look at that agenda sometime. But why do I say this? And how does it affect us? And why should we care? Well, a few notes here, but I don't have time to look at these except to say just one word on it. Henry VIII confiscated church property in England. That included the monasteries and the convents.

Before the rise of governmental socialism, the social relief was offered by the church primarily through monasteries and convents. So if you were traveling somewhere and got sick, you stopped at a monastery. If you were an orphan, you had a good chance of getting care at a convent and so on.

The changes that happened during the Reformation, there were more than meets the eye. One of these was the confiscation of church property in the end of that. Well, what did that mean? Well, it meant a receding influence of the church in the rise of a new savior, government care and protection. Now, what I'm going to say next, I can say fairly, I pay Social Security. I can receive Social Security. I am 64 years old. I turn 65 in November. But I want you to hear me on this. I have come to believe that we have been drawn into this system way too far. I really have.

Consider our fascination with retiring. I don't want to kick shins. I don't want to step on toes. But you know what? I'm not planning to retire and buy a cottage in Florida and move there. Deep respect for those who see otherwise. But I think it's a mistaken view. I really do. In fact, I guess I'm going to have to agree with the Amish. They're basically right. Consider what the church has done with the elderly. I won't mention any of these old people's homes by name, but there are several that I have been acquainted with, and I am astounded at what has become of Mennonite elderly care homes, the lavishness in many things that are associated with there.

For me, I don't plan to retire. For me, I hope and pray that my children will care for me as I grow old. For me, I have two words for the socialization that is going on. They are get out. We need to get out. Strong words, but I'm saying it. And I hope a conversation can grow up around some of these things.

Fourth, the 20th century, in my estimation, has been an unmitigated disaster toward paganism. Sometimes we get tossed about with this thing of our conservative lifestyle. I, for one, am so delighted to be a part of a group of people who have not caved in to paganism. But I need to let that so I can finish. I have four points to make to you. And so here are four things I would like to suggest that we maybe can learn from history. First, any genuine expression of Christ following must embrace radical, unconditional love that is being perfected in Jesus. Why that perfected in Jesus? Look, I confess to you, I'm still learning what radical, unconditional love looks like.

But let us never forget the position that we have taken, call it non-resistance or give it whatever name that you want to. It is the right position. It is what Jesus taught. In a Christianity that does not embrace it is at least suspect.

I want to say that kindly, but I want to say it clearly. Second, any genuine expression of Christ following must come to terms with the socioeconomic dualism that we have bought into. I just mentioned a piece or so of that. And again, too big of words here. But basically, what I mean is the playing games with kingdom economics and this world's economics and culture and lifestyle and everything that is associated with that. We must stop that. I call it dualism. And we must become single-minded on this position. Third, the future of Christianity lies in its capacity to create kingdom communities that are relatively close communities who, with open hearts, are prepared to love their neighbor as themselves all over the world.

I would love to unpack this with just a brief comment on close communities. By that, we need to recover, I think, maybe not the Hutterite lifestyle, but living in compact communities that actually do represent here is a group of people visibly living together on the face of the earth in love and brotherhood. And the rest of that is suggesting that that doesn't mean we've closed ourselves off. In fact, the goal is to open our arms to the disenfranchised of the world.

Close, protective. We're followers of Christ, arms wide open to the disenfranchised of the world. And fourth, and I say also unto the Jesus speaking, that thou art Peter. And upon this rock, I will build my church. In the gates of hell, shall not prevail against it. Simple statement here is, let us recover a love for the body of Christ. Let us bind our hearts together for the cause of Christ in this our day. And let it be visibly done in our churches where we gather together and sing and pray and once again open our doors to the needy of the world. And with this, I close.

God bless.

Thank you for that presentation, Brother Melvin. You're welcome, brother. Good to see you again. Good to see you too. That was stimulating and engaging. It occurred to me that you seem to think that the Kingdom of God has the answers for the world's problems as I listen to your message. I do. Would that be correct? Yes.

Well, we had an engaged audience also. And we've had a number of questions coming in. And my thoughts go back to what you stated at the beginning from that prayer in Psalm 71 about when I'm old and grayheaded, I want to show your strength to this generation. So I know some of our listeners are on the telephone and can't see you. But for their sake, I'll just affirm that you are grayheaded. You said you weren't old. And it's a privilege to be able to ask questions of someone who's seen a lot of things and has a wider perspective on history than those of us who've only lived a few years.

So we have some good questions here. And I'll just start with this one.

Do the periodic revivals that the church has experienced play a role in sustaining the church over the long haul?

Yes. I want to be very clear that they certainly have. What comes to mind immediately is the Wesley revivals. But I would again point out that the Wesley revivals were long-term over a great period of time and not so much a, what should I say, a highly publicized event.

However, the Moody revivals here in America and so on certainly have played their place, even have had their place, even as Elijah's revival, so to speak, there on Mount Carmel. I hope that I had said enough to make it clear that I did not intend to throw cold water on events that God has used in His own special way to accomplish His purposes. What I did intend to say is that the long-term health of the church should not is not dependent.

We should not expect those periodic revivals to sustain her over the long haul. I think it is more the one-on-one discipleship that happens in local congregations on an ongoing basis.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you for that. Jesus came to make disciples, didn't He? Amen. And didn't He tell us to go out and make disciples too? Amen. Amen.

Well, good. This is hard work. This is just hard work. Yeah, that's for sure. Well, the animation you showed of the Black Plague sweeping over Europe generated a couple of questions. And I'm just going to summarize those.

Why was that area of Poland not affected by the Black Plague? And were the Jews protected by the application of biblical hygiene and quarantine?

The second question is the easiest one to answer. The answer to that is, yes, clearly, their practices of hygiene in particular and to a certain extent, quarantine because of their communities played a role in their not being affected by the plague as much, at least as others. The first part of the question is still unknown. Historians have made guesses at why Krakow and Warsaw and the surrounding areas were not affected. But there has never been anything conclusive that I know of. And I attributed the sovereign hand of God. Are you able to hear me?

I can hear you. You can't hear me?

I can hear you. I can hear you fine. Yeah. You dropped out for a bit there. But I think it's my connection. Okay. Back on? Yes. Okay. I just simply said that I attribute it to the sovereignty of God and cannot give you data as to why it did not affect them.

Yes. Thank you. It was interesting to me, Melvin, to notice that there was also a much smaller area in northern Italy, maybe around Vienna. That's right. You're right. So in the Pyrenees between Spain and France, where there didn't seem to be any of the Black Plague, at least a very strong incidence of it. You're very observant. Good.

Okay.

Moving on to some questions about how the social forces have shaped the world and are affecting us. Is Soviet Marxism an example of what happens when the Gospel "is communicated without the full Gospel of non-resistance and non-accumulation of wealth"?