2024 or 1984?

Jeremy Walker (00:20):

And welcome back to another episode of The Last Kingdom. I am your host, Jeremy Walker. This is episode number 20 for August 23rd, 2024. This episode is entitled 2024 or 1984. We're going to be talking about Christians and how we are supposed to approach tyrannical governments, how it affects our lives, our past, our present, and our futures, and how we can have hope rather than despair, which is too often the goals. We're also going to be doing a quick fire at the end of our main topic, discussing the concept of tyranny and the Christians' approach, and we're going to rapid fire lots of topics that were in the news and media and touch on how Christians, and specifically those Christians that want to be productive, how they are supposed to approach all these subjects, and should they even really pay attention to them or be concerned about them? Well, I want to thank everybody for joining me again for The Last Kingdom where we like to talk about faith, family, and the future.

(01:41):

This episode is entitled once again, 2024 or 1984. I recently went back and I watched, which I'd never seen before, the movie that was created, I think it was back in 1985, and it was made from George Orwell's book: 1984, the post-apocalyptic future that Orwell saw under socialism and communism and tyrannical governments and what that would look like and how they might operate. And he did have quite a bit of experience in his own personal life where these things were concerned. Now, Christians are supposed to be optimistic. Our approach to the gospel is one of victory. Christ has already come. Christ has said that he holds the keys and all authority and power in heaven and in earth. That means that yes, we should acknowledge that evil does absolutely 100% exist in the world. There are men all around the world who are trying desperately to control themselves, their environments, and specifically, other men.

(02:52):

In fact, to such a degree that in George Orwell's book and in the movie, the outcome of the tyrannical state is that if you want a vision for the future, and this was their vision for the future, mankind's vision for himself, it was to see a boot stamping on the face of a man forever. This was their sad, dystopian future. Mankind could not see a glorious future for himself. It was just all grit, it was all dirt, it was all destruction. The concept is that man is going to oppress man. Man can never find peace with other mankind. And the question has to be asked, is that wrong? Well, it's really not. Man on his own can never find peace with his fellow man because he is struggling to be God, and unless every single person does exactly what he wants, then he's not happy. And sadly the fallen nature of man, what does he want for his fellow man? He wants to destroy him. He wants to murder him. He wants to stomp on his face forever.

(04:11):

Well, I watched the movie and I do encourage you to watch it, but be cautious, dear listener and potential viewer of such said movie. The movie 1984 is very, very well done, very well acted. Story plots are fantastic, but it did suffer from the concept of what the media and movies were like back in the mid to early and late '80s, and that meant there was quite a bit of female nudity. And in 1984, this was not done for a dramatic effect. I mean the concepts of sexuality were there and to have a connection with a person that was outside of The Party, you could say, to try to have this affection that was individual to yourself was forbidden. To have a family was forbidden. Everyone could only have one loyalty and that was to The Party, as they called themselves.

(05:07):

And this is not a surprise. All tyrannical governments see as their basic standard and biggest enemy, besides being God, is the family, because the family does two things. The family, number one, transmits religion and of course it then also passes on private property. And these are two things that a tyrannical, maniacal government of men cannot have. They want it all for themselves and they want you to have nothing. Well in America today, you see this being played out, but I thought I'd touch on something that in the movie and in the book, 1984, I found to be very exciting. One was the concept of propaganda and how the propaganda worked. In every single room that any person could exist or could be in, there was a monitor of some sorts. If there wasn't a monitor, which there normally was, then there was at least a speaker. What was being played, what was being visualized, propaganda.

(06:14):

And the concept was they had to have it in front of their face 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Well, if you take that and you apply that to our modern day, where before social media, before computers, before TV, especially before the internet in particular, they had to have paper goods or it had to be over radio, so you had to have a radio in front of you in order for people to give their message to you, what they wanted you to think, what they wanted you to believe or not believe. And so propaganda is a very big tool of any government. It can be even during war times to try to dishearten soldiers and tell people you should give up and run away and all the rest of the things that might be out there. And propaganda is a very powerful tool.

(07:02):

Who you allow to talk to you is very dangerous. I'm reminded of the movie once again, Lord of the Rings, the second one, and in that movie, The Two Towers, you had the concept of the Wormtongue, and he of course was talking to the king and eventually by dripping into his ear poison, he eventually was overcome and was bent to the will, of course, of others and had taken over the kingdom. This is a good visual for us. We should be mindful who we allow to give us information, who we pay attention to, who we listen to because even if you think for some reason that it's not affecting you, it is. I'm mindful when I listen to people who I see around, and it can be at work, it can be friends, family, it could be whatever it might be, and listen to what they're talking about pretty much non-stop. And the talking points are pretty much going to be the same.

(08:00):

Whenever you are on social media and you watch videos and then you notice that later on that same day or later on that same week, someone else shares it with you so you can see it too. You start to realize that all these things are just being circulated in a very small circle and everybody's seeing the same things all the time. But what is outside of that? There's 99.9% of other things that are outside of the little tiny curated circle of topics that are out there. Even with social media, even with Twitter, which is now X, and all the rest of it, people can share their own stuff, but they still end up sharing the same stuff because of what other people are talking about, and most of it's going to be politics for the most part. It's in the political realm.

(08:46):

Almost always you're going to hear about what some person is saying, a leftist, a woke person, somebody who is trying to change America for the worst, what some transvestites are saying, whatever it might be, and it's usually something that you're against. It's not something you're promoting. It's almost always your enemies, somebody that you don't think is for you, somebody that you want others to look at and go, "Look what they said. Look what they did." And I think we're missing the boat as Christians.

(09:14):

Because what happened in the movie 1984, there was an interesting scene where the main protagonist walks into an office of one of the political heads and of course big monitor playing the same propaganda you've been seeing throughout the entire flick, and then the man gets up and walks over and he turns off the monitor. And you didn't really realize it because you've been not paying attention to it the entire movie, even as it's being played and as the actors are talking, this propaganda is in the back of your ear and you're hearing it constant all the time, constant all the time, constant all the time.

(09:48):

So whenever he goes over and turns it off, it made a very big impact in the silence that took place in the room and the main protagonist was shocked. He says, "You can do that? You can turn it off?" And the political agent said, "It's one of the many privileges that we have." They could turn off the propaganda. They don't have to continue to listen to it. They're not forced to listen to the propaganda that is being pumped into every home and every job, every area in society. They could turn it off. And it gave me a little bit of instruction about, why don't we? Why is it that we spend so much time on evil? We spend so much time listening to evil people, and as Christians, we should not be focusing on what the enemy is doing.

(10:40):

I'm reminded of the story of Nehemiah. When Ezra and Nehemiah were going back to Jerusalem, with permission, to rebuild the Temple there at Jerusalem. And of course their enemies, when they saw them doing this even with permission from the king, King Cyrus, they came in because they wanted to hurt and destroy them. When they saw Nehemiah and the Israelites building the Temple of God, restoring it to its former glory, at least a part of it, this angered them. Seeing Christians working and building something that is positive angered them badly. Now it's one thing. It's one thing that they will focus on, God's enemies, on tearing down what has been built in God's name in particular. It's another when they see good, godly Christians building something back.

(11:36):

This is a danger because what happens is whenever Christians, we build, you build yourself, you build up your children, you build up your family, you build up your business, you build up your community, you build up your church, and obviously that's going to affect your nation. These things are dangerous to our enemies. The enemies of God. They hate to see it. And there was one time when Nehemiah was building and working and his enemies came to him and were giving him quite a bit of grief. They wanted him to stop and come and have a meeting with them. And they kept bothering him and kept bothering him and kept bothering him. And one of the times they came, Nehemiah says, "Why do you bother me? I don't have time to come and talk to you. I'm doing a great work. I'm doing a great work." And as Christians, this should be our view.

(12:27):

We don't have time to spend focusing on you evil people. I don't need to talk about all the transvestites in the world and what they're doing. Let them be. We don't have to talk about all these terrible things. We don't have to argue about what is a woman. This isn't up for debate. These are not things we need to focus on. We don't need to focus on the next lie that some other person said politically to try to get elected. We can ignore them and just get to work. We are doing a great work and we can't be bothered to come to you. In the story of Nehemiah, which I encourage you to look into, if you have not read it, it then goes into they started to attack him. Well, we are going to lie about you and say that you are trying to overthrow the government.

(13:13):

You hate the king and you're trying to rebuild Jerusalem and trying to be independent of King Cyrus, and he says, I'm doing no such thing. So if you want to go lie about me, go ahead, but I'm going to keep working. I don't have time to argue with you. I don't have time to try to justify that I'm not doing what you're lying and accusing me of doing. And he just kept working. I would encourage all fellow Christians, parents in particular, you need to not worry about what's going on in the world. I think you need to pay attention... Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying turn off all of it. But if that's all you're talking about non-stop, are the evil things in the world, are you then busy in a great work or are you just busy off talking with your enemies and no work is getting done? Which is exactly what they want.

(14:05):

The worst thing that could possibly happen for your enemies, the last thing they want you to do is for you to ignore them and get to work. Building yourself, building your family, building a Christian nation that is devoted to God and keeping his commandments, giving justice to everyone in the world, and not focusing on them. They want you to tune into their TikToks. They want you to share their drivel. They want you to help them shock the world. I've heard many of them talking about how they're not really transvestites, but they do this for the shock and awe factor. They want you to be disgusted. As part of their religious belief and foundation, they need you to be shocked. They need you to hate them. But as Christians, we don't hate them. They're wrong. God's going to judge them. We wish they would not do such things, but the gospel message is one of repentance.

(14:59):

We're not coming out here just to bash you and make fun of you. Christians don't do that. We implore you to stop. Now, you're probably not going to do that, especially if you're not one of God's. You're just going to keep going where you're going. But it's not us who is condemning you. It is God who is condemning you. And we wish you would change. We wish that God would change you and help you, but we're going to ignore you and we're going to let you keep doing your thing. Now, there has to be, of course, religious foundation of laws in a country, and as Christians, we should not, at any point, apologize for our viewpoint of the religious foundation of said laws. They're not. Absolutely, they are not apologizing. Their big commentary right now you can hear in social media is we're not going back.

(15:49):

What is we not going back mean? It means real simple that a lot of evil people have made a lot of progress in America over the years, even in my lifetime, just over the last 43 years. They've made a lot of progress towards turning America into a degenerate place. They've made a lot of progress. But do you know how they've made that progress? Christians haven't been building. They cannot tear down what we as Christians build in the name of God, not going to happen. Now, God allows his things to be torn down when his faithful people have abandoned their job, their faith, and God allows it to be destroyed. In other words, if you are going to give a bad name to God, God's going to turn his back on you and he's going to let you have a bad name. Everything you did build is now going to just be trash, and when those people decide to build again, he'll be behind him and nobody can stop him.

(16:54):

The worst thing that could happen today is that Christians got serious about their faith and they just got to work. That is the worst thing that could ever happen to your enemies is that you stopped paying attention to them and you just got to work. We are going to win. We've already been told we're going to win. It's not a question mark if we're going to win. The point is that our enemies, the enemies of God, want you to be convinced that they are strong, that they are powerful, that they are potent. Well, they're not potent. They're out there castrating themselves. They're literally impotent. There is no future for these people. Give another 40 to 50 years and every single one that is a sexual pervert is going to be dead and gone. That's it. The only thing that will be left will be those people who have decided to listen to them and join their cause and pervert themselves, and then another 40 or 50 years they're going to be gone.

(17:54):

There is no future for said people, but for Christians, we absolutely have a future. We absolutely have a future. So turn off the propaganda. I'm not saying don't pay attention to it, but I'm saying if you pay attention to it all the time, that's all you're talking about. Are you spreading the gospel in your family, to yourself? Are you putting the focus on what's going to build you up? The Bible talks about the man of God who is studying the law of God, pondering on it all day long, and "He is going to prosper like a tree by the rivers of water," Book of Psalms. Focusing on evil people and the debaucheries that they are doing constantly, that's not going to help you any. That's not going to help your family.

(18:36):

In the book and in the movie 1984, there was a place for rage. In fact, there were times which were systematic. Every day they bring them into an auditorium and they would tell them who to hate, and then they would have people just screaming and screaming and screaming at this screen, and this was a way to get out all the frustrations that they had in their life, which was really towards, of course, their situation, the tyranny of their situation. But instead, they're putting all their focus on whatever the propaganda told them to be upset about. You should be upset about sin in your life. That's what should upset you. That's what should cause you to rage. In your family, in your community, in your church, in your nation. But instead, no, let's focus on the people over there. Here, look at these people. Yell and scream at the screen. It's going to help you. It's not going to help you.

(19:23):

What's going to help you, what's going to help your family is building a godly foundation in your life, in your family, and in your community. And you need to know the word of God, focus on it and you need to work on yourself. That's what you need to be doing. You have a great work to do. We're sorry, we can't come down and listen to you. We are doing a great work for God. So I would encourage you not to be dismayed. The future is not in the hands of evil men. It does not exist there. The future exists in the hands of God, and if you're one of his, you get the chance to participate in building the Kingdom of God. And your enemies are not going to be there.

(20:07):

The book, the Bible is full of references of how the evil people, their hope is gone. Their name is going to be blotted out. They will not be remembered, but you can be remembered and you can get a reward. So pay attention to what's going on in the world, but don't let it consume you. Don't let it be something that takes all of your focus all the time everywhere. Let's jump into some quick fires for the news and topics, as I mentioned before. Let's start with the UK. These are just interesting tidbits that I grab off the internet. Diners were left horrified in the UK as a naked couple walked in a restaurant and sat down for dinner. The 34 and 35-year-old man and woman sat in Cornwell for a break, and of course they sat down and the establishment decided to serve them even though they were nude. All the other, of course, people in the restaurant protested, but of course they were, as you guessed it, inclusive of all people's individuality and differences, and apparently, walking around nude is perfectly okay for these people.

(21:13):

So as Christians, what do we do about it? Real simple, ignore it. Said People hope to make such things forbidden for people to walk around in this type of nature, this is unseemly, this is ungodly and it has no place in Christian civilization. And that's what we're called to do, to promote Christian civilization. And of course, if you can't make an impact, because obviously we can't change everything overnight, just stop going there. That's a good way to do it.

(21:43):

Switching to another one, there was a... I guess it's a sticker? Yeah. On the back of a vehicle. I caught this on... I was driving down the road. It says, my kids have ADD, all different dads. I'm not sure why somebody would advertise such a thing. I guess it's to say that they're not ashamed of what they've done, that their kids have all different dads.

(22:09):

Now, there are some very good Godly people that might have kids from all different dads and not because it's a sinful situation. That absolutely can happen. A woman can get married and then her husband can die. She could get remarried, have another child from another man. He could die. She could get remarried again. Have a third child with a third different dad, and maybe this isn't a bad thing, but I highly doubt that's the case in why this person is doing this. Usually what happens with people who've committed sins is that they want to show that they're proud of them. They have to do that because the guilt eats them alive and they have to try to trick themselves and to trick others that they're really not ashamed of their sin, but they are. The commandments of God are written on our hearts. Don't be fooled. Such people need your pity, not disdain. And sadly, the woman hopefully will find God and even eventually embrace the mistakes she's made as mistakes and find repentance therewith.

(23:08):

Another little story that I found interesting as well was a woman who posted on social media a question, why the hell are men gay? Girls can also perform sodomy. What the young lady seems to misunderstand in her social media post is not that men love the concept of the perverted acts of sodomy and the cursed and diseases that come with it. Their rejection of women has everything to do with their rejection of God and their desire to show just how much they hate what God created. God created sexual intimacy to be a very good, wonderful and blessed thing, but that is not what they want. They want nothing good from the hand of God because they're in rebellion, and the further they can get away from what God has created, then the happier they are in rebellion. This is at the root of the problem of why men do the things they do and the reason why they go to such lengths, even if it destroys themselves.

(24:19):

Well, hopefully this episode here on The Last Kingdom has given you some insight about faith, family, and the future and the things that we should and should not be putting our focus on, but we should be working on living a godly life and being godly examples to everyone around us. Not to be obsessed with evil, but let us turn on the light and do some good and cast out the darkness. This is Jeremy Walker for The Last Kingdom. Thank you for joining me and God bless.