How Unbiblical Morality Results in Unbiblical Economics

How unbiblical morality results in unbiblical economics. That is a topic we'll discuss today right here on the Christian worldview radio program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. I'm David Wheaton the host and our website is thechristianworldview.org. Special thanks to you, our listeners, for your listening and supporting the Christian worldview and also our national sponsor Samaritan Ministries who provide a biblical solution to healthcare. I just want to add one thing about the sponsorship of Samaritan Ministries for this program that I am not personally paid to promote Samaritan Ministries. In fact, we are full paying members with Samaritan Ministries.

We simply like what they offer. We contacted them because we thought our listeners would benefit from the excellent healthcare sharing program that they provide. You can find out more at our website thechristianworldview.org or just by giving them a call at 1-877-691-1625. Speaking of healthcare situations, a tragic story came out this week about Franklin Graham, the head of Samaritan's Purse. By the way, no relation, no correlation between Samaritan's Purse, which Franklin Graham runs, and Samaritan Ministries International, which is a healthcare sharing organization. But Franklin Graham had said on Facebook back on October 21st, he wrote this, quote, I'm fully vaccinated for COVID with a booster, and I'm glad I took it. However, there are others who feel just as strongly against taking the vaccine, even though I don't agree, I respect their right to their opinion. And then he said this recently in an interview he did. I want people to know that COVID-19 can kill you, but we have a vaccine out there that could possibly save your life.

And if you wait, it can be too late. Well, as a follow up to that, just this past week on November 9th, Franklin Graham posted on Facebook, he said this, quote, yesterday, I underwent a specialized heart surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I had developed constrictive pericarditis, which is inflammation and hardening of the sac around the heart that compresses the heart and prevents it from working properly. The surgery involved removing the pericardium, and we thank God that it went well. My doctor said I should expect a full recovery and be able to return to my normal ministry schedule. I look forward to many opportunities around the world in 2022 to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and invite people to put their faith and trust in him. I'm also looking forward to being able to ride my motorcycle by the time warm weather hits. I appreciate everyone's prayers.

And we would certainly encourage you to pray for Franklin Graham. Sounds like a very serious surgery. Sounds like he won't be back on his feet fully until warm weather hits.

I'm assuming that he means by next spring or summer sometime. We have no information that this surgery that he had was a result of his COVID injections or booster shots, but you hear of these kinds of heart problems with people who are getting these COVID injections. As a matter of fact, I read on the Patriot Post this week in an article by Lee Miller, according to VAERS, which is the adverse event reaction site from the CDC, COVID-19 vaccinations, I'm quoting here, account for 9,400 over that amount adverse event deaths in 2021 so far. That is a whopping 96% of the total for all vaccines, making them orders of magnitude more dangerous than other well-tested vaccines. As I said previously, these reported adverse events and deaths are probably far lower than the real number because the medical industry is so reticent, so resistant to having negative information come out about taking these. So just listen to what Dr. Peter McCullough recently said when he was interviewed on the Alex Jones radio program about the danger to the heart from these so-called COVID vaccines and the medical establishment's complicity in covering up the danger. In a paper by Voleo and colleagues, it's clear the spike protein does damage the heart through pericytes.

I think it's unequivocal. The U.S. FDA, all the other regulatory bodies have warnings. Pfizer and Moderna cause myocarditis.

I think everybody should understand this. Myocarditis is heart injury. I've seen it. I've reported it to the CDC. I've had CDC officers call me and verify it.

This syndrome is not mild because it requires hospitalization. We have a situation where bioethics is off the rails. Parental rights are now taken away and children are going to be faced with a potentially fatal decision.

We've never seen this ever in human history. And so the deception and delusion continues on COVID-19. Our whole goal has been to try to give you what we find to be the most accurate information so you can make informed decisions about your health care. Now, we need to transition to the topic of the day here. Last week we talked about the Reformation and how impactful that was, of course, on the Church with a new branch of Christianity splitting off from Roman Catholicism. And also beyond that, the impact that the Reformation had on Western civilization in Europe and then eventually in America. Here's what Dr. Stephen Lawson said last week about how significant the Reformation was to basically every aspect of life and for our conversation today to economics as well. And so the Reformation was a huge deal, not a small deal. It was a massive deal that began in the Church and then swept through the culture and swept through society. And it radically altered education and schools, the work ethic, the economy, politics, caring for people, hospitals, on and on and on and on.

It was a top to bottom, across the board effect. Before the Reformation, there was a very low work ethic. There were trade guilds and trade unions and people did as little as they possibly could just to get by.

There was no incentive to work hard. And then Calvin begins to preach, you must do your work as unto the Lord, that you must give your best effort. And the care now as people put their shoulder to the plow and began to work hard because I'm doing this for the glory of God. And they believe that on the last day there would be an inspection of their work by God and that mediocrity would be a cause for shame on the last day.

That they must give themselves to study and to hard labor and work. And it just literally turned the Western world upside down. And then now began to invest resources into businesses and projects because they believe that by faith, if we invest our money and they saw the banking parables in the Gospels, that it would help others and yield a return for their family.

And there began to be this boom. Again, that was Dr. Stephen Lawson talking about the importance and significance of the Reformation. You could really say what's going on in America today is a rejection of the Reformation because the Reformation was a return to biblical accuracy. America has been the greatest creator of wealth in human history of any nation ever.

Why? Because the biblical view of work and incentive, the free market principles of economics, that's what created the engine for the incredible wealth that's been generated within this country. Now, morality is the judgment between what is right and what is wrong. And economics is how money and goods and services are used and exchanged. Now, while morality and economics may not seem related, they are actually linked. Because when moral judgments are made about any given issue, economic decisions follow to support those moral judgments. So, for example, abortion is viewed by our government as morally good. And so, therefore, economic policy is made to fund the killing of the preborn and the postborn. That's how economics and morality are linked. So, it's no coincidence that as America's judgment of what is right and wrong has moved away from biblical morality, our economic policies have gone the same direction. Government, rather than the individual, is now viewed as the best caretaker for the poor, the needy, and the unemployed. Government is seen as the solution to inequality, education, health care, and the environment.

And so socialism, which is basically strong governmental ordering of society, is ascending in this country, while capitalism, which is based on individual liberties applied to the markets, is slandered as, quote, selfish, greedy, and immoral. Cal Beissner, author of Biblical Foundations for Economics, joins us today in The Christian Worldview to discuss how economic principles and policies need to be based on the Bible to achieve the greatest human flourishing. The Christian Worldview with David Wheaton returns in just a moment. Psalm 46 starts, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change. The earth is changing.

A strong delusion has bewitched the leaders and peoples of this world. So what's a Christian to do? Focus on the most important thing, God and His perfect and powerful attributes. Our new featured resource is Dr. Stephen Lawson's book, Show Me Your Glory, Understanding the Majestic Splendor of God. For a limited time, we are offering Show Me Your Glory for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview.

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Your email and mailing address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time. Call 1-888-646-2233 or visit thechristianworldview.org. Welcome back to The Christian Worldview. Be sure to visit our website, thechristianworldview.org, where you can subscribe to our free weekly email and annual print newsletter, order resources for adults and children, and support the ministry. Now, back to today's program with host David Wheaton. Cal, thank you for coming back on The Christian Worldview today.

You've been on the program many times over the years. I want to start out with a quote directly from the booklet. The classic definition of economics, writes Thomas Sowell, who's a very notable economist, I might add, conservative, in an introductory textbook, is that it is the study of the allocation of scarce resources which have alternative uses. Then you say economics does study the allocation of scarce resources that have alternative uses, but it does much more also. Indeed, precisely that definition of economics leads many people to the mistaken conclusion that our only option in this world of scarcity, limited resources, is to divide a pie of unchanging size among the various people who want pieces of it, and that for this reason, one person's gain must always mean another's loss. That's from your booklet, Biblical Foundations for Economics. That's a very common misunderstanding, as you would say, of what economics is. There's only a limited number of resources. When one gains, another loses.

It's a zero-sum game. You say later that you define economics as moral philosophy applied to man's marketplace relationships. So define economics further. I know that's a fundamental question, but let's define it further so it's very understandable what we're talking about today, and then answer the questions you open the booklet with. What have justice, love, self-control, and prudence to do with economics? Thanks, first of all, for having me back on the program, David.

It's a real pleasure. Who would I be to disagree with Thomas Sowell? I mean, one of the greatest economists of the 20th and early 21st century here is one of my heroes, and the definition that he gave there is absolutely standard. Almost all economists would embrace that definition. My objection to it is not so much for what it does say as for what it raises in lots of people's minds, because of exactly what you quoted there tends to make people think, okay, economics is all about trying to determine who wins and who loses.

And that's really not the point. Economics is, as I went on to say there, and I'm really borrowing here from Adam Smith, the founder of modern, as in over the last 300 years or so, modern economics. Smith was a professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow in Scotland in the 1750s, 60s, 70s. And when you read his work on economics specifically, that is his very famous book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, you cannot escape, but you can easily ignore the moral foundation of what he is doing there in that book. And the reason is that The Wealth of Nations is, in essence, an 1100 page footnote to one paragraph in his earlier book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. And in that earlier book, he had said that if you leave people free to pursue their own interests within the limits of God's moral law, they will actually serve each other better than if you try to direct their activities and coordinate it all through some sort of a central committee. Now, at the time, this was absolutely revolutionary thought, because the reigning economic theory at the time is what we call mercantilism, which said that the purpose of an economy, the purpose of a nation's working and producing and transporting materials and so on, was not to serve all the people, but rather to serve the national treasury, or as was the case in most places at the time, the royal treasury. Since people who are free have a tendency to do things that serve themselves first and then think about serving others, if you want to fatten up the royal treasury, you have to coordinate people to do what they would not first choose to do.

I mean, most of us are not really excited about the idea of living our lives for the purpose of enriching the king, right? So when Smith wrote this idea that you leave people free to serve their own interests within the bounds of God's moral law, they'll serve each other better than if you try to coordinate them, he came under heavy fire from economists of his day, who just said, this is impossible, it's crazy, you're forgetting, for one thing, and this seemed like a very Christian objection, you're forgetting the sinfulness of man, people will act selfishly. Now, Smith carefully distinguished between selfishness and self-interest. Selfishness serves one's own desires without regard for other people and even without regard for whether those desires are virtuous or evil. Self-interest says, what are the things that need to happen for me to be able to flourish and thrive for the purpose of walking the life that God wants me to walk?

Of living the way God wants me to live. I mean, if you read The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which is still one of the best books on ethics, you find that Smith exalts generosity, charity, grace, compassion, true love, and self-interest seeks to figure out, okay, what do I need in order to enhance my ability to serve others? So, when he was attacked for launching this idea, he essentially sought to provide the empirical proof for the idea in what became The Wealth of Nations. And that was where he set out actually looking at real economies, at real business firms, at individual entrepreneurs and so on, and asking the question, which sort of an economic arrangement makes them more productive for the service of others? One in which you attempt to centrally plan their activities or one in which their choices are free?

And The Wealth of Nations provided what was, for the time, overwhelming empirical evidence that the answer was the latter. When you leave people free to serve their own self-interest within the limits of God's moral law, which means, you know, false advertising is not permitted, you know, false claims about what your product can do, that's not permitted, having a product that is inherently dangerous or something like that without clearly notifying potential users of the risks. When people are free to serve their own self-interests, they soon realize, you know, sometimes I want things that I can't make.

And that means that if I'm to obtain them, I need to obtain them from other people. Now, there are basically, as Thomas Sowell points out, there are basically two methods of exchange. One is the peaceful method and the other is the violent method.

The violent method happens when I either conk you over the head and run off with your stuff, or at least I threaten to conk you over your head and run off with your stuff, right? That's the violent means of exchange. The other is the peaceful means of exchange. And there, in order for me to persuade you to give something to me that I want, I have to offer you something that you want more than you want what you already have, but I want. Which means that the trade will occur only if you perceive that after the trade, you will be better off than before the trade, and I perceive that after the trade, I will be better off than before the trade. Which means that in free trading, every trade is a positive-sum game in which both parties benefit.

Neither party loses. And that's the opposite of what so many people now think is the case because they tend to think of economics just as the study of how to allocate scarce resources in a world of unlimited wants. That's very, very interesting and thought-provoking, and that's why we wanted to have you on today. We really like this book or booklet. It's a 56-page booklet entitled Biblical Foundations for Economics, written by our guest, Cal Beisner, who is the founder and spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. You can get your copy for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview. Just go to our website, thechristianworldview.org, or call us toll-free, 1-888-646-2233.

You can also write to us. You, interestingly, in the booklet, show how economics is a value-based or has a morality to it. It's not a valueless science. I'll just give you one example that you write about. You say, does God's law say things relevant to economics?

Certainly, you say. Every commandment of the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, is relevant to economics. Now, when I write that, I'm thinking, every commandment is relevant to economics, but you go through and you show.

I'm just going to give one example. Number five of the Ten Commandments. Honor your father and mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. You write, at the heart of every economy, as of every society, is the family in which there are mutual obligations of parents and children. Sound economic policy, therefore, will avoid creating incentives that undermine the family by interfering with the responsibility either of parents to care for their dependent children and grandchildren or of children to care for their dependent parents and grandparents. Clearly, this principle calls for serious questioning of our present unemployment, welfare, Social Security, and Medicare and Medicaid programs and cautions against a government or national health care program. Talk more, Cal, about how economics, it's a completely biblical, moral-based science.

Let me give you an example. Should we have a rapidly or slowly expanding money supply? Should we have a money supply that is stable? Should we have a shrinking money supply?

Are those questions only empirical issues or is there a moral component to them? When you expand money supply, not by providing new substance that has market value in and of itself because people already want it, but by downgrading the purity of, say, gold or silver and silver used as coinage or by introducing paper money or by just making electronic data in bank accounts substitute for money. When you do that, as you expand the money supply, you diminish the value of all the money already in circulation. What that basically means is you're taking value from some people who already have it and giving it to people who don't already have it, but the ones who are getting it are the first ones who get to use this newly minted or newly fiat decreed money. That is the government and the bankers.

So it's everybody else who loses out. So we use the term inflation for this. A lot of people think of inflation as rising prices, but in fact, the proper definition of inflation is an expansion of the money supply.

And it results in rising prices because you have more dollars chasing the same number of goods or even fewer goods. So when the Bible condemns, for instance, having a false balance, false scales, that applies to the question of monetary policy. There's a moral issue there. If we believe that the same God designed the physical universe and human bodies and how we relate to each other and all of that, who also gave a moral law, then we ought to expect compliance with his moral law is going to work better in this world. That is, the prudential question, what works, the pragmatic question, right, ought to line up with the moral question. The scripture teaches, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seed of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night.

He'll be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that yields its fruit in due season and its leaf does not wither. This is a clear teaching that ordinarily, and there are exceptions, but ordinarily obedience to God's law brings physical good results, material blessing. And so if we start by looking at the moral law of God, and then let that guide us into our understanding of economic policy choices, we have an advantage over those who are only looking at consequential questions. And that's why I think this is an important book and an important topic for people to understand, because they'll understand what is going on in our society today economically, financially, and otherwise is just foolish.

And it's not according to God's law, and there is a better way. And so understanding the framework which you so clearly lay out in this 56-page book titled Biblical Foundations for Economics, I think it will help people think more clearly about economics. This would be great for a college student, a high school student, or just any adult. The moral compass of a country is hugely important, but so is how it has its own economy, whether it survives. And so that's why this book I think is so important, because it's not a 400-page book, it's a 56-page book on Biblical Foundations for Economics written by our guest today, Cal Beisner. And you can receive one for your donation of any amount to the Christian Real View. Just get in contact with us the usual ways.

Go to our website, thechristianrealview.org, or call us or write to us. Now, I want to get off some of the things you've just said, just for a moment and ask you a question. Personally, you spent some of your early childhood in Calcutta, India. And then I noticed that you had your advanced, I think your PhD work was done at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, which is the land of Adam Smith. And you've been mentioning him, and for listeners who don't know who Adam Smith is, he is incredibly important. I mean, I think he's called, correct me if I'm wrong, Cal, but the father of capitalism. And he was an incredibly important figure in developing or being sort of the thinker behind free market economics. So you studied in the land where Adam Smith lived and wrote.

Yes, that's correct. But I did not study, I mean, I've read vastly of Smith's writings informally on my own, but I did not do formal academic studies on Smith. By the thinking of America's founders through John Witherspoon, who had been a covenanter and was called to be the president of the College of New Jersey, where he taught 19 members of the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, including James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution.

And he himself was a member of both of those, the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, and signed both. So very, very important influence on American thought there from the Scottish covenanters. Well, we're going to have to have you back on to talk about the Scottish covenanters and views of limited government and so forth. That's another issue that's being overturned here in America today, going to a limited government constitutional republic, moving towards sort of a socialistic, big government ideology.

But we'll have you on another time for that. But going back to the question of living in Calcutta, India, in the midst of that society, and then studying in the land of Adam Smith in Scotland. How did these experiences shape your views, not only of economics, as we've been discussing, but also of poverty, and also climate.

The organization which you lead, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, is primarily focused. Really, as I look back at my time in Calcutta, and I was a very little child at the time. But because my mother was temporarily paralyzed, about a six month period by some disease, I was farmed out to an Indian family every day. And so my nurse or Ayah, as it's called in Hindustani, my Ayah would take me by the hand every morning and walk me to this family's home. And along the way, we passed two things that became permanent fixtures in my picture memories. One was a beautiful, beautiful, huge tree with a vine hanging out of it filled with lovely red flowers. As I grew older and began to study what scripture had to say about God's creation and how we should value it and so on, I realized that that was something that God had planted in my mind very early on to help me to see the beauty of his creation and to appreciate that and to want to enhance and protect it. After we passed that tree, which was in the courtyard of the apartment complex in which we lived, we went out on the street and for the next several blocks to the family's home, every morning I stepped over the dead bodies of people who died overnight of starvation and disease.

And those pictures, too, are indelible in my mind. And when I later became a Christian and really began to study what the Bible had to say about our responsibility as Christians toward the poor, I mean, think about this, Jesus, when he announces the opening of his ministry, he quotes from Isaiah saying, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, right? First thing he says as the purpose of his ministry. Now, that good news is much more than just economic good news.

It's also the spiritual good news of the gospel that we sinners like you and me can be reconciled to the holy God by God's grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone. But this was also to be good news to the poor in terms of their day-to-day lives. What I realized was that from those early childhood experiences, as I began studying in-depth in economics and then particularly in environmental economics, I realized that God had sort of given me a mental resource and a mental starting point from which to combine the care about the beauty of God's creation and at the same time horror at the effects of extreme poverty and a realization that as we seek to take good care of God's created order, natural world, we need to be sure that we are also doing what lifts whole societies out of poverty into prosperity and to approach it from, say, a perspective that's sympathetic to environmentalist thought, what I have to point out to people is, look, you want a clean, healthful, beautiful, safe environment?

Well, guess what? That's a costly good. It costs something. And wealthier people can afford more than poorer people can.

So if you want a clean, healthful, beautiful, safe environment, you should want people not to be poor but to be wealthy because then they can afford to have that kind of an environment. So those are the two insights that we bring together in the work of the Cornwall Alliance. The Christian Worldview with David Wheaton returns in just a moment. The landscape of healthcare may be ever-changing, but one thing Samaritan Ministries members count on is the blessing of biblical community with their healthcare, like these friends. Yes, our needs are being met, and so we are on the receiving end in many ways, but we're also able to meet the needs of others, and in doing so, we're living out that biblical reality of generosity and serving one another.

Kind of a breath of fresh air. In some stressful times, we have just been able to rely on Samaritan in ways that we never really even thought about before becoming members, and it's just been a real blessing to us in different phases of life. In a world where the only constant is change and Jesus, it's nice to be a part of a ministry family that has been a consistent part of our lives for 10 years and will be for years to come.

We love that. Want more information? Visit SamaritanMinistries.org slash TCW. David Wheaton here, volunteer host of the Christian Worldview radio program. Listeners are often surprised to learn that we as a ministry pay for airtime on the radio station, website, or app on which you hear the program. The primary way this expense is recouped is through listeners like you donating to the ministry or becoming a monthly partner.

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We are going to play more of that interview with Cal Beisner next week on the program. Again, the name of the booklet is Biblical Foundations for Economics. You can get a copy for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview. Just go to our website, TheChristianWorldview.org or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233.

This is a 56-page soft cover book or booklet that will give you a great biblical foundation for economics as the title implies and also help you to discern where things are going economically today and why. Now, we need to quickly get to the rest of the interview that we started last week with Mike Gendron from Proclaiming the Gospel Ministries. He's going to talk about why the Pope and President Biden get along so well, and the hint is because they have a similar worldview and specifically with regard to socialistic economics.

Mike, this is from LifeSite News, October 29th. The title of the story is, Pope Francis and Joe Biden meet in the Vatican to discuss climate and COVID shots, but not abortion. The subtitle is, There was Laughter and Clear Rapport between President Biden and Pope Francis, according to the White House. Now, considering President Biden's promotion of abortion, he's a clear abortion advocate, and the Roman Catholic Church's historic anti-abortion position.

Why is there clear rapport? And the rapport means that there's a close or harmonious relationship between President Biden and Pope Francis, to the point that Joe Biden received communion in the Pope's diocese in Rome. Again, it's hypocritical for a pope to take a stand against abortion and yet to allow the President of the United States, who claims to be a devout Catholic, but yet is pro-abortion, to receive communion.

Ultimately, this is the authority of bishops, and Pope Francis is the Bishop of Rome, and so he has jurisdiction over Joe Biden when he's in the Vatican. But both of these are hypocritical liars, and I don't say that to be nasty, but just looking at their history, they say one thing and they do another. And so, more than ever, we have to have discernment, we have to call people to account. You know, David, the nature of deception is that people never know they're deceived until they're confronted with a truth. And so here we have two hypocrites that are going against what they supposedly should stand for, Joe Biden being a quote-unquote devout Catholic, but yet not adhering to the laws of the Catholic Church, and Pope Francis allowing him to continue to live in sin and receive Holy Communion. It's just the highest form of hypocrisy, and more than ever, I think, we need to call these people to account, which is what your program is all about. We need to make your listeners known to what's going on both in the Vatican and both in America. Yeah, and it's important. If you read the Bible, and specifically the New Testament, you see that the apostles and Christ himself were constantly encouraging right behavior and right doctrines, correct truthful things, and then also balancing it with a pointing out of that which is false and cautions against and being discerning against that which is false, because ultimately false doctrine is not just false, and they're just wrong and so forth and just pointed out.

No, it misrepresents God. Mike Gendron with us today. The website is proclaimingthegospel.org. We also have it linked directly from our website at thechristianworldview.org in today's preview for the program. It said in this article from LifeSite News, a Holy See press offer statement confirmed that the men, this is Biden and the Pope, focused their discussion on the quote, the joint commitment to the protection and care of the planet, the healthcare situation, and the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the theme of refugees and assistance to migrants. Biden subsequently met with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, whom he has said to have expressed thanks for the Vatican's quote, active leadership in fighting the climate crisis. As in his meeting with Francis, a White House statement noted that Biden and Parolin quote, discussed efforts to rally global support for vaccinating the developing world against COVID-19, unquote.

So you just read a couple of paragraphs here. It's about vaccinating the whole world. It's about the joint commitment to, you know, climate change.

It's about protection of migrants, immigrants, and by that they would mean what's going on in the southern border, just letting people in in a very unorganized way, just let them across the border. How does someone like the Pope or maybe even Joe Biden, who's a professing devout Catholic as he's called, how do they arrive at these theologically liberal viewpoints with the conclusions they make about these issues of our day that Christians still call themselves Christians who abide by the Bible? I don't think either one of them emphasizes their theological positions more than their political or government positions. And I say that because of their politics, and that's proven over history. But we have to recognize, and I think that you've covered this on some of your previous radio shows, that when we look at the crisis going on in the world today and the government control over the people, we know that this is a precursor to one day when a world ruler will control every person's buying and selling through the mark of the beast. And we see a lot of this COVID-19 shots, the mandates going forth, it's taking away people's freedom and it's forcing them to take the shot if they want to continue to survive in the economy, buying and selling and flying on airplanes and going into different countries. And so what we're seeing here, I think, is really the emergence of a global government. You know, in the past we've had different crises, but they've been regional.

This crisis is global. And so we see the governments of the world coming together and having these mandates to control the mass of people. And so I believe we're a blessed generation. I think we're living in the time where we may see the Lord Jesus come for His church.

And I've often said I don't see how things can get any worse, but yet they do. But I've never seen prophecy on the verge of being fulfilled like I see it today. Mike Gendron with us today on the Christian worldview. I just want to read a couple paragraphs here from this article from LifeSite News. I think it's really indicative of just what you said about how the Pope and those who have his worldview are probably unwittingly being used by God to bring about his end-of-days plan and purposes which he has ordained from before time began. So just listen to these last paragraphs. Ahead of his meeting with President Biden, Pope Francis delivered a statement on BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day segment focusing his attention on what he called a succession of crises regarding healthcare, the environment, food supplies, and the economy to say nothing of social, humanitarian, and ethical crisis.

Now those are all code words. He sees a word like environment and he doesn't think in terms of how can we be conservationists and promote good environmental stewardship. He sees in terms of there's a man-caused climate change catastrophe and we're going to end the world. So you have to understand that those words he uses all mean very different things to him than they would to someone who's more theologically or politically conservative. It goes on to say the Pope urged listeners not to let these crises go to waste.

You've heard that statement before, never let a crisis go to waste. Advising that they present an opportunity to build together so that there will no longer be any borders. The Pope said that. Francis stressed that the only way to pursue a brighter horizon in moving forward is not through following Jesus Christ, that's the writer of the article writing that phrase, but rather through a renewed sense of shared responsibility for our world and an effective solidarity based on justice, a sense of our common destiny, and a recognition of the unity of our human family in God's plan for the world." That's the Pope saying that. Last paragraph, Mike. The Pope gave Biden an artistic ceramic tile depicting a man pointing toward St. Peter's Basilica across the Tiber River, named the Pilgrim, along with numerous papal documents including his controversial Abu Dhabi document on fraternity in which he and the grand imam, Ahmed al-Tayeb, said that a, quote, pluralism and diversity, unquote, of religion is, quote, willed by God, unquote. There was a lot there, but everything there was completely not according to Scripture, but in the same spirit of where the world is going towards a global government, pluralism, all these different things he mentioned in those three paragraphs. So to close the interview today, Mike, what is your message to someone listening today, whether they're Roman Catholic, whether they're evangelical, whether they're neither, about the worldview that's being presented in those paragraphs I just mentioned about what the Pope is promoting and what the world is going headlong after, and how can someone become right with God in the midst of that kind of confusing rhetoric?

Yeah, good question. There is so little hope in the world today. The world is in a global crisis, and the government is trying to tell people that they have the answer, just follow us, but there is only one place you can find hope, and that's eternal hope, and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the sovereign God of this universe, and everything that takes place is under his sovereign control. But we also know that the God of this world is Satan, and he has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel or the glory of Christ. And so we recognize that God has his plan of redemption for mankind.

It is unfolding right before our eyes. This is happening according to God's plan, not Joe Biden's plan or not the Pope's plan. And so the only hope for those who are alive today is to put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. To trust in the Lord Jesus Christ means to believe that he is the eternal Son of God who was born of a virgin and then lived a sinless life. He was crucified on Calvary's cross to satisfy divine justice for those who would put their trust in him.

He was raised three days later showing that God was satisfied with the sacrifice of his Son. And those who believe in the resurrection of Christ can have the hope that one day they will be raised from the dead as well, and to spend eternity with God in heaven. This is the hope that we have. It's a blessed hope, and soon and very soon we're going to see the Lord Jesus returning for his church. And the Bible says that when the church is gone, the Restrainer will be removed, and that is the Spirit of God indwelling in every born-again Christian.

And if we think the world is in chaos today, you can only imagine when the church is gone and the Restrainer has left, what this world will look like. So we need to have a sense of urgency to proclaim the glorious Gospel of Christ to those while we still have a chance, especially with our circle of influence, our loved ones, our neighbors, our co-workers, because Jesus Christ is the only hope for those who are without him. Amen, Mike. And we just so appreciate your life dedication to doing that.

You came out of the Roman Catholic Church for being in the church for decades as a committed Roman Catholic out of a business career to go into full-time ministry to proclaim the message that you just explained, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the most important message, how we as sinners can be made right with the Holy God and that comes through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Thank you so much for coming on the program, Mike, and we just wish all of God's best and grace to you, your wonderful wife Jane, and your ministry as well and your family. Well, thank you so much for the privilege of being on your show and I just love your Christian worldview because we need that more than ever today. So keep up your good work, David.

That is all we have time for today. So thank you for listening and just remember Jesus Christ and his word are the same yesterday and today and forever. So until next time, think biblically, live accordingly, and stand firm. 1-888-646-2233 The Christian Worldview is a listener supported ministry and furnished by the Overcomer Foundation, a non-profit organization. You can find out more, order resources, make a donation, become a monthly partner, and contact us by visiting thechristianworldview.org, calling toll free 1-888-646-2233 or writing to Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. That's Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. Thanks for listening to The Christian Worldview. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.