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Hey everybody. This is Heidi St. John. Thanks for joining me today at the podcast. Today is Wednesday, July 8th. This is episode number 953. Today, I’m going to catch you up a little bit on the news, some things that are happening in my neck of the woods. We’re going to talk a little bit about Marxism and cultural Marxism and what it means for the future. Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

So, thanks for listening today, you guys. A couple of things before we get started. I wanted to just take a second and thank everybody for praying for us. I know a lot of you have been very, very disappointed to see that basically the remainder of my in-person events have been canceled. Although, so the last one that I canceled was the Florida Parent Educators Association. I would like to just give a big, huge shout out of appreciation to all of the conference organizers, to the many people who have been working to try to help make sure that these events didn’t get canceled. They really were up against a lot and FPEA hung in there to the very, very end. 

Suzanne Nunn leads that group there. I told her on the phone the other day, through tears and hers also, this is the first time I think that that conference and many of the others have ever had to cancel. So, they deserve your thanks, you guys, and your prayers as well. I think praying, especially for the financial recovery, a lot of the homeschool speakers especially they make their living this time of year out on the road. So, this is devastating to a lot of people, and I really appreciate your prayers that the Lord lays any of these guys on your heart and you have the means to help. We’re just going to encourage you guys to come alongside and help them. 

Some exciting news. There are some things coming up in the works. I do think there’s a good chance I will still be coming to Florida and doing a smaller version of FPEA. We’ll keep you posted on that. Maybe just maybe Orlando, we can do a meet and greet in a park somewhere just for fun. So, I’ll keep you guys posted on that. Also same thing for Teach Them Diligently and CHAP. You guys, I love these people and I know them well, and this is rough. It’s really hard. So, I want to say just keep praying for them. All right. They need your help. 

Also, you guys know that I transitioned. I worked really hard to move my platform over to AllSocial, and I don’t really understand what happened, but AllSocial seems to be down. It looks like it could even be down permanently. So, we have set up an account for Heidi St. John over at Parler. Parler is an unbiased social media platform that’s focused on real user experiences and engagement. I’m telling you, what, I actually really like it. It has a little bit of a … It’s like a cross Twitter and Facebook. 

I think it actually feels a little bit more like Facebook to me. So, you guys can find me at Heidi St. John over at Parler. I continue to believe that Facebook’s blatant discrimination and blatant censorship of anything that they don’t like. It doesn’t even matter if it’s true, if they don’t like it, they’re going to call out on you, put you in Facebook jail, whatever. So, I am looking at other alternatives, and we just want to encourage you guys to go over there and check that out. 

Also, can I just say, you guys are awesome. Thank you so much. My ministry as you know we’ve taken a pretty big hit here. I travel and speak for a living. Many of you have been sending in donations to Heidi St. John here at the homeschool resource center. I just wanted to say thank you. It means the world to us. Sometimes they come with cards and letters and I can’t tell you how many times Jay and I have opened a card from one of you and just cried over your generosity and your kindness. We thank you for that. I hope that this podcast is an encouragement to you. There’s so much going on in the world right now, and we can be encouraged as men and women of faith. I know a lot of you are listening and you’ve got teenagers listening. I’ve been privileged lately to meet several of the young people that are listening to this. 

I just want to encourage you guys, there is hope. We are not people who exist in this world without hope. The Bible says in Psalm 31:24, be strong and take heart all you who trust in the Lord. There’s hope when we trust in the Lord. You’ve heard me talk about this now for years at the podcast and in my books. I came from a broken home. Though I’m now into my 50s, I still bear the scars, both emotional and physical, that were left behind after many years of hidden suffering. There were times when I cried myself to sleep over things that were beyond my control, a home in turmoil, a hidden life and in truth, you guys, I rarely felt at peace when I was at home as a child. There were seasons where I felt helpless to do anything about my situation. That helpless feeling often led to feelings of utter hopelessness. 

I wondered if God was really listening. I wondered if he was aware of my situation. I know a lot of you guys feel helpless right now that that feeling of helplessness, like we’re looking around us and we’re going, “What can we even do?” We don’t even know what to do. It leaves us feeling helpless, which leads to hopelessness. If you’ve been there, I just want to encourage you. You guys, abuse is not a prerequisite obviously for feelings of hopelessness. Tender hearts are easily taken captive by all sorts of things, aren’t they? A strong willed child, a prodigal adolescent, they can leave us feeling hopeless in our parenting. Adultery could leave a marriage shattered and feeling hopeless.

At times, I have surveyed the landscape of our nation and felt a sense of hopelessness and even despair. So, if you’re feeling hopeless right now, you guys lean in because I believe that you are on God’s heart right now. Sometimes it feels like God isn’t working, but rest assured he is. God is always at work. He’s at work in our nation. He’s at work in your marriages. He’s at work in your parenting. As Christians, our hope is not in an outcome, it’s in an overcomer. It’s in the way maker, isn’t it? The promise keeper, the miracle worker. When our trust is in the Lord, we can be strong in the midst of a storm. We can have hope even in the midst of heartache knowing that we’re never outside of God’s watch and His wisdom is available for the asking. 

We learn in Jeremiah 29:11 that God’s heart toward us is always good. I continue to believe and I will continue to say this, I believe we are living in the last days. I think that this generation, all of you who are listening to this right now, I think there’s a very good chance that we will live to see the return of the Lord, Jesus. That we’re going to be here for the rapture. This is an incredible time, but even if it’s not meant to be right now, even if God’s timetable is a little bit different, we can still be hopeful. We know what God’s heart is because we have his word. He left us the Holy Spirit, His comforter. I don’t know about you guys, but I am so thankful for God’s Word. 

When all around us is sifting sand, God’s Word is an anchor for our soul. It’s the reason that we can be at peace, because of God’s word, we can know for certain that he’s working all things together for our good, He really is. Just like God saw me as a young girl crying out to him and asking for help and frustrated and afraid, God was still at work. Part of the reason that I’m able to speak the way that I am today is because God brought me through a season of my life that was very difficult. God sees where you are right now in the same way that He saw me in my brokenness and my struggle there is hope, but it is only available in the Lord Jesus. That hope is available in God. So cry out to Him, trust Him, good things are coming. 

I want to encourage you not to give up, but to lean in. If the Lord puts somebody on your heart today and you’re like, “Man, I need to encourage so and so.” Encourage her or encourage him. Make that phone call, write that card. Don’t waste another moment. Sometimes one of the best ways that we can deal with what is happening around us that feels like it’s heavy and it’s a hard burden to carry is to take our eyes off of ourselves and put them on other people. I’m going to encourage you guys to do that today. 

Psalm 31:24. Again, I started with this and I’m going to finish my little devotion with you right here to be strong and take heart, all you who trust in the Lord. If you trust in the Lord, then you are a child of the Living God, of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. You guys, we are just passing through. We’re just passing through. 

Jesus said in the world, we’re going to have trouble. But then he said, take heart. I’ve overcome the world. I’m going to give you guys a little bit of … I know that we’re struggling right now. I’m not going to pretend like everything’s great. I actually don’t like this at all. You guys have heard me say that I have had my fair share of struggle lately. I was just telling my husband. I said, “I got to get into some sort of a better routine for my physical health and for my emotional health just to get back on the horse.” Everything is so upside down I think it’s hard on people, but God said, he’s never going to leave us and he’s never going to forsake us. 

Because of that, we know that we can face whatever’s happening in the world around us with confidence, and things are getting harder. I’m not going to sit here and lie to you. Yesterday, you guys, July 7th. So today’s the eighth. So yesterday, the seventh, a county in South Texas has announced it will arrest people who tests positive for COVID-19 and who will not self-quarantine. This is terrifying. There was an arrest made in Spokane a couple of days ago of a person who would not quarantine. I’m starting to wonder like, “Why are they emptying out the jails? Oh, because they want to put decent law abiding citizens in there who are like, “Dude, let me go to the grocery store.” Right? Nope. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, going straight to jail. 

In case any of you guys are wondering where this County is in Texas, it’s Brooks County, it’s North of McAllen in South Texas. I’m going to say it again. They have announced that they are going to be arresting people who test positive for COVID-19 and who do not self-quarantine. This is terrifying, and they’re doing all this stuff in the name of our safety, right? So, this is where … so a Brooks County attorney David Garcia made the announcement after community members notified his office that they’re seeing people who tested positive for the coronavirus at the grocery store. Rona, that you? Rona, that you? My name’s Karen, I’d like to tattle on somebody. The people that are doing this are weaponizing the citizenry. 

Frankly, I find it disgusting and appalling. Garcia said that if you’re going to go out and endanger other people and we find out about it, we will prosecute you. Oh, okay. Okay. You guys, COVID-19 has a 99.8% recovery rate. I’m just going to keep saying that. Most people who get it are not going to die. Yes, some people who get it are going to get sick. This is not the first virus and it will not be the last, and these officials that are … I think, frankly, reveling in it. It’s disgusting. It’s disgusting. Garcia went on to say there’s a number of statutes out there that can be used. So once you test positive, stay home. You hear that? Do you guys know what Marxism is? Do you understand Marxism? See, we’re watching Marxism in the culture. It’s been here for quite a while now. I found an article and I’ll link back to it from the Federalist today, the title is called: If We Don’t Stop It, Marxism Will Annihilate the American Way of Life. 

If we’re inclined to glide past the Marxist fingerprints that are all over America’s current turmoil, assuming its ideas will flare up for a while and then burn out, we are not paying attention. You see our institutions have been stoking the coals of Karl Marx’s destructive ideology, fanning the flames until his notions have consumed our cultural pillars. Far from being forgotten and irrelevant, Marx’s ideas pervade key institutions from our universities and our schools to mass media and popular entertainment, major corporations in medicine, arts and sciences. They’ve even seeped into many churches and seminaries. They also define the Democratic Party. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and no less than Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama. 

I don’t mean clunky ideas from Das Kapital as the dictatorship of this guy would have said the labor theory of value or the withering way of the state. No, no, no. We’re talking about the substratum of the assumptions about how the world works underlying those discredited notions from bygone days. John Andrews went on to say that the poisoned root of all of it is something called dialectical materialism, which is a concept Marx borrowed from Hegel that describes how material needs create social conflict. Have you guys seen that happen right now? How material needs create social conflict. Maybe, just maybe they’re creating it for you. 

The two men saw the material world as distinct and independent from the spirit and the mind and maintained that attempting to combine the material and the immaterial bred inconsistencies. So, for our purposes here, suffice it to say that the materialism part disallows all things spiritual and the dialectical part disallows all things fixed permanent or unchanging. You guys, this is crazy. So, what happens is you’re left with nothing but Adams, right? An endless flux, physical forces, violently colliding in a grim world where might makes right. Texas, I’m going to arrest you if you don’t self-quarantine. You better do the voluntary quarantine. Oh, wait a minute. It’s not voluntary.

We are living in a world right now in the United States where might makes right and brutal will reign supreme. We see this in the Democratic Party. If you’re listening to me right now, and up until this point you’ve been relatively off the sidelines, I heard a pastor from Vancouver, Washington just a couple of days ago, lecture his parishioners, lecture his church about how they should not get involved in signing petitions. They should not get involved in politics. What a lie from the pit of hell. 

If you think that what I just described to you sounds like the radical autonomous zone in Seattle, that’s because it’s supposed to. Cultural Marxism is increasingly defining the worldview within which all debates and decision making are taking place even for most of those who rightly fear and despise Marx. So, here’s the Marxist cycle. I just want to unpack it for you for just a second. It’s deconstruction agenda takes three main forms. Marxism dehumanizes persons. How many people have you seen in mass lately? Oh, almost everyone. Does it feel dehumanizing? That’s on purpose. It demoralizes relationships. 

A friend of mine went into a Chuck’s produce here in Vancouver, which I will never darken the door of again. She went in there to get some lunch and she wasn’t wearing a mask and they said, “We will not serve you. Not only would we not serve you, we won’t even bring it out to your car.” Demoralizes relationships and decivilizes all institutions. So, let’s look at dehumanizing persons, right? Because that’s where it starts. Listen, no one’s anything more than his or her DNA and appearance plus whatever animal instincts he happens to feel at any given time. This is a Marxist ideology. From this comes, wait for it, identity politics, radical identity politics, racial sexual polarization, group victimhood, ding, ding, ding, Black Lives Matter and group guilt. Hello, white shaming, white privilege. This logically then results in the next step in the Marxist style, which is to demoralize relationships. 

Since they believe that individuals are mere meat in motion and existences mere randomness, mortality as all the world religions have known it is gone. Are we really surprised that they’re telling us we can’t sing in churches? That the Rona spreads in the churches? Wake up. I hope you share this podcast far and wide. We are in so much trouble. The sloppy agape, the lack of discernment that I see in the church right now is mind blowing. It is mind blowing. We’ve got to wake up. So, if we take this to its logical conclusion, no two people can interact on the basis of objective right and wrong because we’ve stripped it away from you, because now you’re just random. You’re just a random piece of meat walking around. What’s right or good is instead the mere product of quantitative mass, in other words, how many people want it, times qualitative intensity in other words how much emotion. 

So, how many people want it, Black Lives Matter, and how much emotion can you put into it, hey, I’m going to kill you if you don’t do what I want to say. Now, you got to movement, dignity, property, marital and family ties, marketplace exchanges, contracts, promises, tradition, heritage, vulnerability, duty, love and life itself, all go to zero on the Marxist dial. Finally, that leads to decivilizing all institutions, because now people in relationships have been zeroed out. Institutions of whatever sort including communities or nations obviously can’t stand either. When you see people yelling and screaming to defund the police, this is what is behind it. Wake up.

An institution is only, when you boil it down, an agreement or an understanding that’s entered into by people and it’s meant to outlive them and endure through all time. But Marxists view this as absurd and so they dissolve them under the acid of dialectical materialism. Now all bets are off. Marxism says some lives matter more than others. Some lives matter more than others. So are we really shocked to see what’s happening right now? I think the only reason we’re shocked is because we’re not paying attention because we don’t really understand. Right now we’re being told that some lives matter more than others by the leaders of a mass movement decivilizing our cities and seeking to incite a race war. And so it shouldn’t surprise us that one of those leaders has bluntly and proudly said on camera, “We’re trained Marxists.”

So what do we do now? Do we shrug and make excuses for her since after all she’s had a lot of pain because she’s black? You guys, we need to wake up. It was specifically Marx’s ideas, according to The Black Book of Communism, that took 100 million lives worldwide in the last century. How many more are they going to take in this one? That’s up to us. And we can’t say that we weren’t warned. The shot over the bow has already been leveled. You guys take off your mask, stop letting them boss you around. You’re not going to hurt anybody. There are viruses far more dangerous out there than COVID-19. This is a slow creep of Marxism that is rapidly, rapidly increasing.

Churches need to open. And God’s children, the children of God who God says He will give you wisdom to need to take a stand. We need to take a stand. We’re not going to have a country left if we don’t take a stand. This is not about a virus. This is about a Marxist takeover of our country and we are absolutely watching it. I am stunned, as I said again, by the lack of discernment I see in the churches. It’s stunning to me. It’s terrifying actually.

With that, I’m going to ask you guys to enter into something with me. We have asked the staff and the faculty of the Homeschool Resource Center, starting this Friday. So today is Wednesday the 8th, starting this Friday the 10th to begin a seven day fast. And we will be praying for our nation and praying for courage and praying for strength which the Bible says comes from God. Over and over in God’s Word we read, “Be strong and courageous.” And I’m praying specifically that our churches and Christians will stop hiding behind Romans 13 and recognize that the Bible never said, “Go ahead and be a doormat for Jesus.”

I heard the same line from people who told my mother to stay in an abusive marriage because of submission. We misunderstand God’s heart. God’s heart is for nations. God’s heart is for nations to protect and defend themselves. And God’s heart beats for the people that He loves. God is enamored with you. He created you. He loves you. He sent His Son for you. And in Second Chronicles 7:14 God said, “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and confess their sin and turn from their sin and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” God can heal our land, but we’re going to have to get on our faces and repentance before Him.

If your church isn’t open or if they’re making everybody wear masks at church because y’all is afraid of getting shut down and you’re afraid of being shamed. Can I just encourage you right now? The mask is hiding more than you have thought it is. And they are literally starting to arrest people. There are quarantine centers set up here in Washington state. Don’t believe me? Google it. This is serious. So I’m going to ask you guys to fast with us. The reason that we fast, in the Bible fasting was a way for us to come before the Lord in almost a sackcloth and ashes in a very, very sober heart. And God’s going to ask you guys to give something up. That’s what a fast is for.

And most people, traditionally people think, “Oh, I’m not going to eat. I’m going to eat very light for the next seven days.” Some of you God’s going to ask you to give up social media, some of you He’s going to ask you to give up … I don’t know, whatever it is. The Lord will tell you what he wants you to give it up. And then when you want to do that thing, whether it’s get on the internet or have that glass of wine with your dinner or whatever it is, that should serve as a reminder to you that rather than doing that thing you give it up and you come before the Lord and you use that reminder to say, “Father, forgive us. We have sinned against you. We need your help. We need your wisdom. We need your healing in our world and we need it right now. We need it right now.” God can do it you guys.

Would you pray for us here at the Homeschool Resource Center? We are doing our very best over here to serve the hundreds and hundreds of families that are fleeing the public schools, which are just going bezerk right now. And we’re doing it in the name and the strength of Jesus. And we walked around this building with our staff the other night and we prayed over this place. “Father put your angels in front of it, put your angels at the front entrance and the rear entrance and the side doors. North, South, East, and West. Lord protect us.” And so I’m going to end today’s podcast by inviting you to join with us, the staff and faculty of Firmly Planted Family, July 10th through July 17th for seven days. That we would fast and we would ask God to begin to do a move in this nation that we have never seen in our lifetimes. And it’s not a moment too soon, there’s not a moment to lose.

Father, we ask you tonight. Lord, we ask for your help. Father, I realized that some people listening to this it’s evening and some people it’s morning. But Lord, it is time for us to pray. Father, we removed you from our schools. Forgive us. We’ve removed you from our government. Oh Father, forgive us. You told us that when the righteous people are in power that the people rejoice, but when wicked are in power the people grow. And Lord, we are surrounded by wicked leaders right now. Lord, I pray that you forgive us for allowing over 60 million unborn babies to be murdered on our watch. Lord, we’ve allowed sexual sin to infiltrate our churches both homosexual and heterosexual. Lord, forgive us. Oh Lord I pray that you would burden our hearts right now Lord. That every person within the sound of my voice would save, “Father search my heart. Try me. See if there’s any wickedness in me. Lord root it out.”

We want to be that chased bride Lord that you’re coming back for. We want to be ready for your return. Lord, we recognize that we are surrounded by lies in the culture. And so in the name of Jesus right now, we come against the spirit of fear that is not from you. The spirit of confusion, which is not from you. We bind to the spirit in the name of Jesus and we declare that your word is true. No weapon that’s formed against the children of God will prosper. Father, steady our hearts. Your Word says that those who wait on you will mount up his wings as Eagles, will walk and not grow weary, will run and not faint. Oh Lord, we’re feeling kind of faint right now. We need your help.

And so we’re humbly asking, forgive us father. Here are our cries for help. Forgive our sin and heal our land. Help us to be once more the people of God that you’ve called us to be. I pray every church in America, Lord, whose pastors are filled with your Holy Spirit would do what you’ve asked us to do and that is not to forsake the gathering together. Burden our hearts, Lord. Break our hearts for what breaks yours. I pray that thousands and thousands of people will join me in fasting this week. And we’re going to give you the glory Lord. We love you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I want to thank you guys for listening, for praying with us. Jay and I have been doing this now for seven years. What episode was this? 953 or something? That’s a lot of podcasts. And I have never felt the burden that I feel now for our nation and for our world. And so I pray that you’ll join me and the staff and faculty at Firmly Planted Family. I pray that your churches let the word go out, put it on your Facebook pages. Join us in fasting and prayer sober-minded as we come before the Lord and ask for forgiveness and ask him to heal our land. We love you guys. I want to say thanks for listening. And we’re going to continue to pray. Alright? Pray with me and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.