Unbelief in the Twentieth Century
Introduction
A. Modern unbelief among us takes the form of several errors taught by our schools and mass media.
B. The consequences of these errors have been disastrous for millions of people and catastrophic for small town cultures, families, and moral standards over the last 100 to 150 years.
1. Estimates of 110 millions (thousands of thousands) have been murdered, tortured and starved to death deliberately by a supposed righteous cause ... as righteous as one can consider himself who believes in no god and answers to no fixed or rigid moral standards.
2. The most devout followers of this Unbelief are mostly women who are (ironically) the most victimized by this False Religion.
-- Paul warns in 1 Timothy 2 that Eve was first deceived in the Garden and cautions women against taking the lead that pertains to the man.
C. There truly has been a deliberate conspiracy worldwide to erase Christianity and all culture that has been influenced by it.
1. Organized in 1923 in Frankfurt School, Frankfurt, Germany.
2. The conspiracy has been more or less carried out in revolutions in Russia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Peru, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela, El Salvador, etc.
3. Although politically, Communism has failed all over the world, its False Religion is culturally succeeding here and throughout the Free World.
4. This False Religion is being shamelessly promoted in Children's movies, cartoons, and comic books, schools from Kindergarten to Universities, most major sources of news from magazines, sportscasts, and newspapers to television both network and cable. But is most shocking is the Unbelief proclaimed in so many pulpits, by so many pastors and from so many Bible schools.
D. Let me address some of these errors:
1. That the Bible condones the exploitation of the poor and weak.
2. That the Bible contradicts Science and the scientific theories of Evolution which show that there is no God and that we need no god, yea even that god-religions are a curse on the success of human development.
3. That the Bible lies about the real or historical Jesus
4. That Nihilism (defiance of all authority) is the only true course to freedom.
5. That mass murder is justifiable to achieve the greater good of society.
I. Does the Bible lie to us about the true or historical Jesus?
A. Mid 1800's were times of speculation denying the inspiration of the Bible and the historical nature of its narratives, especially the miracles and the divinity of Jesus.
1. These were the times of Abraham Lincoln and the US Civil War to free the slaves.
2. Germany meanwhile was occupied with debating the supposed fraud of the Bible.
a. Leaders were Herman Samuel Reimarus and especially William Wrede who doubted Mark's authorship. D.F. Strauss who wrote a biography of Jesus. Ernest Renan.
b. Albert Ritschl, leader of liberal protestantism in Germany and the Social Gospel movement in America.
c. Albert Schweitzer who wrote extensively of the historical bias of the Gospels.
3. In the early 1900's Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultman opposed this "Quest for the Historical Jesus" as being fruitless and counter-productive and the movement abated for a while until about 1970. They had begun the Neo-Orthodox which did not really affirm it was reasonable to believe in the Bible as Historical but that one had to take a blind leap of faith to have meaning in life.
4. Now we have a resurgence of interest in the Historical Jesus as the Bible is a blatant lie.
B. Jesus' message is the Truth.
1. John 1:14, 17 Full of grace and truth
2. John 3:21 do the truth to come to the light
3. John 4:23-24 worship in spirit and in truth
4. John 5:33-40 John the Baptist bore witness to the truth, Jesus' works, and the Scriptures all bore witness to the truth
5. John 8:31-32 the truth shall make you free, v. 40-45 the real enemy of truth is Satan.
6. John 14:6 the way, truth, and the life,... way to the Father
7. John 16:7, 13 the Spirit of truth, guide you into all truth
8. John 18:37-38 before Pilate: what is truth?
9. 1 Peter 1:22 purified your souls in obeying the truth.
10. 2 Peter 2:2 the way of the truth shall be evil spoken of.
-- Romans 1:18 who hold the truth in unrighteousness
-- 2 Thessalonians 2:10-13 received not the love of the truth
C. On what basis is the testimony of the witnesses dismissed?
1. The assumption that all of the witnesses were lying and all the unbelievers were telling the truth? We have no testimony against them that dates anywhere near the first or second century. All they have is guesses and assumptions and background studies none of which have discredited any of the Scriptures. To the contrary, the Scriptures are often used by seek for ancient sites.
2. What did they have to gain by lying?
a. Power or wealth? from whom? Jews or Romans?
b. Acts 7 Jews stoned and persecuted the Christians until they were destroyed in AD 70!
c. Acts 16 Romans whipped and persecuted the Christians ... for three centuries!
d. Who prospered economically by conversion? Philippians 3:7-10 Paul did not!
-- Jesus offered not material gain to his followers, Matthew 8:20 not even a place to lay head
-- Jesus offered His disciples nothing but a baptism of persecution, Matthew 20:20-23, to the sons of Zebedee. Acts 12 James was beheaded
3. Yet they insisted that their eye witness testimony be weighed and accepted, Acts 1:21; 2:32-33. 1 Corinthians 15:3-8
D. What have the 19th century scholars given us by their unbelief? Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, nazism, communism, fascism, humanism, divorce, orphans, rape, gay-lesbian chaos, millions massacred all over the world.
II. Does the Bible contradict science? Does evolution prove that God does not exist?
A. Genesis 1-2 tells us that God made man in His Own Image -- and by the same stroke tells us the woman was created out of the man and for the man -- and that marriage is ordained by our Creator to form a life-long bond: they two shall become one flesh.
B. Evolution is neither proven nor demonstrated. Nor is it a reasonable explanation for the varieties of life that are on our planet.
-- The nature of the philosophy is not to explain the origins of the universe but to explain the origins of the individual species.
-- Still does not explain the first cause or the beginning life or how or why there might have an upward evolution instead of a degeneration or devolution into disorder.
-- Does not explain natural law.
-- Does not explain instinct, annual migratory habits of so many species, or any of the thousands of mysteries and marvels of individual species
-- Does not explain the origins or development of the eyes for vision or the ears for hearing.
-- Does not explain the enormously complex immune systems that we have against diseases and thousands of toxins that surround us in our environment.
C. Evolution does not answer the simple ancient Greek argument that is older than New Testament: Every effect must have an adequate cause. If there is design, there must a designer. If there is law, even natural, there must a law giver. If there is beauty, there must be an artist.
-- The doctrines of evolution are primarily designed by men to persuade women with morals to set them aside and accept their seduction to commit fornication and adultery. There is nothing noble or sophisticated about the philosophy or the science. The truth does not not matter to men bent on wicked purposes.
-- 2 Timothy 3:13 evil men and impostors will always go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
III. Is there anything noble about Hegel's Nihilism which seeks the overthrow of all authority and all culture, especially that of the Bible?
A. It is time for us to wake up and identify nihilism for the wickedness that it is.
1. It undermines the authority of the home and family and turns its order upside down.
a. Ephesians 5:22-6:4 Husband is the head, responsible for making a living and leading the family in the paths of righteousness. Wife is the companion, in subjection to her head, keeping the home fires burning, bearing children and raising them to love and respect God and their parents and all authority. Children are to honor their parents both in their youth and in their old age.
2. It undermines the authority of the Word of God for the church.
a. Miracles of the Bible are not optional nor mythological but evidence that our Creator God loves us and has intervened in human earthly affairs, and will ultimately judge us for what we do in the flesh. Noah's flood, Jonah's whale, Daniel's den of lions, Moses crossing the Red Sea, Jesus walking on the water, raising the dead, and turning the water into wine... are not tales for derision but interventions to assure us that our God is greater than the natural forces that are larger than life here on this earth.
b. Our hope of heaven and fear of hell are not ignorant superstitions but Divine revelations recorded in the same Scriptures that give us our faith and salvation and hope to overcome all evil in our own lives. Matthew 10:28; Luke 10:18-20
c. The Gospel Plan of Salvation: Acts 2:38-47; Romans 6:3-4, 16-18.
d. The Church: its organization, its worship, its work: 1 Timothy 3; I Corinthians 11; Matthew 28:18-20.
3. It undermines the fields of science and education, justice and righteousness, health and medicine. The blessings that Moses promised to Israel required faithfulness to the authority of God: Deuteronomy 28:1-15. Science fundamentally assumes a certain attitude towards truth as an absolute and that the laws of science are fixed as for example the courses of the heavenly bodies that pass across the sky. That these laws are discoverable and that knowing these laws and truths, we can adjust our lives and even invent things that improve our lives on this earth. But if there is no God, and no laws, and no discoverable order so that all is chaos and without purpose, nothing can be known and no inventions will be worthwhile. The behavior of sicknesses, the principles of growth in agriculture, the qualities of minerals and chemicals, their properties are all predictable if we understand that God made them with a certain design which is discoverable.
-- if we accept nihilism and that science is a tool for political purposes or to promote the power to govern by whatever group, then there is no such thing as truth, but only convenience and utilitarianism, opportunism, and pragmatism.
B. Nihilism has destroyed our culture.
1. The hippie era was an expression of nihilism.
2. The gay-lesbian movement is nihilism.
3. Abortion on demand is nihilism.
4. The feminist movement is nihilism.
5. The separation of faith from public life is nihilism.
6. Public nudity is an expression of nihilism.
7. Free love, living together without marriage, mothers and fathers abandoning their children is all nihilism.
8. Rejecting children as a blessing of God is nihilism.
IV. Does the Bible condone or promote the exploitation of the poor or vulnerable?
A. Old Testament required the compassion toward the poor and vulnerable (widow, orphans, strangers) declaring that God Himself will plead the cause of the weak and punish those who abuse them.
1. Exodus 23:11 the sabbatical year's produce was left for the poor
2. Leviticus 10:10 the gleanings were left for the poor
-- v. 15 equal justice for the poor
3. Leviticus 25:25 debts were canceled every seven years