Illustr. - In a wealthy suburb of Indianapolis, a group of high school students were asked, "Was Adolf Hitler wrong in murdering millions of Jews?" They said yes. The interviewer then asked them why. They did not realize that their response was chilling. "Well, you see," they said, "Hitler was defeated by the Allies. And in war, like everything else, the victor gets to define reality. The Allies determined that what Hitler had done was wrong. Therefore, he was wrong."
These students all came from fine Christian homes, so there was no excuse for them to be ignorant of the moral implications of that reply. Only one student differed. "I think Hitler would have been wrong, even if he had won the war and brainwashed everyone into believing he was right." This lone student could articulate moral absolute.
We are engaged today in a battle between worldviews. Ultimately our battle is not against flesh and blood. At stake are the hearts and souls of America’s youth, who are leaving the faith at an unprecedented rate. (Statistics tell us that we retain only around 3-7% of young people in our churches after they graduate high school.) Our involvement as Christians must go beyond political action. We (Christians) must understand and defend a Biblical worldview in all of life. Furthermore, we must impart this Biblical worldview to the youth who will lead the next generation.
Paul says, "See to it that no one takes you captive, through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world, rather than on Christ." - Colossians 2:8
3 PHILOSOPHIES ARE DECEIVING YOUNG PEOPLE (SUCH AS THOSE I DESCRIBED EARLIER IN INDIANAPOLIS), AS WELL AS MANY ADULTS IN AMERICA TODAY.
ONE - NO ONE CAN SAY WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG.
Students today say, "Maybe you think adultery, abortion or homosexuality is wrong, but who are you to decide for everyone else?" As you saw on the screen moments ago, according to a Gallup Poll, 82% of college students today say they believe in no absolute truths. It really is "anything goes" out there. Morality has been reduced to "every man for himself." Right and wrong is no longer based on absolutes but on individual opinion.
To illustrate, Dr. Jeff Myers relates the following example. "When one of my (college) professors proclaimed, ’There are no absolute truths,’ I asked him, ’Professor, are you sure?’
He said, ’Yes, I’m sure.’
’Are you absolutely sure?’
He stared at me. ’You’re very clever,’ he said, ’If I say there are no absolutes, then that is an absolute statement. Let me revise my remarks. There is on absolute, which is this: There are no absolutes.’"
"The careless logic of his reply stunned me. He refused to see the truth. This should not surprise Christians, however. Proverbs 4:19 says, ’The way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not even know what makes them stumble.’"
Without a moral compass, people cannot make rational decisions about what is right and wrong for themselves or for society. We can’t decide if an unborn baby is a human being or a blob of tissue because we have listened to the rhetoric of the "politically correct" instead of checking out the medical facts that life begins at conception - an absolute supported completely by the Bible. As so, on subjects ranging from abortion to homosexuality to euthanasia to human cloning to sex before marriage we have become a nation led by what is popular. We have let the evening news or the Hollywood elite or what is being taught in the halls of academia form our value system rather than moral absolutes that have stood the test of time.
When he stood before Pilate for questioning (John 18:37), Jesus said, "For this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."
And Pilate answered, "What is truth?" Good question. It’s still being asked by millions of people today. Where do you go for the right answer? Where can you get to the bottom line? Is everything really so vague? Isn’t there someplace you can go for solid answers to the big questions of life? I say there is.
Psalm 119:160 - "All your words are true (O Lord); all your righteous laws are eternal."
TWO - NO ONE CAN KNOW ANYTHING FOR SURE.
A philosophy teacher taught this on the first day of class every year. He asked, "How do you know the sky is blue? Maybe it’s green, but society has conditioned you to call it blue." After several such examples, he crowed, "My point is that you can’t know anything for sure."
The postmodern mindset has embraced this philosophy with a vengeance. German philosopher Martin Heidegger said, "In the naming, the things named come into their ’thinging.’ Thinging, they unfold the world, in which ’things’ abide, and so are abiding ones." (Do smart people confuse you sometimes?!?) In other words, there is no such thing as objective reality; reality is what each person creates for himself through communication with others.
Jeff Myers says, "I disagree with this (thinking) for a very practical reason. A number of years ago, I started a company to train students in wilderness survival. On the last day of our trips, the guides left camp and told students to meet them at the trailhead, using a map and compass. The students were in the middle of nowhere, but they always found the way back. Imagine what would happen, however, if the young man with the compass had an enormous magnet strapped to his back that said, ’I am the North Pole.’ Without a fixed point of reference, those students might still be wandering in the Colorado wilderness!"
Likewise, we have thousands of people in our culture who have fixed their point of reference on a "moving North Pole" that changes with trends in society. Families are disintegrating, marriages are failing at a 50% clip both inside and outside the church, the former President of the United States has "re-defined" sexual intercourse for us, the State of Vermont has sanctioned same-sex marriage. What has happened? We’ve got our eyes on a "moving North Star." God’s Word used to be "true North." The Pilgrim’s weren’t confused when they settled in the New World. The Founding Father’s knew truth when they framed our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They weren’t confused. The majority of the Laws in the United States are based directly or indirectly on Scripture.
Only in the last 30 years or so have we become confused. Amazingly, you can chart shocking increases in divorce, pre-marital sex and abortion and other negative societal shifts in America coinciding exactly with the decision to remove the Bible/prayer from our public school system. I personally don’t fault that decision alone as the reason for these changes but I do believe that decision represented a critical time when we as a society said, "The Bible no longer is as important to us as it once was."
We began to follow our own "North Stars", rather than be held to one standard of truth. The results have been devastating. We don’t even know who God is anymore. Thank goodness He still knows who He is. Have you put your faith in the right God? You can know for sure.
THREE - THE ONLY MEANING IN LIFE IS WHAT YOU CREATE FOR YOURSELF.
We live in perhaps the most self-centered age in our nation’s history. Everyone seems to be saying, "I have a right not to have your existence affect my life." People move from the front porch to the back deck. They stop singing around the piano and start wearing headphones. The populace cries, "Leave me alone!" and perhaps the ultimate hell is that this wish would be granted. My hope and prayer is that 9/11 has brought a renewed sense of community back to us - but will it last? One can only wait and wonder.
Is your life all about you? Don’t you have a larger sense of your own personal destiny than your own earthly success? What will you have when you finally reach the end of your imaginary rainbow of self-fulfillment? If it’s all about you, you’ll just find pot full of fool’s gold. Are you really so arrogant as to think that you have the power to create meaning for your life?
Jesus said (John 10:10), "I have come that you might have life, and have it to the full." Could it be that Jesus is the missing "peace" in the puzzle of your life?
TAKING EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE
These 3 deceptive philosophies are taking young people and adults captive at an astonishing rate. We must reclaim this lost ground be developing a strong, effective Biblical worldview. The apostle Paul wrote, "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And we take captive every thought, to make it obedient to Christ." - 2 Corinthians 10:5
The Bible teaches that to take every thought captive we must…
FIRST, EMBRACE THE TRUTH FOUND IN JESUS CHRIST.
In John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." This is indeed a deep statement, for the great philosophers have struggled to answer three questions:
What is good?
What is true?
And finally, what is beautiful?
Illustr. - In Jesus’ day, "the way" referred to a moral course of action. By claiming to be "the way," Jesus claimed to be the standard for right and wrong.
When He said He was "the truth" He said that the nature and character of God defined all reality, and that He himself was God made flesh.
When He claimed to be "the life" Jesus established himself as the standard for that which was worthwhile, that which was beautiful.
In this simple statement, Jesus revealed himself to be the answer to the philosopher’s quest. Only one pursuit in all of life yields unending satisfaction: a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
THE SECOND WAY TO TAKE EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE IS TO SEE THE CONFLICTS OF OUR AGE AS A BATTLE BETWEEN COMPETING VIEWS OF GOD.
One says that God created us, and He gives us purpose. Since we are made in His image, we ought to reflect His nature and character in every sphere of life, including politics. But today’s secular elite rejects this view. They embrace the idea that human beings invented the idea of God to help them cope in a "meaningless" universe. The chasm between these two views is unbridgeable. Those who hold that believe in God is inherently irrational are deeply offended when Christians try to get involved. They scoff, "Who do these Christians think they are to impose their irrational ideas about some make-believe ’god’ on us?" They openly disdain any religious person who wants to influence government based on their beliefs. (Case in point, Attorney General John Ashcroft)
Sadly, most Christians have been intimidated into surrendering to this secular ideology. In his book Spiritual Marketplace, Wade Clark Roof points out that 50% of evangelical Christians believe that, "all religions are equally good and true." Josh McDowell and George Barna note the 56% of evangelical Christian young people said it was possible to get to heaven without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
To take every thought captive in our current cultural context, we must learn what God’s Word has to say about the issues. Moreover, we must be alert to those who attempt to marginalize and ridicule those who believe in God. A Biblical worldview is not just a view of the world, however. It is a view for the world.
The apostle Paul said, "Those who oppose him (the Christian), he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will lead them to repentance." - 2 Timothy 2:25-26
It is enraging when secular humanists deny Christian influence in society. But we are not allowed to respond in the way of our secular counterparts. Our strategy is to know what we believe, explain it articulately, and graciously persuade those in authority to honor God.
TIME TO PERSEVERE
HERE ARE 3 WAYS TO SHAPE THE WORLDVIEW OF OUR YOUNG PEOPLE…
FIRST, TRAINING PROGRAMS - It is crucial that we get Christian young people between the ages of 16 and 21 together in training programs where they will learn how to defend the Biblical Christian faith and influence the world. I believe every Christian young person should be asked the tough questions in the course of their church life growing up years. (I was just talking about this subject with Janet Deitrich, our Christian Ed director and Brian Mangan) We need to ask our teenagers/young adults the tough questions in church because they will be asked those questions outside the church and they need to know what they believe!
SECOND, BOOKS - The great ideas of all time are not on television; they are in books. "If you want to be a leader, you’ve got to be a reader."
IMMERSE YOURSELF IN SCRIPTURE.
IMMERSE YOURSELF IN THE WRITING OF GREAT AUTHORS WHO HAVE THOUGHTFULLY APPLIED GOD’S WORD TO CURRENT ISSUES.
(LISTING OF BOOKS ON SCREEN AT END OF SERVICE)
THIRD, THE INTERNET - There are dangers to it, of course, but it contains dozens of Web sites to help you defend your Christian faith. Properly used, the Internet allows you to find answers faster than ever before. It can give you confidence and poise in sharing the hope within you. I Peter 3:15 - "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have."
Finally, having done all, we continue to stand. We persevere. We bless and do not curse; we speak the truth is a spirit of love. We live in times that are both scary and exciting. We’re going to become bruised and bloodied (as we defend the truth). But Jesus did not send us here to start the race; He sent us to finish it. So let’s press on and finish strong.
CONCLUSION:
Illustr. - Have You Tasted My Jesus?
