Sermon Tone Analysis

Last Sunday I presented the introduction to developing a Biblical Worldview.

I made the case that: 1) most professing Christians do not have a thoroughly biblical worldview, and 2) that Christians are engaged in a battle for their minds—will be seek to develop the Mind of Christ or will we be held captive by the philosophy and empty deceptions that other worldviews offer?

Developing a Biblical Worldview is of extreme importance if we are going to live righteously and advance the Kingdom of God in this world.

As we discovered last week, only about 4% of professing Christians in America actually have a Biblical Worldview.

The church’s singular failure in recent decades has been the failure to see Christianity as a lifestyle that governs every area of existence and speaks to both the moral and the physical order of the universe.

My goal in this sermon series is to help you begin the process of developing a worldview that is based on the Scriptures and not popular culture.

Christians, in my humble opinion, are going to have to become radical counter-culturalists.

I believe that, because we are living in a society that is becoming increasingly hostile to public displays of or expressions of faith—especially the Christian faith.

In other words, we’re going to have to become Biblical Christians with a worldview permeated by the Scriptures.

The Apostle Paul was beheaded because his worldview of Christ-is-Lord came crashing headlong into Rome’s worldview that Caesar-is-Lord.

In the early 21st century the biblical worldview that Christ-is-still-Lord is crashing headlong into the worldview that Secularism-is-Lord.

Secularism is the natural consequence of Naturalism.

Naturalism, as you’ll remember from last week, is the worldview that “the world is all there is”—that there is no such thing as the supernatural.

The naturalist worldview maintains, therefore, that the culture must be thoroughly secular—devoid of any religious influence.

The result of the ever increasing secularization of America is expressed by the Prophet Isaiah when he writes: /“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”/

(Isaiah 5:20, NIV84)

The result is that secularism has become the predominant way of thinking in most of the power centers of society including our educational system, official government thinking, our judicial system, and our mass media outlets.

Secularism is the worldview of the cultural elites of our society who are attempting to mold our culture into their perverted and godless image.

Today almost every major magazine, newspaper, television network, secular book publisher, and movie producer is a committed secularist, surrounding himself or herself with editors and newscasters and associates who seldom permit anything to be presented that contradicts their viewpoint.

This has resulted in the exorcism of God from virtually every sphere of public life.

* ILLUS.

Just two weeks ago, NBC caused a flap by editing out the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance during its coverage of golf's U.S. Open.

They not only omitted it once, but twice!

The second omission went even further, editing out "one nation" as well.

NBC is claiming it was “inadvertent” and not done to upset anyone.

I am convinced that this was just one more example of the arrogance of a thoroughly secular media in their promotion of radical Secularism.

The mass media industry, our judicial system, and to a large degree, our nation’s public universities, are laying siege to the minds of Americans.

This siege upon the American mind and culture will only be broken as Christians develop a biblical worldview, and learn how to defend that worldview in the marketplace of ideas.

Such a worldview will always run counter to the culture we now find ourselves living in.

I think this is one of the most exciting times in our history to be a bible-believing Christian!

This morning, I want to look at the first question that every worldview must answer: Where did we come from and who are we?

In answering that question, I want to lay the foundation for every doctrine found in the Scriptures.

It is the belief that God spoke the universe into existence, created life and providentially rules over His creation.

!

I.

A FLAWED VIEW OF CREATION LEADS TO A SECULARIZED WORLDVIEW

#. the first fundamental question that any worldview must answer is: /“Where did we come from, and who are we?”/

#. for the first 1,700 years of western culture the Bible gave us that answer

#. the Genesis account of creation was pretty much unquestioned

#. the Bible said it, that settled it

#.

for those of you who may be wondering, that still settles it for me

#.

I am an unapologetic Creationist

#. no, that does not mean I’m stupid

!! A. A SCIENTIFIC ENLIGHTENMENT THAT BROUGHT SPIRITUAL DARKNESS

#. with the dawning of the 18th century came an intellectual movement that we’ve come to call, /The Enlightenment/

#.

The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that emphasized the use of reason and logic to scrutinize previously accepted doctrines and traditions

#. during the Enlightenment, there was a tremendous growth in knowledge and the dissemination of that knowledge that continues to this day

#.

scientific inquiry and rational thought became the dual standards by which all knowledge and experience was tested

#. one of the products of The Enlightenment was a man by the name of Charles Darwin

#. after a trip to the Galapagos Islands, he wrote a book entitled The Origin of the Species which was published in 1859

#. he postulated that all species have gradually evolved into the forms they are today—including man—through the process of natural selection

#. enter the Theory of Evolution

#. his work fundamentally changed the way we look at the world and seemed to present a serious challenge to the truthfulness of the Genesis account of creation

#. the Theory of Evolution is a theory that most scientists and researches have elevated to unquestionable fact

#. to accept any other interpretation of Earth’s palenotological history is to risk being labeled a rank heretic, a crank, or just plain stupid

#. the result of Darwinian Evolution is a /Naturalistic Worldview/

#. the Naturalistic worldview teaches that nature is all that exists—there is no such thing as the supernatural

#. this worldview is the dominant philosophy being taught in academia

#. it’s even crept into the books your children read

* ILLUS.

Many of you are familiar with the Berenstain Bear book series for children.

In one book, the Bear family invites the reader to join them for a nature walk.

We start out on a sunny morning, and after running into a few spider webs, we read in capitol letter spread across a beautiful sunrise, these words: /Nature is all there IS, or WAS or EVER WILL BE/.

(This is a paraphrase of astronomer Carl Sagan’s, /“The cosmos is all there is, or was or ever will be."/

While Sagan denied that he was an Atheist, his writings and speech betray him).

#. if the naturalistic worldview is correct, then man has only himself to answer to and it’s up to us to determine our own fate, our own morality and even our own truth

* ILLUS.

Charles Coleson writes in his book, How Now Shall We Live, /“If nature is all there is, there is no transcendent source of truth or morality.

Truth is relative, and we are left to construct morality on our own.

Every principle is reduced to a personal preference.

If we are animals and have no intrinsic value, then how is killing another human different from killing a cow or chicken?”/

!! B. THE CONSEQUENCES OF REJECTING THE GENESIS ACCOUNT

#. some argue that as long as Christians believe in God, does it make any difference whether we believe in a God who created the world in six literal days, or slowly over six billion years?

#. most do so without ever contemplating the consequences of doing so

#.

let me quickly share with you four theological consequences when you reject the Biblical account of creation

#.

First, if you deny the accuracy and the authenticity of the creation account than you deny the authority and inerrancy of the Scriptures

#. that is dangerous

* 1 Tim.

3:16 /"All Scripture is given be inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."/

* 2 Pet.

1:19-21 /“We also have a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto light that shineth in a dark place, until the dawn , and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."/

#. the Bible is first and foremost a book faith

#. it's story and message are utterly fantastic and is predicated on the presupposition that God is almighty and can and does intervene in the course of history and the lives of men

#. but just because the message is fantastic and requires faith does not mean that it's stories and miracles are non-historical and cannot be taken literally

#. we believe the stories because we have a God who cannot lie and who would not ask us to put faith in myth

#.

Second, if you deny the validity of the creation account, you make Jesus a liar

#. that is dangerous

#.

Jesus believed in the historical accuracy of the Scriptures

#.

He believed that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch the first five books of the Bible

* John 5:46 /"For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.

But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe in my words?"/

#. throughout the Gospels, Jesus upheld the authority and inspiration of the Old Testament Scriptures

* ILLUS.

I actually remember one of my more liberal professors in college claim that, as the Son of God, Jesus knew that Moses really didn't write the Pentateuch and that the Creation account really wasn’t true, but he pretended that they were so as to accommodate the ignorance of the common man of his day.

#.

Third, if you deny the accuracy of the creation account, you loose the origin of sin and the necessity of salvation and the absoluteness of judgement

#. that is dangerous

#.

I’ve got a question for the evolutionist—if everything is evolving upward then why after 10,000 years of recorded human history have we not eradicated hunger, greed, hatred, war, malice, poverty, etc., etc., etc.?

#. most evolutionists deny the existence of a real Adam and Eve

#. they scoff at the story of their creation and subsequent fall from grace

#. if they are correct, then how do you explain the depravity of man’s nature?