Seeking First The Kingdom

I want to pick up this morning where we left off last week, we're still on
Matthew 6.33, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these
things will be given to you as well. And specifically we have been looking
together at what it looks like when the nations of the world are
influenced by the gospel of the kingdom and the way that I've chosen to do
that is to follow De Sousa's example both in his book What's
the Read about Christianity as well as his summary in his debates with
Christopher Hitchens, a portion of which we looked at last week, looking at what
the fruit of the gospel looks like, what it impacts the Western world. And in the
context of doing that we have chosen to limit ourselves to two
characteristics that are unique to the Western world and can be attributed
significantly to the influence of the gospel. Let me quickly review these with
you because some of this material is maybe a little bit heady and yet
critical for us to grab hold of if we are to engage our culture meaning
fully. The first is the value of an individual person increases immeasurable as
a nation yields in some significant ways to the gospel. As I put it out last
week many of the freedoms that we take for granted, freedom of conscience,
freedom of choice, freedom from oppression, compassion as a social value,
justice for all are in one way or another the fruit of the gospel. We take
them for granted. They are missing in many cultures and many nations. The second
area that we looked at together is the rise of science only in Europe has
science arisen as the kind of discipline that we know it today. And as this is
the points out in his book it's because of the presuppositions of the
Christian faith, presuppositions such as the universe is logical. It's rational.
We have abilities and skills to study it and to make it known and many of the
earliest scientists were not only Christians but a good number of them clergy.
The Bible says the heavens declare the glory of God. We raised for us then the
question, giving the solidarity in the early days between science and religion.
Then why in our day and age are science and religion pitted against each other
almost constantly? Why do scientists describe themselves as super rational
intelligent people? Dockins has a new term for them. He calls them the
brights, a little conceited I think. And why are believers written off as old
fashioned and superstitious and behind the times people who need to be
brought on board and into the 21st century? Well so far we've looked at two of
three reasons that I want to share with you. The first is the use of the
militant atheist agenda. Atheists have particularly seized upon the
findings of science to try to prove there is no need for God. Until Darwin
came along with natural selection and random mutation as a theory for the
origin of life everybody had to agree we came from somewhere and maybe there's a
God out there who made us. What the origin of species did for many people is
provide an acceptable framework to say see we don't need God there are
naturalistic explanations for the origins of life. There are atheists who push
that agenda and who draw many away from faith on account of that. Second
reason that we talked about and this is a little bit complicated at stake are
differing epistemologies. Remember the word epistemology means the philosophy of
how you arrive at knowledge. How do you know something is true? Christians have
always said God has given us reasonable senses but those senses are impacted by
the fall and so ultimately we need to receive from God revelation and if there
is a conflict between what our senses tell us and what God tells us then we
must always give priority to what God says and that's true not only but the
natural world perhaps but especially true about knowing God. Complicated by the
fact that the Bible is not a book of science it's a book that leads us
to God and complicated by the fact that God is outside of time and space and
therefore cannot be studied and so you will never find a scientific proof for
the existence of God because God can only be known ultimately truly by
revelation and that revelation comes to those who are humble and contrite of
heart and spirit because it is to them God speaks you see otherwise smart
people would have the edge over dumb people as it is at the foot of the cross
we're all equal and while nature gives us a general revelation of who God is if
we had bodies to see it we need scripture we need the Holy Spirit we need the
revelation of the person of Jesus to truly know who God is that's why there is
such a conflict perceived or imagined between science and faith which
brings us this morning then to still a third reason this conflict between
science and religion is so often played up in the media and that is the fact
that we deal with a distortion of history there have been from time to time
major conflicts between science and religion think back to the scopes monkey
trial back in 1925 in the state of Tennessee John scopes a teacher dragged into
court for teaching evolution contrary to a state law the defenders of the
Bible and the defenders of creationism did not fare very well in that trial
they lost the trial more recently in the state of Kansas the debate between
evolution and intelligent design the intelligent design proponents trying to
get it taught in the schools thrown out of court the pressure is the other way
but all of those high profile cases between science and religion pale in
comparison to one story that is presented time and time again as an evidence of
the backwardness and the anti science stance of the church and the progressive
nature of scientists I wonder if you can think this morning what that story or
person is I mentioned it last week it's the story of Galileo Galileo lived from
1564 to 1642 in Italy and was one of the first to develop a telescope more
powerful than his predecessors use that to study the orbit of the planets and
came to the conclusion that Copernicus who preceded him by 50 years was
right when he said our solar system is heliocentric as opposed to geocentric
heliomin sun geomines earth and the scientific controversy that raged in
both science and in the church at that time was the question of does the earth
revolve around the sun or does the sun revolve around the earth now we know the
answer to that today that wasn't so plain to people back then and there were
many good reasons why the consensus and the scientific and the religious
community was that the sun in fact rotated around the world because you see
the sunrise in the morning and you see it set at night besides there there was
speculation that if the earth was spinning around the sun at the kind of speed
that it would have to be spinning at everybody would be blown off the face of
the earth but you never thought about that did you or that if you threw a stone
up in the air that it would fall much further down the road because of the
spinning of the earth and the rotation of the earth now we know of course that
the answer to that is the fact that our atmosphere moves with the earth and
that's why we're not aware of this motion it wasn't that people were stupid it
wasn't that people were unscientific it just made sense to them so that
controversy lasted for many many years with different people having a
different position on this and Galileo came along and though he used to be
geocentric in his own thinking through his telescope and through his scientific
measures he became heliocentric the earth revolves around the sun so that came
to the attention of the authorities as he was teaching that and he was invited
for a little interview with the inquisition now the inquisition was headed
up at that time by a dude by the name of Bellar Mean who was himself interested
in science and extremely open-minded we have a record of that meeting and here
is what Bellar Mean is quoted as saying while experience tells us plainly
that the earth is standing still nevertheless if there were real proof that the
sun is in the center of the universe and that the sun does not go around the
earth but the earth around the sun then we should have to proceed with great
circumspection in explaining passages of scripture which appeared to teach
to the contrary and rather admit that we did not understand them then declare
an opinion to be false which is proved to be true but this is not a thing to be
done in haste and as for myself I shall not believe that there are such
proofs until they are shown to me what he is saying there is that he wants to be
open to what is really the truth about the solar system but he wants proof
that it indeed is so and that's where Galileo's problem came in he was
right about how the solar system functioned but he was wrong in giving the
reasons for it he thought for example that the orbit of the planets was
circular Kepler had already determined the orbit of the planets was in fact
elliptical and he said Kepler was wrong he also said that the tides were caused
by the orbit of the earth around the sun which we now know is largely untrue
because the tides are primarily caused by the moon and so he reached an
agreement with the inquisition that he would not teach this subject and caused
trouble in society and for a number of years he kept his promise until a new
Pope came along and this Pope was very much in favor of Galileo had written a
poem praising him was very interested in science and so he began teaching this
thing about a heliocentric universe in fact wrote a book in 1632 called
dialogue concerning the two chief world systems and in that book he portrayed
an imaginary discussion between himself and the Pope whom he called Simplton not
a smart move the Pope was not amused so he also ventured into Bible
interpretation and said most of the Bible is allegory it's not to be
understood literally you have to just read between the lines and that got him
into all kinds of trouble so they dragged him back into court and there it was
discovered that he had broken his promise a number of years earlier not a
teach about this and it was also discovered that he went on record as saying that
he had never advocated a heliocentric view of the universe hard to imagine he
said his book was written in fact to show the weakness of that theory well
everybody knew that he was lying maybe he was scared for his hide I don't know
but he was found guilty made to recant placed under house arrest for some
months and then a release to carry on his scientific endeavors and died in bed
in good graces of the church in 1642 a far cry from the conflict that is
pictured between science and religion Carl Sagan in his books is that Galileo
was in a Catholic dungeon threatened with torture for his heretical view that
the earth moved about the sun and other people have gone on record as saying
that's a vast exaggeration the issues were much bigger than that as well this
represents the only known case in ancient relatively speaking history where
there was a controversy about these kinds of issues so militant atheists with an
agenda of their own sees and stories like this all the nuances are lost and it
serves as a marvelous example of how anti science people of faith are and how
smart people of science are and so here's what I want to come to with all of
this why do I mention this why even make a point of it I'm well aware that all
of us are not equally interested in science and maybe some of this goes right
over our heads but here's the reason why there is a concerted effort being made
today to muzzle the Christian voice out of the public market square there is
increasingly pressure being placed on people of faith to limit faith to your
own personal and private life don't speak it out in public and don't expect
it in any way shape or form to shape public policy and just to show you how
radical that is going to show you two video clips back to back one is a very
short clip from the D'Souza Hitchens debate from last week the context is
irrelevant you'll get the point that he's making and then a longer video clip
featuring Ben Stein who is a media personality and who has produced a film a
documentary that'll be out on theaters next month called expelled no intelligence
allowed and he's being interviewed in a talk show by O'Reilly it'll give you a
picture of what's happening in today's society so take a look at this you
notice that in a statement Christopher Hitchens zoomed in on one issue hitler
in the Nazis leaving untouched indeed unmentioned the scourges of Communisms
he didn't not only mention hold on hold on don't jump in it's my time this is
the atheist conception of fairness we hugged the public square completely to
ourselves and drive all the religions out look in the unresolved problem
segments and I had life on earth begin religious people believe a higher
power created the universe secular progressive say all kinds of things but
God is not in the equation and some believe those who subscribe to
intelligent design that is a deity created life are being persecuted in
America joining us now from Washington Ben Stein was put together a new
documentary called expelled no intelligence allowed the film set open in the
theaters this coming from worry so what's the issue in your mind well the issue
is that Darwinism which is a brilliant theory and a great great relic of the
age of imperialism in the 19th century basically said mankind evolved from
eighths and monkeys and from his cells and so forth and that's a brilliant
proposition Darwin was a brilliant guy but it didn't say a life began it didn't
say how the sale got that hundreds of thousands of moving parts each of
which has to work perfectly it said maybe life is created by lightning
striking a mud puddle that has never struck me as convincing and I thought
there are a lot of gaps in Darwinism intelligent design is an effort to try to
fill in some of those gaps it might be totally wrong but at least it's an
effort to try to fill in some very obvious gap all right but you know when you
say that is particularly you being in the show business community of one foot
in there that Christopher Hitchens Bill Mar who we just saw are going to say
that you're a primitive that you're an intellectual deficient that you have no
right to intrude on the American secular culture by bringing up there may be a
creator and you say what I say there's a first amendment I'm allowed to say
anything I want and Bill Mar has nothing to say about it and Christopher Hitchens
has nothing to say about it in fact this whole problem is about violation of
the first amendment there are many scientists we interviewed many who have
been expelled from their jobs who've had their website shut down who've been
denied grants and I tenure because they wanted to question the limits the
boundaries of Darwinism and the gaps in Darwinism and they've been expelled
shut down that's not how society's progressed society's progressed by asking
questions and having freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry we're not trying
to shut anyone up Bill Mark and say anything he wants all these Darwinist
people all these atheists can say anything they want we would just like to have
freedom of inquiry and freedom of speech and is this problem important well is
freedom of speech important is freedom of inquiry well you're but it's interesting
because state of Kansas not a not a crazy will state is ordered its people
teachers not to mention that there might be a creationistic aspect to the
universe and you're right I mean the academics now have shut down and I could
never understand it why can't you just mention in biology class or whatever
class you want that there are theologians who believe a higher power was
responsible for the first life because whenever I get the atheists on the
factor and you probably know this I said okay how did all start well we don't
know yet the reason they're so angry about and so defensive is because the
theory has so many holes that it's such a weak theory that they have to be
defensive about it to to fight off what are going to be some obvious attacks on
I mean this is a theory which was a brilliant theory in the middle of 19th
century it's a 21st century there are a lot of questions being raised about it
nobody had any idea the cell was so complex we would just like to be able to
ask the questions maybe we're wrong maybe we're stupid but we'd like to be
able to ask the question okay do you think though that people who believe in
creationism are being persecuted in a without there's no doubt about it we have
lots and lots of evidence of it in the movie and you know Einstein was worked
within the framework of believing there was a God Newton work within the
framework of believing there was a God for gosh sakes Darwin work within the
framework of believing there was a God and and yet somehow today you're not
allowed to believe and why can't we have as much freedom as dark I don't know
it's an excellent question I've never been able to understand why the secular
authorities in education all right basically persecute people who raise a very
legitimate question hey you guys haven't figured it out you secular pinheads
can't you haven't figured it out yet a lot of time so perhaps we just want to
let the kids know there are two opinions on this but no you can't have the kids
here that separation of church in state I'll give it a last word mister because
there's so much fear out there in the secular community that they're that
their position is so precarious we're not trying to shut them down we just
want to be allowed to talk and think just want to have all cards put on the
academic team exactly all right Ben Stein everybody will look for his film thank
you as I said a little bit in your face but that's Ben Stein I understand that
he's also featured on our satellite broadcast next Sunday night when we
feature the debate life from Stanford University in California between Jay
Richards hold a master's of theology degree from Calvin theological seminary
and Grand Rapids and Christopher Hitchens on the subject of atheism versus
theism lack of faith in God versus faith in God why mention all this because
there is a deliberate attempt in many quarters of today's society to stifle
the voice of believing people so here is the question then what can we do
about it well three quick suggestions this morning the first is we have an
obligation to know the facts again I'm well aware that not all of us have an
equal interest in this and not all of us are called to engage in these
discussions but too often and for too long God's people sort of bury their
head in the sand we live in our own little religious enclave we watch the
world go to hell and don't care a great deal about it or if we do we just
ring our hands and I'm often reminded of that terrific poem written by Pastor
Martin Nemula about the inactivity of the German intellectuals following the
Nazi rise to power in the 1930s and the purging of their chosen targets group
after group you've probably heard it it's called first they came first they came
for the communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist then they
came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew then they came
for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade
unionist then they came for the Catholics and they didn't speak up because I was
a Protestant then they came for me and by that time there was no one left to
speak up Edmund Burke is often quoted as saying the only thing necessary for
the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing at the very least we need to
get our heads out of the sand and we need to study our culture and we need to
understand what is going on in that regard let me call your attention to two
books that people have just handed me as we've been speaking about this sort of
stuff these last couple of weeks the first is a book called Unprotected by
Dr. Anonymous it's subtitled a campus psychiatrist reveals how political
correctness in her profession and dangers every student an eye opener she is a
Christian psychiatrist in a medical center at a major secular university south
of the border she talks about the pressure that is being put on the medical
profession to be politically correct particularly in areas of sexuality she
says if somebody suffers from tuberculosis you can warn everybody and say don't
come near that person he needs to be quarantined if people need health advice
you're allowed to tell them they want not a smoke and they ought to eat
properly and get enough sleep and all of that sort of stuff but when it comes to
areas of sexuality on the secular campuses of most major universities in the
United States and probably in Canada too she says your hands are completely
tied you cannot ask about previous sexual experiences you cannot warn them
about the danger that lies ahead and the result is that misinformation and
depression is rampant on some of those campuses particularly among young
women 70% of her clients are young women many of whom suffered depression
because they are selling out in terms of sexual relationships they're catching
sexually transmitted diseases that they haven't been warned about and they
don't know where to go with it she tells the story of one young woman who came
all depressed looking for Zolaugh depression medication in the discussion it
became clear that she was in a relationship called friends with benefits you
sleep together but you're you're not in relationship and it was starting to
get to her and she said it seems to me that he has old benefits but he doesn't
want to be my friend and then you wonder why that young woman is looking for a
prescription for depression unprotected by Dr. Anonymous an incredible piece of
work she's anonymous because to this day she knows that if she were to speak
up she'd lose her job just like that other book that somebody just gave me the
marketing of evil by David Copeleon how radicals elitists and pseudo-expert
sell us corruption is guised as freedom and he makes mention in this book of a
public television front-line documentary that first aired in 2001 that is
called merchants of Kool and it outlines how five major media companies have
virtually complete monopoly over the music the entertainment and the
television industry in North America and how they have a deliberate campaign
that is geared for selling their product to the youth and shaping their youth
culture what they do is they send industrial spies to do focus groups with
young people and they find the 20% of the kids who are on the cutting edge of
fashion and music whatever it is that they're interested in because they will
become the trendsetters for the rest of the young people the value there is
we all need to be cool that's why it's merchants of cool they then take their
findings they sell them to people in industry for good money and industry tries
to be ahead of the curve because that's where the market is going to go and they
are phenomenally successful with that the teenage population in the
United States alone stands at 33 million it's larger than the baby boom
population it is a market value back in the early 2000s of $150 billion how
successful are they well ask yourself this question when you watch teenage
movies what is the stereotypical male that makes for best selling movies well
he's called the MOOC a term I had never heard before he is characterized
mainly by his infantile borish behavior he is a perpetual adolescent he is
crude misogynistic that is to say anti-women and very very angry he is a
creation a deliberate creation of the media marketing machine that has
found where they can appeal to in young adolescents and make them sell their
product and come to their concerts did you know that wrestling as an
entertainment industry is part of that package and is a huge seller to this
particular age group and you wonder why movies like American pie and the whole
bunch of others and don't go watch them they're not good for you are so popular
today like so many movies are gross ad movies it is part of a marketing campaign
the female equivalent to that is what they called the midriff ever wonder why
young girls more and more are half naked earlier and earlier it's part of the
same campaign it's a whole attempt at sexualizing a new generation of young
women the midriff character pitch the teenage girls is the highly sexualized
world weary sophisticate that increasingly populates television shows such as
Dawson Creek and films such as Cruel intentions again a few years ago and it
hasn't gotten any better teenagers increasingly look to the media to provide
them with ready made identity predicated on today's version of what is cool
kids feel frustrated and lonely today because they're encouraged to feel that
way advertising has always sold anxiety and it certainly sells anxiety to the
young it's always telling them that they're not thin enough they're not pretty
enough they don't have the right friends or they have no friends they're losers
unless they're cool but I don't think anybody deep down ever really feels
cool enough and even when kids react against this mass marketing as
sometimes they do the marketers are so clever they're able to turn that
rebellion against the marketing machine own it and sell it back to the kids
that happened earlier on in this decade with a thing called rage rock rage
rock was a phenomenon where bands like Insane Clown Posse and Limbiscuit rose
to predominance because it was anti-authority it was anti-structure it was
anti everything and the kids said isn't that cool this is ours well the
marketers came along they penetrated it they puffed up these particular groups
they marketed it and it's become another social phenomenon the marketing of
evil I would encourage you not only to read the book but you can access the
documentary online the merchants of cool it is an eye opener as to why we find
ourselves where we find ourselves today we need to know what is happening and we
must not be so naive as to think that somehow we ourselves or our own kids are
not influenced by that because what's cool in popular culture is also cool
generally speaking among church youth know the facts and then learn the
arguments one of the brothers and I here had a conversation after last
Sunday mornings message on some of this stuff and he raised the question in
connection with the Dessousa and Hitchens debate whether these debates ever
really accomplish anything and that resonated with me because I've often asked
myself that same question and it'll be very interesting next Sunday night to
see how we feel about the debate between Hitchens and Richards but as I've
pondered the question it's occurred to me that if you look at the Apostle Paul
in the book of Acts towards the end he is engaged daily it says in argument
and debate with the Jewish people and if you look at the ministry of Jesus you'll
see that Jesus is constantly engaged in conversation called a debate with the
religious leaders of his day and while it's true that debates do not
generally sway the already convinced they can be extremely helpful for the
uncommitted middle of the road who is looking to find reasons for what they
believe why do these social movements that we've been talking about have such
incredible momentum why do we feel that it's like an unstoppable force that is
coming at us any parent that's ever argued with a teenage daughter about the
clothes that you're wearing or your teenage son about how they're carrying on
or or whatever will now that the power of that out there seems to exceed every
other power that you can try to apply to that situation why well in part
because all these movements are sustained by very sophisticated arguments
people don't generally practice one thing if they have an entirely different
belief because then you get very split so they tend to have to come together
and we have very bright and very intelligent people on many levels trying to
find reasons for not submitting to God for not obeying him and for experiencing
all the freedom that we want those arguments are not near they have been
around since the beginning of time they center on things like we don't need
God because there are alternative explanations for our existence not
believing in God has a lot of attraction for some people because it means I
can do what I want to do and nobody's going to hold me accountable I am my
own God and master when you listen to Hitchens you'll find again and again
but the way he portrays God is so far removed from the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ as I've said before I wouldn't want to serve that kind of a
God either an autocratic bully is what he calls them we have no soul is part of
the argument why because biology now tells us that consciousness may be
nothing more than the function of our brains where really no different from
the animals God if he does exist is cruel he is a despot he could have stopped
evil he doesn't and so how can you believe in that kind of a thing and then of
course there's the whole subject of the crimes of religion some of which
indeed have been committed in the name of the Lord throughout the course of
history but all those arguments are there and they've been there for a long
long time and what are the reasons we need to expose ourselves to what is
happening out there is so that we can analyze those arguments and have a word
in response at the very least we need to know that there are answers that there
are other intelligent people who disagree with that point of view and better
yet we need to become familiar with some of those because if you're going to
rub shoulders with people around you in today's society those issues are
going to come up and it's not good enough simply to say well the Bible says and
this is what I choose to believe it's important to know what the Bible says it's
important to know what you believe but you got to be able to tear down those
arguments Paul calls it this way he says the weapons we fight with are not the
weapons of the world I'm a contrary they have divine power to demolish
strongholds 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 we need to know what the facts are we need to learn the
arguments and then we need to know how to engage our culture Jesus said you are
the salt of the earth you are the light of the world in the same way let your
light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your father
in heaven how do we engage your culture that's a whole subject in itself Lord
willing when we go back to this next time we're going to look at five different
ways Christians throughout the ages have sought to answer that question and
somewhere in that spread you and I are going to find ourselves we're going to
find a method that we're comfortable with so that we cannot only stand up for
Christ but we can do it in a whimsome and a wholesome way that shows there is
a better way of living than how the world has chosen to live
Charlie shall ring with the sound of praise and the light shall walk with the lamp of his
God there shall be no end and this glory shall fill the earth
we are going to find a way of living in our lives there's a show in the camp as we
get closer to God in the King of the Lord of life oh the valley shall ring with the
sound of praise and the light shall walk with the lamp of his
God there shall be no end and this glory shall fill the earth
we are going to find a way of living in our lives there's a show in the camp as we
get closer to God in the King of the Lord of God may your will be done may your kingdom
let it roll let it rain in our lives there's a show in the camp as we enter the
world in the King of the Lord of life in the King of the Lord of life in the King of the
Lord of life in the King of the Lord of the Lord of the Lord of the Lord of the Lord of the