FINDING TRUTH IN A MORALLY SUICIDAL WORLD

OUTLINE
1. SETTING THE BACKDROP: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
Our world is a mess…
2. GENTLE WORDS, HARSH REALITIES: THE THREE MINDSETS
a. Secularization: Operation Kick God Out
b. Pluralization: Believe Anything, Doubt Everything
c. Privatization: Me, Myself & I
3. SOME HEART-WARMING NEWS: THE COUNTER PERSPECTIVE
a. Son ship: Redemption/ Relationship
b. Worship: Righteousness
c. Stewardship: Responsibility/ Reward
4. TO WRAP UP…
Always only Jesus!

ICE BREAKER
Who do you consider to be braver and stronger willed: a military man paid
to shoot until he kills a criminal on death row, or a cameraman, paid to
capture the whole scene until the man dies? Explain…

Which of these two do you consider to be worse: a person who buys

pornographic magazines or a man who buys nude paintings? Explain…

SETTING THE BACKDROP: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

It’s no news flash that our world is messed up.
Man has been to the moon and back, completed mind-blowing inventions
and brought prosperity to the earth; man has reached out to other planets
and can read stars with so much ease.
Yet man is unable to reach out to the guy next door and cannot
understand the obvious body language of his neighbor.
Technology claims to connect us, but it leaves us more separate than
ever. Everyone chats, but only a few relate.
Everyone has a smile, but many are unhappy.
With people all around us, we are still lonely; free to exist in the prison of
our minds.
So much riches all around, but many die poor.
So much talk about fundamental human rights, but many are
fundamentally dehumanized; used and abused by people who preach
against abuse.
For all our tolerance and talk, we don’t show so much love… We have
become open-minded but closed hearted.
In our bid to be god, we have become godless.
In our bid to make life better, we have destroyed ourselves.
In our attempt to show our strength, we expose our weakness.
In our bid to educate ourselves, we become stupid ourselves.
But why?

- Arthur Guiterman, “Gaily the Troubadour”

First dentistry was painless; then bicycles were chainless. Carriages were
horseless, And many laws enforceless.
Next cookery was fireless, Telegraphy was wireless, Cigars were nicotine
less, And coffee caffeineless.
Soon oranges were seedless, The putting green was weedless, The college
boy was hatless [heartless], The proper diet fatless.
New motor roads are dustless, The latest steel is rustless, Our tennis
courts are sodless, Our new religion–godless.”

-G K Chesterton
You are free in our time to say that God does not exist. You are free to say
that he exists and is evil. You are free to say like Paul Renault, that God
will like to exist if he could. You may talk of God as a mystification or
metaphor. You may boil him down with gallons of long words or boil him
down to the rags of metaphysics. And it is not merely that nobody
punishes, but nobody protests. But if you speak of God as a thing like a
tiger, as a reason for changing one’s conduct; then the modern world will
stop you somehow, if it can. We are long past talking about whether an
unbeliever should be punished for being irreverent; it is now thought
irreverent to be a believer.

These quotes give a simple summary of secularism, as we see it in our

world. Looking at happenings around us, it has become clear that our
Christian choices are now more difficult to make, and the defense of our
belief in God is harder to sustain. Christians are not only forced to erase
the lines and cross the boundaries, but we are also asked to celebrate the
trend. Things that were forbidden years ago have become acceptable
now, and anyone who kicks against them is either discriminating or
ignorant; anyone who attempts to kick against any form of evil is seen as
evil and judgmental.

How did we get here?

GENTLE WORDS, HARSH REALITIES: THE THREE MINDSETS
 1. Secularization: Operation Kick God Out
Secularization came about as a result of secularism; but what is this
secularism?
It originates from the root word “saeculum” (secular), which means “this
worldly” or “of this world.”

Secularism, also known as secular humanism, is “a system of doctrines

and practices that disregards or rejects any form of religious faith and
worship. Its primary objective is the total elimination of all
religious elements from society.” What does this mean?

 First, Secular Humanism is a worldview. That is, it is a set of beliefs

through which one interprets all of reality—something like a pair of
glasses with which we view life.
 Secondly, Secular Humanism is a religious worldview (like theism,
pantheism, etc.)1 Don’t let the word “secular” mislead you.; it is a
religious worldview.
 Thirdly, it believes that science, not the Bible, has answers to all
human questions. This is because of the belief that God does not
exist and only science can be trusted to prove anything; the Bible
does not and cannot be trusted.
 Fourth, it teaches that there are no objective or absolute truths
defining right and wrong; so everyone has the right to choose what
is right or wrong.
This belief is what brought about secularization, which Os Guinness
defines as the process by which religious ideas, institutions and
interpretations have lost their social significance.

Secularization argues that for the individual, it’s okay to have religious
views, but when serious issues are to be publicly discussed, those with a
religious view are not considered as important voices to be heard and are
discarded.
***For example: if you turn on the television and see a five-man panel
consisting of a philosopher, an educator, a lawyer, a scientist, and a
pastor, discussing an intense national matter, who would you assume to
be least educated and least qualified to be on that panel, or whose views
would you take to be most biased and most irrelevant? In fact, how many
people even think that people who went to the seminary had to go
through intense training on how to excellently write, speak, or make
presentations, as it is done in the universities? ***

1
For detailed proof that Secular Humanism is a religion, see Clergy in the Classroom: The Religion
of Secular Humanism by David A. Noebel, J.F. Baldwin and Kevin Bywater (Manitou Springs, CO:
Summit Press, 1995).
Our world blatantly assumes that all who are “this-worldly” are either well-
informed or objective or both. These ones supposedly have no hidden
agenda and possess no ulterior motive of trying to bring society under
repressive views. At the same time, it is implied that the religious are
bigoted and prejudiced, and seek to put culture’s head under their
tyrannical heels.

So, anyone who believes in God as the author of the universe is dismissed
as an intellectual dinosaur who has outlived his or her usefulness and
should not continue to exist. The witch hunts that seek to destroy belief in
the sacred depict religious belief as unwelcome and prejudicial. “Alas! let
us show God-talk for what it is,” they say, “full of ignorance and
repression, signifying hate and intolerance.” It is little wonder, therefore,
that students entering university are very guarded about their religious
beliefs for fear of being outcasts in the world of learning.

But this is a radical inversion, is it not? For at one time the educated were
the churchmen, and the halls of learning were founded by those in
religious leadership.

The average church member today is unprepared and ill-equipped to face

the attacks that are coming at us full-force. We leave our young men and
women to attend universities as lambs led to the slaughter.

What remains, then, in this kind of religious belief system is a spirituality

that does not need to defend itself because it is purely a private thing that
does not moralize or pontificate for anyone else. It becomes a feel-good,
be-quiet, and get-a-better-state-of-mind-at-the-end-of-the-day religion.

Over time, two things have happened in the secular mindset. First,
secular-minded people do not take the church seriously because the y
believe the church is not answering their questions. Second, those within
the church are timid and unable to sustain the supernatural side of their
beliefs in a highly naturalistic world.

So the church, when it does not respond to the secular mindset and does
not prepare its own people, becomes secularized. In the end, all we have
is spirituality without truth, and experience without objective reference.

The worst is that as a nation, we become like ancient Israel, where

“everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6; 21:25).
What we are left with are people with no conscience, imperious, relentless
and cruel, as Hitler said while discussing the kind of generation he wants
to raise.
When secularization is pushed to its logical conclusion, it leaves us with a
generation with NO SHAME. Everyone becomes wicked, evil is defended
and consequences for sin are reversed.

-Unknown
Ours is an age where:
Ethics has become obsolete.
It is superseded by Science, deleted by psychology, dismissed as emotive
by philosophy
It is drowned in compassion
Evaporates into aesthetics and retreats before relativism
The usual moral distinctions between good and bad are simply drowned in
a muddle of emotions
In which we feel more sympathy for the murderer than for the murdered
For the adulterer than for the betrayed
And which we actually begun to believe that the real guilty party, the one
who somehow caused it all, is the victim and not the perpetrator of the
crime.

Steve Turner accurately described how people think when he gives the
Creed of the Atheist, which states:
We believe in Marks, Freud and Darwin.
We believe everything is okay as long as you don’t hurt anyone, to the
best of your definition of hurt and to the best of your definition of
knowledge.
We believe in sex before, during and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin
We believe that adultery is fun
We believe that taboos are taboo
We believe everything is getting better, despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated and you can prove anything with
evidence.
We believe there is something in horoscope, UFOs and Ben spoons.
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed and ourselves; he was
a good moral teacher, although we think his good morals were basically
bad.
We believe that all religions are basically the same, at least the ones we
read are; they all believe in love and goodness, they only differ on matters
of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God and salvation.
We believe that after death comes the nothing, because when you ask the
dead what happens, they say nothing.
If death is not the end and the dead have lied, then its compulsory heaven
for all except perhaps Hitler, Stalin and Chungieskhan.
We believe in masters and Johnson; what’s selected is average, what’s
average is normal, what’s normal is good.
We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed
America should beat their guns into their tractors and the Russians would
be sure to follow.
We believe that man is essentially good, it’s only his behavior that lets
him down.
This is the fault of society, society is the fault of conditions and conditions
are the fault of society.
We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him and
reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will re-adjust, history will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth, except the truth that there is
no absolute truth.
We believe in the rejection of creeds and the flowering of individual
thought.
P.S.
If chance be the father of all flesh, disaster is his rainbow in the sky. And
when you hear state of emergency, sniper kills 10, troops on rampage,
youths go looting, bomb blasts schools, it is but the sound of man
worshipping his maker.

2. Pluralization: Believe Anything, Doubt Everything

This also originates from pluralism, where there are competing
number of worldviews available to its members and no worldview
is dominant. In a sense, pluralism of ideas can be good, since it provides
us with opportunities to evaluate our beliefs, critique our convictions, and
respectfully engage other views. Pluralism of language provides variety,
because we learn to appreciate and respect our differences…
But pluralism of worldviews is dangerous.
This is because it gives rise to moral relativism; everyone has the right to
decide for himself what is right or wrong, what to believe and what to
discard. This would mean that every religion is right, no matter what they
believe… but that’s not possible. Truth is, no religion is the same; they
may be superficially the same (with similar practices here and there); but
they are fundamentally different (in their core beliefs). If all religions were
the same, no one should be upset when his religion is rejected in favor of
another.
To deal with this, keep ideas in their hierarchy, and people in
equality. If you don’t, people end up believing everything, and doubting
anything… as long as it favors them.
It was G. K Chesterton who said, the danger of disbelieving God is not that
you end up believing in nothing; alas, it is much worse. The danger of
disbelieving God is that you end up believing in anything.
The problem with the pluralistic worldview is that one standard may be
used to judge one thing, but a different one is used to judge another
(breaking the law of non-contradiction).
***For Example: a story is told of a truck driver who travelled to different
places for business. Whenever he gets to a city, he would lodge at a hotel
and someone will send a prostitute to satisfy him. One day, he got to a
certain city and was told to go to a particular hotel and ask for a particular
lady; the biggest hit over there. He did, but when he arrived, he had to
wait because there was a queue, as she was servicing someone else. He
waited patiently, till it was his turn. When he got in, he was hit with the
biggest shock of his life; HIS WIFE WAS THE PROSTITUTE, THE BIG HIT. In a
fit of rage, he rushed to her and tried to strangle her, almost killing her in
the process. ***
What moral justification does he have to attack her?
Unfortunately, when pluralization is pushed to its logical conclusion, it
leads to a generation with NO REASON.
G. K Chesterton says:
The new rebel who wants to rebel against everything in a moral law is a
skeptic and would not trust anything. He has no loyalty, therefore he will
never be a true revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything gets
in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation
implies a moral doctrine of some kind. And the modern revolutionist
doubts, not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which
he denounces it.
So, he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the
purity of women; then he writes another book, a novel, in which he insults
it himself.
He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity; then he
curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it.
As a politician, he cries out that war is a waste of life; then as a
philosopher, that life is a waste of time.
A Russian pessimist would denounce a policeman for killing a peasant;
then prove by the highest philosophical principle that the peasant ought
to have killed himself.
A man denounces marriage as a lie; then denounces Aristocratic
profligates for treating it as a lie.
The man of this school goes first to a political meeting where he
complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes
his hat and umbrella and goes to a scientific meeting where he proves
that they practically are beasts.
In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always
engaged in undermining his own minds.
In his book on politics, he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his
book on ethics, he attacks morality for trampling on men.
The modern person in revolt has become practically useless for all
purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything, he has lost the right to
rebel against anything.

3. Privatization: Me & Myself & I

This is the process by which a person with a transcendent perspective is
told to amputate his/her faith. This forces people to keep their religious
beliefs private, for the sake of peaceful coexistence (tolerance).
The problem with this is that everyone seems ready to tolerate everyone,
except the Christian. Everyone claims that every faith leads to God, but
gets angry when other people choose to disbelieve theirs.
Many only pursue their needs being met, as the sole purpose of their
existence.
Daniel Yankelovic conducted a survey and concluded that,
To some people, self-fulfillment means having a career, and marriage, and
children, and sexual freedom, and autonomy (independence/ freedom),
and being liberal, and having money, and choosing non-conformity, and
insisting on social justice, and enjoying city life, and country living, and
simplicity, and graciousness, and reading, and good friends, and on and
on…
Both pleasure and pain can ultimately leave you empty if you do not have
a transcending reason to be able to face either of them. But the loneliest
moment in life is when you have tasted that which you thought will give
you ultimate fulfillment and it has left you empty; especially if you did this
at the expense of some important boundaries.
Before you bring down any wall (boundaries), always pause long enough
to ask why it was there in the first place.
Truth is, if you hope that having all your needs met will give your life
meaning, you got it all wrong. What gives life meaning is who you are and
whose you are.
As Romans 1:18-31 teaches, when you kick God out, every form of evil
kicks in
So, who’s the boss of your life? You or God…
Inevitably, privatization leads to NO MEANING.
SOME HEART-WARMING NEWS: THE COUNTER PERSPECTIVE
1. Sonship: Redemption/ Relationship
The greatest news for Christians is found in being children of God. This is
because the first thing given to anyone who comes to Jesus is not a set of
rules to obey; but a relationship to enjoy (John 3:16).
There is no relationship as honorable as a relationship with Jesus
Our world has been so focused on stopping evil and bringing forth good…
but that has not worked out fine, because no one can really be good
without God.
Problem is, many people think they are not that bad; especially when they
look at others.
But unless you recognize the bankruptcy and helplessness of your being,
you will never see the need for God. Everyone feels like he is good till he
meets God.
Jesus did not come to make bad people good; he came to make dead
people live…

2. Worship: Righteousness
Since God acted on our behalf to bring us redemption, we also must act to
redeem our world.
Romans 12:1-2 presents the need for us to offer ourselves to God as living
sacrifices.
Until you recognize the height of your sinfulness before God rescued you,
you will never know the depth of your salvation.
In recognizing this, it’s easier to surrender… to offer yourself as living
sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
We owe God, and we would spend the whole of our lives trying to say
thank you.
This, we do, through our service to God and our right living in the world.

3. Stewardship: Responsibility/ Reward

Our world is steeped in the darkness of evil and pain; and anyone who
decides to follow Jesus would suffer. But we must hold on, and press on…
together
As we live here, it is important to stand firm, together… and conduct
ourselves worthy of the gospel. In the end, there will be rewards… the
glory of God in us and God’s commendation to us.
In military warfare, the goal is to win (destroy) the enemy; in Christian
warfare, the goal is to win over (save) the enemy.
We do this in anticipation of the reward.
TO WRAP UP…
***The story of Hien***
Hien was Ravi’s interpreter in Vietnam at the age of 17. They had worked
together for a while, but lost touch after Ravi left. After almost 20 years of
silence, Ravi got a call, it was Hien. To Ravi’s amazement, Hien narrated
his ordeal of the past 20 years.
Apparently, the Viet government had arrested him for preaching and
locked him for years; they wanted to knock faith out of him. He had no
access to a Bible or any English literature for 18 months. All they gave him
were books written by people who did not believe in God- Marx and
Angles. At a point, Hien got so frustrated that he began to doubt his faith.
One night, he decided, “From tomorrow, I will no longer be a Christian,
since God has abandoned me.” The next day, the prison warder assigned
him to wash the toilets (really smelly place, with excrement everywhere).
But while he was washing, his eyes caught sight of a paper in English
language, half covered with human waste. He washed the paper and
before his very eyes was a page from the Bible- Romans 8. His eye caught
sight of these words “And we know that in all things God works for the
good of those who love him, who have been called according to his own
purpose” He hid the paper in his pocket and read it all in his mosquito net,
after lights out.
When he was done, he knelt down and begged God to forgive him saying,
“even after I decided to leave you, you did not leave me even for
24hours”. The next day, he met the warder and asked if he can be
allowed to wash toilets every day. The warder agreed, and each day, he
got one sheet of paper. Apparently, the warder had a Bible and was
tearing one every day to clean himself up, while Hien was washing it and
having his devotion every day.
Eventually, Hien and 53 others built a boat and wanted to escape. As the
day for their escape drew near, 4 Viet cons approached him and asked,
“We heard that you’re planning to escape, is that true?” Quickly, Hien
denied it; but when they left, he felt guilty. So, he said “here I am trying to
run my life again. God please, if you really want me to say the truth, send
these men to me again before we leave.”
Hours before they departed, the men came back, pushed him against the
wall and asked “is it true that you are planning to escape?” Hien answered
“yes, are you going to lock me up.” They answered “no, we want to come
with you.”
While narrating the story, Hien says in the high seas, there was a heavy
storm, and they all would have died, but for the skippering ability of these
4 men, they survived and arrived safely. Hein went on to study and raise a
family. And he is confident that being with God is the greatest joy he
enjoys.
No matter how dark things get, don’t think it can ever get too dark that
God’s light cannot reach you. God simply would not be conquered; this is
why death itself is not the greatest tragedy. The greatest tragedy is when
we have banished God and are buried by our own questions. Christianity
will never be banished to the grave, since it follows a Savior who knows
the way out. That is the truth for life and it is worth celebrating.
 Three harsh realities confront us:
Secularization, which leads to no shame,
Pluralization, which leads to no reason,
Privatization, which leads to no meaning;
But there is hope when we take up the counter perspective:
Sonship, the redemptive relationship with God,
Worship, righteousness through Christ, and
Stewardship, our responsibility and rewards rooted in Christ.
Then, we will stand
P.S.
How should we answer people who argue that all we need is the Bible,
nothing else?
When people believe and teach, “all we need is the Bible,” they equip
their young people with the very line that gets them mocked in the
universities and makes them unable and even terrified to relate to their
friends. If we want young people to do the work of evangelism — to reach
their friends — that line will not get them anywhere. Even the Bible that
Christ gave us is sustained by the miracle of the Resurrection.

The Resurrection gave the Early Church the argument that Christ is risen:
We saw, we witnessed, we felt, and we touched. The apostle Paul
defended this gospel. He went to Athens and planted a church there. In
Ephesus he defended the faith in the school of Tyrannus. We also need to
become all things to all people.

If a pastor says, “All we need is the Bible,” what does he say to a man who
says, “All I need is the Quran”? The pastor only ends up saying, “All I need
is my own point of reference and nothing more than that.” But even the
gospel was verified by external references. The Bible is a book of history,
and a book of geography, not just a book of spiritual assertions.

The fact is the resurrection from the dead was the ultimate proof that in
history — and in empirically verifiable means — the Word of God was
made certain. Otherwise, the experience on the Mount of Transfiguration
would have been good enough. But the apostle Peter says in 2 Peter 1:19:
“We have the Word of the prophets made more certain … as to a light
shining in a dark place.” He testified to the authority and person of Christ,
and the resurrected person of Christ.
To believe, “All we need is the Bible and nothing more,” is what the
monks believed in medieval times, and they resorted to monasteries. We
all know the end of that story. This argument may be good enough for
those who are convinced the Bible is authority. The Bible, however, is not
that authoritative in a culture or a world of counter-perspectives. To say
that it is authoritative in these situations is to deny both how the Bible
defends itself and how our young people need to defend the Bible’s
sufficiency.

It is sad that some people think a person who asks, “Why the Bible?” is
being dishonest. This is a legitimate question.

For the sake of the truth, for the sake of the gospel, and for our calling in
this time in history, it is imperative that we love the Lord our God with all
our hearts and all our minds and equip our people to do so. This fierce and
vast battle does not need to intimidate us. Not everybody can argue at a
level to reach a Bertrand Russell, but God does put people into our paths
who are at our level. Let’s thank God that the church has people at
different levels who can take on everyone. We need to know that the
gospel is simple enough to reach a little child and sophisticated enough to
reach the finest minds, such as those of Augustine and Paul and others
throughout history. It is difficult; but God never said it would be easy.

The world in which we find ourselves is full of fog and fallacies, but I
believe it is also full of the unfailing love of God. For Christians who are
aware of the kingdom of God among us, we need not be confined to
cultural naysaying, but can live as visionaries of God’s grace, harbingers
of hope, and catalysts for transformation. For we testify to the radical
work of the cross in the world and in our hearts, and to the uniqueness of
Jesus Christ. This must be done as worship to God.
 Bibliography
1.