First I want to talk to you about this. When we look at Romans 1:16 we understand that Paul's not ashamed of the gospel that might seem something unusual to us. But he has to make that statement being an apostle of principle carrier of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But I want to tell you that Paul's flesh had every reason to be ashamed of the gospel because the gospel he preached contradicted everything that was believed to be true and everything that was believed to be sacred in his culture. Now, just really quick, I want to say this. Paul makes no attempt to become relevant to his culture. He makes no attempt to make treaty with his culture, adapt his message to the culture, repackage his message or any of the other nonsense it's become so prominent in the evangelical community today. To the Jews, the gospel, Paul's gospel was the worst sort of blasphemy because it claimed that the nazarene, who died on that cross, accursed, was the Messiah and the Son of God. To the Greek, it was the worst sort of absurdity because it claimed that this Jew from some out-of-the-way place was actually God in the flesh. Therefore, Paul knew that whenever he opened his mouth to speak the gospel, he would be utterly rejected and ridiculed to scorn, unless the Holy Spirit intervened in moved upon the hearts and minds of his hearers. Now this is what he knew. This is what you should know if you're properly preaching the gospel, it will be scandalous. If you try to make it less of a scandal, you no longer preach the gospel.
Now I want to just quote from a few contemporaries of primitive Christianity.
Pliney the Younger, writes after examining the beliefs of two christian slave girls under torture, he says "I discovered nothing but a perverse, and extravagant superstition."
In the dialogue, Octavius of Minucius Felix, he derives the christian saying their ceremony center on a man put to death for his crime and on the fatal wood of the cross he goes on to say that christians put forward sick delusions as senseless and crazy superstition which leads to the destruction of all true religion.
I know I may offend many on this, but most modern day church growth strategies use an evangelical churches. Their main focus is to get around the very thing I just read.
In oracle of apollo preserved in the writings of Augusta and in response to a man's question about what he can do to turn his wife away from the christian faith, says this, "Let her continueth-she pleases persisting in vain delusions and lamenting in song, a God who died in delusions, who was condemned by judges. His verdict was just and executed in the prime of life by the worst of death, a death bound with the iron."
Lucian, he was basically the Voltaire of the antiquity, mocks christians in his "De Morte Peregrini" as poor devils, who deny the greek gods, and instead honor that crucified sophist and live according to his laws.
In Origen's work “Contral Celsum” Celsum declares "what drunken old woman telling stories to lull small child to sleep would not be ashamed of uttering such preposterous things.
Now, in our day, primitive gospel is no less offensive for it still contradicts every tenets and-ism in our culture, relativism, pluralism and humanism. Let's just look at there for just a moment.
We live in an age of relativism, a belief system based on the absolute certainty that there are no absolute certainties. We have a hypocritically applaud men for seeking the truth, but call for the public execution of any man who believes he has found it.
We live in a self-imposed the Dark age. why? The reason for this is clear. Natural man is a fallen creature. He is morally corrupt and is hell-bent on etonomy, are self-government. He hates God because God is righteous. He hates God's laws because they censor him and restrict his evil. He hates the truth because it exposes him for what he is and troubles with what is left of his conscience. Therefore fallen man seeks to push the truth expecially the truth about God as far from him as he can possibly remove it. He will go to any extent to suppress the truth even to the point of pretending that there is no such thing as truth, or that if it does exist it cannot be known or have and bearing on our lives.
Realize this about the gospel. It is never a case of hiding God, but of hiding man. The problem is never the intellect but the will. I do not believe that the Bible gives any room for atheism. They are liars and God haters who push the truth out of their minds, but there are no such thing as atheist. for although they knew him, like a man who hides his head in the sand to avoid a charging rhino, modern man denies the truth of a righteous God and moral absolutes in hopes of quieting his conscience and putting out of his mind the judgement that he knows must come. Now the christian gospel is a scandal to the man involved in relativism and his culture because the christian gospel does the one thing that man most hopes to avoid. It awakens him from his self-imposed slumber to the reality of this fallenness and rebellion and calls him to reject autonomy, self-government and submit to God through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Now, we also live in an age of pluralism, a belief system that puts an end to truth by declaring everything to be true. Now do you understand what I'm saying? When everything is true, when contradictory statements that are diametrically opposed when both of them are labeled its true, you have the death of truth. Now it may be difficult for contemporary christians understand what I'm about to say, but the christians living in the first few centuries of the christian faith were marked and persecuted as atheists and you will be too if a revival doesn't break out in this country, this is one of the reasons you're going to go to jail. The culture surrounding the christian was immersed in theism. The world was filled with images of deities and religion was a booming business, men not only tolerated one another's deities but they swap them and shared them like baseball cards. The entire religious world was going on just fine until the christians showed up and declared that the gods made with hands are no gods at all they denied the Caesar's the homage they demanded, refuse to bend their knees to all other so-called gods and they confessed Jesus alone to be Lord of all and therefore they were labeled atheist. The entire world looked on such jaw-dropping arrogance and reacted with fury against the Christians intolerable intolerance to tolerance.
Now I want you to look at something, look at these words, jaw-dropping arrogance. the same scenario abounds in our world today. against all logic, we are told that all views regarding religion and morality are true no matter how radically different they are or contradictory they may be. The most overwhelming aspect of all of this is that through the tireless efforts of the media and academic world has quickly become the majority view. However, pluralism does not address the issue and cure the malady. it only anesthetize the patients so that he no longer feels or thinks. Now the gospel is a scandal because it awakens man from a slumber and refuses to let him rest on such an illogical footing. It forces him to come to some conclusion how long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God follow him and if they'll follow Him. The true gospel is radically exclusive. I never thought I would have to say this in front of a bunch of you.
Now I want to just quote from a few contemporaries of primitive Christianity.
Pliney the Younger, writes after examining the beliefs of two christian slave girls under torture, he says "I discovered nothing but a perverse, and extravagant superstition."
In the dialogue, Octavius of Minucius Felix, he derives the christian saying their ceremony center on a man put to death for his crime and on the fatal wood of the cross he goes on to say that christians put forward sick delusions as senseless and crazy superstition which leads to the destruction of all true religion.
I know I may offend many on this, but most modern day church growth strategies use an evangelical churches. Their main focus is to get around the very thing I just read.
In oracle of apollo preserved in the writings of Augusta and in response to a man's question about what he can do to turn his wife away from the christian faith, says this, "Let her continueth-she pleases persisting in vain delusions and lamenting in song, a God who died in delusions, who was condemned by judges. His verdict was just and executed in the prime of life by the worst of death, a death bound with the iron."
Lucian, he was basically the Voltaire of the antiquity, mocks christians in his "De Morte Peregrini" as poor devils, who deny the greek gods, and instead honor that crucified sophist and live according to his laws.
In Origen's work “Contral Celsum” Celsum declares "what drunken old woman telling stories to lull small child to sleep would not be ashamed of uttering such preposterous things.
Now, in our day, primitive gospel is no less offensive for it still contradicts every tenets and-ism in our culture, relativism, pluralism and humanism. Let's just look at there for just a moment.
We live in an age of relativism, a belief system based on the absolute certainty that there are no absolute certainties. We have a hypocritically applaud men for seeking the truth, but call for the public execution of any man who believes he has found it.
We live in a self-imposed the Dark age. why? The reason for this is clear. Natural man is a fallen creature. He is morally corrupt and is hell-bent on etonomy, are self-government. He hates God because God is righteous. He hates God's laws because they censor him and restrict his evil. He hates the truth because it exposes him for what he is and troubles with what is left of his conscience. Therefore fallen man seeks to push the truth expecially the truth about God as far from him as he can possibly remove it. He will go to any extent to suppress the truth even to the point of pretending that there is no such thing as truth, or that if it does exist it cannot be known or have and bearing on our lives.
Realize this about the gospel. It is never a case of hiding God, but of hiding man. The problem is never the intellect but the will. I do not believe that the Bible gives any room for atheism. They are liars and God haters who push the truth out of their minds, but there are no such thing as atheist. for although they knew him, like a man who hides his head in the sand to avoid a charging rhino, modern man denies the truth of a righteous God and moral absolutes in hopes of quieting his conscience and putting out of his mind the judgement that he knows must come. Now the christian gospel is a scandal to the man involved in relativism and his culture because the christian gospel does the one thing that man most hopes to avoid. It awakens him from his self-imposed slumber to the reality of this fallenness and rebellion and calls him to reject autonomy, self-government and submit to God through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Now, we also live in an age of pluralism, a belief system that puts an end to truth by declaring everything to be true. Now do you understand what I'm saying? When everything is true, when contradictory statements that are diametrically opposed when both of them are labeled its true, you have the death of truth. Now it may be difficult for contemporary christians understand what I'm about to say, but the christians living in the first few centuries of the christian faith were marked and persecuted as atheists and you will be too if a revival doesn't break out in this country, this is one of the reasons you're going to go to jail. The culture surrounding the christian was immersed in theism. The world was filled with images of deities and religion was a booming business, men not only tolerated one another's deities but they swap them and shared them like baseball cards. The entire religious world was going on just fine until the christians showed up and declared that the gods made with hands are no gods at all they denied the Caesar's the homage they demanded, refuse to bend their knees to all other so-called gods and they confessed Jesus alone to be Lord of all and therefore they were labeled atheist. The entire world looked on such jaw-dropping arrogance and reacted with fury against the Christians intolerable intolerance to tolerance.
Now I want you to look at something, look at these words, jaw-dropping arrogance. the same scenario abounds in our world today. against all logic, we are told that all views regarding religion and morality are true no matter how radically different they are or contradictory they may be. The most overwhelming aspect of all of this is that through the tireless efforts of the media and academic world has quickly become the majority view. However, pluralism does not address the issue and cure the malady. it only anesthetize the patients so that he no longer feels or thinks. Now the gospel is a scandal because it awakens man from a slumber and refuses to let him rest on such an illogical footing. It forces him to come to some conclusion how long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God follow him and if they'll follow Him. The true gospel is radically exclusive. I never thought I would have to say this in front of a bunch of you.
No comments:
Post a Comment