"Era of Ideologies Gone Wild" (November 13, 2014)

We live in an era of ideologies gone wild. World leaders as well as dignitaries alike jumping on the ban wagon of strange and unfounded ideas bordering on the occult and strange phenomena.

One thousand to fifteen hundred years before Christ, especially the Egyptians, were immerged in such philosophies and beliefs regarding creation and an afterlife that to this very day no one has been able to fully explain their origins. Yet like silent reminders of past civilizations stand the pyramids, the sphinx, the great tombs of these mysterious Kings and Pharaohs who perhaps, on their own, they thought they could discovery truth. We could consider the ideologies of the Greeks, and the Romans but for now I will limit my remarks to my premise.

Perhaps we can draw some parallelisms as we consider the times we are living in.  The word of God reminds us in both the Old and in the New Testaments of similar scenarios when Kings or Nations decided to divorce themselves from God their creator, and pursue a path that seemed good or right to them. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had revealed to Israel that beside Him there is no other! But their own pride and arrogance led them down the wrong path and their own gurus and self-proclaimed prophets deceived them into worshipping and bowing down to gods who were no gods.

Jesus Christ came in the fullness of time. Born of humble beginnings, in the midst of a great religious vacuum but also at a time of great spiritual inquiry. There was a great moral decadence, disparity and hopelessness. Thank God Jesus came and held back the wrath of God and the whole world was given a reprieve.  Paul said it this way, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” (Romans 1:22)  When people reject the message of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ the devil deceives them to look elsewhere. Ignoring that only Christ said, “I am the truth!” People are constantly trying to find hope and assurance by delving into Eastern mysticism and the occult.  But it was Jesus who said, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32)  Pilot asked Jesus, “What is truth?” “The truth” in the New Testament is primarily God’s revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ.  Jesus was and is “full of grace and truth.” (John 1:17)  He “is the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)  The gospel is the Word of Truth (Colossians 1:5; 2 Thessalonians 2:13).  Romans 1:25 speaks of those who exchange “the truth of God for a lie” (“the lie” of Satan).  At the end-time, for those who “received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (2 Thessalonians 2:10)  God shall send a “strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” (2 Thessalonians 2:11)  The truth sets us free; the lie brings us into the slavery of deception. The truth is redemptive; the lie is destructive. We are called to love Jesus and His word and thereby know the truth that sets us free.

Thank God for the Bible; it is the proven way.  Because of the Bible we have America and the western civilization; let’s not be foolish. “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” 

America follow the God of the Bible - Jesus is the way.

~ Pastor John