"Let Us Make A Name For Ourselves"

In the generations that followed the Great Flood, there was a tower built in the land between the rivers, the land of Shinar, perhaps better known as Mesapotamia.  This was the Cradle of Civilization, located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the area of modern day Iraq.  It was there that men became quite advanced.  Hebrews Chapter 11 reveals the hope of Abraham.  He was looking forward to a city "whose architect and builder is God." (1) But men became impatient waiting for the city God would build so they took upon themselves the task of building a city.  It would be a city built, not to bring glory to God, but to satisfy the desires of the human flesh.

"Let usmake a name for ourselves", they said. (2)  Has that not been the theme of man down through the ages?  I walked into our new multi-million dollar public library in Columbus, Georgia recently.  Near the entrance I saw a plaque with the names of major contributors to this community structure.  It is fundamental to a race of fallen men to have an urge to "make a name for ourselves."  It is the basic tenet of humanism; stealing glory from God and elevating man.

The Tower of Babel was a religious tower.  The purpose of its construction was to reach God.  But their motive was corrupted by their desire to make a name for themselves.  There is a corner stone on many churches I've seen.  "Erected in the year ________, to God be glory".  As the years pass, the glory of God fades from the institution while the centrality of man emerges.  In a God-centered church the purpose of music is to bring glory to God, in a humanistic church the purpose o music is to entertain people.  A God-centered church has a God-centered pastor whose primary goal is to preach for the glory of God.  A humanistic church wallows in spiritually shallow waters with a pastor who is often humorous and can entertain people with catchy quotes and funny stories.

Humanism has so invaded our culture that God has been relegated to a back burner.  We are not atheistic, atheism leads to a despair that few can endure for any length of time.  Many in  the American culture are more interested in calling the shots when it comes to God.  God is placed on a shelf to be reached for at our own convenience.  Our "don't call us, we'll call you" attitude toward God indicates that we think ourselves more important than he.  The words of the Psalmist are foreign and confusing to us, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God." (3) Our callings  to God are now limited to 911 calls.  We have little thirst for God but we are quick to pull him off the shelf if we are experiencing a crisis in our lives.

I have read recently of three people in the state of Georgia who are suffering from an infection called Necrotizing fasciitis.  (4) One of those is Aimee Copeland (5) who has had one leg amputated at the hip and her fingers removed in an attempt to save her life.   This is a horrifying disease for which there is no cure.  Humanism as infected our culture and the church like a flesh eating disease.  The spirit of the church is being consumed by a philosophy that makes the happiness of man a priority and conveniently ignores the glory of God. 

Liberalism in the church flowered in the mid-1800's.  Charles Darwin explained away the role of God in creation.  Humanist philosophers taught that the chief end of man's existence was his own happiness.  Religious liberals embraced the cancer of humanism when they declared their uncertainty about the existence of God, heaven or hell.  Their unbelief made it impossible for them to offer any hope beyond our earthly existence so they began to address the happiness of man in this world.  They offered a watered down version of Christianity that focused on the happiness of man in this life.  The doctrines of sin, eternal life and hell were avoided and the focus was on "Your Best LifeNow."  (6) 

A movement arose in answer to the liberals of that day and they called themselves fundamentalists.  But humanism is not selective in its choice of victims and fundamentalism also became a victim of the deadly virus of humanism.  Fundamentalists grew as a conservative movement because of their common beliefs in holding to the traditional teachings of the word of God.  They defined themselves as those who belief in the divinity of Christ, the creation, the holiness of God and the authenticity of the Bible.  If you believed in this list of essentials you were labeled a conservative fundamentalist.

In successive generations, fundamentalists began to teach that one might be saved by simply giving mental assent to a list of basic scriptural doctrines.  The measure by which one became a Christian was not the confessing of sin and experiencing a Holy Spirit- induced soul cleansing.  The evidence of one's Christianity was a simple vocal affirmative to a few basic questions regarding the nature of God.  A radical change in one's lifestyle was no longer associated with true Christianity.  A card carrying Christian was no longer expected to demonstrate righteous living or freedom from the bondage of sin.  Experiential Christianity was thrown out the door in favor of a simple "I believe." 

Liberalism set about focusing on this life instead of the next life.  The assortment of social programs developed to improve the lives of the masses are too numerous to mention.  Great declarations were made about eliminating poverty, drugs and war.  But their utopian goal was shattered when the First World War erupted and men set about to destroy one another.  The War to End All Wars was followed by another horrendous war and men began to question the idea that the heart of man is essentially good.  Then men proved how short their memories are and liberalism made another great comeback.  L.B. Johnson declared his War on Poverty.  The flower children of the 1960's demanded the end to all war.  Liberalism continues its march through the modern age.  Al Gore seems nearly insane and certainly delusional in his attempt to create a better earth.  Our first lady is strongly dedicated to manipulating the diets of our children. 

The liberal says that man must be made happy while he lives on this earth.  The fundamentalist says that man must be made happy in the afterlife.  Both have succumbed to the primary teaching of humanism:  the happiness of man.  When a fundamentalist preacher declares that a person ought to accept Christ so that he can escape the fires of hell, or so he can live in eternal bliss, is he not focusing on the humanistic idea of the happiness of man?  Should men not accept Christ because he "deservesto receive the reward of his suffering." (7)  

Christ did not walk away from the glorious splendor of heaven and submit to the humility of humanity solely to make us happy.  Christ did not drag his cross to Golgotha and allow the Romans to pierce his hands with spikes and his side with a sword only to make us happy.  Believing that or preaching that is replacing God with man as the central purpose of our salvation.  Does this not border on blasphemy? Did Christ not go to the cross and die for men because it was the only way men might be saved and thus bring glory to God.  It wasn't so much about saving us from hell or making us happy in heaven, it was all about bring glory to God.

How many today get saved as a way of making a deal with God?  It is true that salvation comes with benefits but the benefits are a byproduct.  Modern day ministers will one day be accountable for the steady stream of lies that come from their pulpits.  We are no longer being told that sin corrupts the soul.  We are no longer told that the grace of God can bring deliverance to hungry hearts.  Instead, we are being fed a steady stream of heresy.  We are being told that if we accept Christ he will make us millionaires, he will cure our diseases and dedicate himself to our happiness.  We are being sold a bill of goods. 

Humanism teaches us to look for human solutions to human problems.  We are the most over-medicated society in history.  We run to counselors instead of running to Christ.  We read self-help books written by pop-psychologists instead of turning to the word of God.  If we would only turn to the right source we could find a cure to alcoholism, to drug addiction, to sex addiction and to dysfunctional families.  But all of this is frosting on the cake.  The true motive for submitting to Christ should not be "to make a name for ourselves" or for our own happiness, it should be because doing so is the only possible way an earthly soul can bring glory to a deserving God.    

1.  Hebrews 11:10

2.  Genesis 11:4

3.  Psalm 42:1

4.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necrotizing_fasciitis

5.  http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-05-21/flesh-eating-bacteria/55105650/1

6.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Best_Life_Now

7.  http://forallnations.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/the-worthy-lamb-history-of-moravian-missions/

Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.

Monkeys do more to prove creation rather than evolution. (video)

Evolution and The Uniqueness of Man - A... by ppsimmons


Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.

Barbarians at the Helm

Our nation experienced a cultural revolution in the 1960’s.  It was the decade of the anti-establishment counterculture.  It was the decade of deception.  The Woodstock crowd believed that by dropping all the social mores regarding sexuality they would experience freedom.  They swallowed that lie hook, line, and sinker only to realize that sexual freedom is a short-term pleasure that leads to long-term bondage.  Breaking away from the social constraints of previous generations brought a certain liberty but not without a price.  Those who wanted to participate in this freedom had to embrace a ‘new’ way of thinking.

The focus was always narcissistic.  It was the ‘me’ generation.  How might I find more satisfaction in life?  Self-sacrifice had become a nerdy concept that belonged to the people who wore thin ties and white shirts.  The rise of the hippie generation was marked by the questioning of all authority, especially the ultimate expression of authority, God himself.  The existence of God was questioned in the April 8, 1966 issue of Time Magazine which featured the headline, ‘Is God Dead?’  If God was dead then the absolute truth that he had authored must also be dead.  Relativism paved the way to confusion and hedonism.  With no moral absolutes to guide them and no God to answer to, youth attempted to fill the void in their godless hearts with sex, drugs (LSD) and psychedelic music.

The barbarians were at the gates.  They had no god and they had no restraints.  They had come to liberate society.  They failed to realize that by eliminating the restraints they would introduce chaos.  A life with no parameters will eventually find itself wrecked in a ditch to nowhere.  Bad thinking will always lead to the development of warped values.  When we embrace warped values it leads to poor behavior.  Thus, poor thinking leads to bad behavior.  The consequences are as obvious as the nose on our faces.  If God is dead than life has no value. 

Evolution was not so much about explaining where we came from, it was about eliminating the very idea that God exists.  When a generation bought into the idea that we were not created in the image of God, then life lost its sanctity.   History does repeat itself.  Stalin’s belief that there was no God led to the murder of tens of millions of people.  When Hitler believed there was no God it resulted in the murder of six million Jews and ten million Christians.  When Americans began to question the existence of God they slipped down the slippery death culture slope.  Fifty million unborn babies have been slaughtered in the last forty years.  No society has ever survived without a set of absolute moral values. 

Forty years ago the barbarians were at the gates of American culture.  Today, they run the country.  Bad thinking has led us to financial ruin.  It has polarized us as never before.  We have replaced the Ten Commandments with government mandates.  Society cannot function without a set of absolute morals.  Our inner most consciousness, that which continues to shout at us that there is, indeed, a God, calls constantly for the elimination of murder and lies and abuse in our society.  Without a God and a scriptural standard to enforce those values and to transform the minds and hearts of evil men, the barbarians at the helm have devised their own way to seek to control the horde of cultural peasants.   Political correctness is an attempt to control our speech, our thoughts, indeed, the very way in which we live our lives.  The great irony is that the Cultural Revolution was supposed to bring liberty and freedom but instead it has made us slaves to a cultural change induced by criticism and ridicule and severe consequences for those who refuse to conform.  While many Americans tremble in fear of Islamic terrorism, they fall victim to the social terrorism promulgated by the ruling barbarians.  The God of Creation has been replaced by the gods of tolerance and philosophical relativism.  Failure to bow to these gods will earn you the title of social bigot and expose you to the wrath of the social elite.

The punishments for failure to conform to the group-think of relativism and the refusal to jump aboard the politically correct bandwagon are varied.  At the least, you will be castigated from society.  Your speech is free and protected by the first amendment only so long as it resonates with the message of the barbarian bullies.  Should you stray from their ‘truth’ you could find yourself in the unemployment line, grieving over how you will save your home and family. 

So what keeps the peasant masses from picking up pitch forks and rushing the castle?  The barbarians exercise the same ploy used by the rulers of ancient Rome.  It is the ‘bread and circus’ approach of controlling the potential malcontents.  Make sure everyone has been fed and open the coliseum to provide entertainment, especially feeding a few Christians to some hungry lions.  The American masses are fed well through a socialist welfare system and instead of a car in every garage there is a big screen television on every living room wall.  Lyndon Johnson wasn’t thinking well when he told the millions who lived in the inner city that they were not responsible for their behavior (absolute truth), instead, their behavior was caused by the poverty they lived in (relativism). This way of thinking creates an illusion that God and his moral standard are unnecessary to affect man’s behavior.  Men, especially white men, the oppressor turned savior, would ride into the ghetto on his white horse and offer salvation to the suffering. The pumping of massive amounts of money into the slums would eliminate poverty which, in turn, would eliminate crime.  Sadly, an entire generation bought into the utopian lie and the Puritan work ethic demonstrated by our founding fathers evaporated into thin air.  This was poor thinking.

The hope of America is to start thinking well again.  That can be accomplished by a return to biblical principles.  The Bible supports the ownership of private property.  The Bible teaches absolute truths and rewards concepts such as self-control and self-sacrifice.  Jesus emphasized the importance of good stewardship, taking care of the property we own.  Jesus said to treat others as you would want them to treat you.  He promoted the idea of a strong work ethic and then enjoying and sharing the fruit of our labor.  The free enterprise system set up by our founding fathers works well but only if there are moral restraints to govern the actions of men who struggle with depraved human natures.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom…” (Proverbs 9:10)  The seed from which wisdom springs is a reverential fear of God.  When we fail to pay him homage, when we set up our humanistic, materialistic idols, we lose the influence of the only omniscient One and we think poorly, we lose our sense of what is valuable and important in life and then we behave poorly.  If only we would call upon our Creator and our Savior.  He has promised, “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24) 

Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.