The Wrong Worldview

Berean Baptist on January 29, 2018

As Christians, there is no need for us to be despondent over the way the world is headed. The future of believers is very bright as we are promised to reign with Christ in His millennial kingdom. Yet, there is a sense in which we are greatly dismayed because we know many family and friends will not be a part of it. They will fall in the destruction of Satan because of their rejection of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

We must remember the gospel has great enemies to overcome. Satan and his demons are powerful. We are painfully aware of this because of the rapid deterioration of this country which was founded on principles of Christianity. A new worldview is now embraced, one that our Founding Fathers could hardly imagine. Although we may argue about their specific religious beliefs and whether any of them were actually born-again believers, we cannot argue biblical principles influenced their moral and ethical decisions.

The shift in our worldview could not be better elucidated than what George Lucas has done in his indoctrination of movie-goers is his Star Wars films. The religion of Star Wars is decidedly unchristian—in fact paganistic. Coinciding with the release of a new Star Wars film, Peter Jones explained this worldview in an article from Ligonier Ministries. He stated, “In spite of the fun elements we all enjoy, the message of the film is self-consciously pagan.” He goes on to describe the elements of Star Wars religion which are part and parcel of Oneism theology. He explains Oneism is worship of nature: “Worship of nature is Oneism because nature is all there is, and everything is made of the same stuff. ‘All is One!’ This is the essence of a pagan worldview.”

Here are the elements he describes as the Oneist principles of Star Wars. (1) Morality is what you make it. The Force is either good or evil, depending on how you tap into it via your emotions. There is no objective distinction between good and evil. (2) Existence creates itself. Obi-Won Kenobi says, “The force is an energy field created by all living things.” There is no Creator/creature distinction. (3) Spirituality is found within, not revealed from the outside. Luke Skywalker must trust his feelings, empty his mind of questions, and “feel the Force flowing through him” in order to create his own truth. (4) In redemption, Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader optimistically “saves” the galaxy and destroys the Emperor, though evil cannot be ultimately eliminated because evil is an integral part of a Oneist world. (5) According to Yoda, death is eternal sleep.

At once we see this worldview is reflected in today’s society. (1) Everything is relative (2) There is no distinction between animals, humans, and machines (3) There are no moral absolutes (4) There is no unique divine/human mediator (5) There is no God separate from us who is Creator and redeemer.

Sadly, the last generation and this one has grown up on Star Wars instead of the Bible. If Star Wars did not shape their worldview, it certainly encapsulated it. It enunciated its principles very clearly. Someday there will be a real Star Wars. God is real, Satan is real, righteousness is real, and evil is real. Jesus Christ the Redeemer is real, and those who trust Him have eternal redemption. Neither those who trust Him nor those that reject Him will experience a death that results in “eternal sleep.” All will give an account to God. The righteous will shine as the stars forever. The wicked will not sleep forever but awake to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2-3).

God has never changed His worldview. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This is the factual worldview. Fantasy is—fantasy. You had best make the right distinction between them. Eternity is also forever.

 

Pastor V. Mark Smith

Distorted Scriptures

Berean Baptist on January 22, 2018

The Bible is the only record we have of the way God works, and so it stands to reason that if Satan wants to confuse people about who God is he would work very hard to distort the only record we have that tells us what God is like.

The scriptures give a very clear description of what happens when people do not have the Bible to tell them what they must believe in order to know God. The knowledge of God’s existence is revealed in the creation, but this revelation is not enough to tell us His plan of redemption. It reveals His transcendence and His providence but does not tell us how we can have a personal saving relationship with Him. When people do not understand this, they have a tendency to transform God into an idol fashioned by their own hands and make Him into things that match even the lowest forms of the created order. This is a conscious effort to push God down. As Paul said, God is made into an image like corruptible man and to birds and four footed beasts and creeping things (Romans 1:23). Though most today do not have a visible idol of God as do the pagans, they still reinvent Him as the invisible likeness of man who thinks and acts like us. In this scheme, God becomes the approver not reprover of our sin.

Conversely, when we have the scriptures, we learn who God really is. As David said in Psalm 119, “I love thy law.” This was not because David had a special propensity for doing what was right, but he saw in the law of God a reflection of God’s true character. He learned to love and trust God because of it. He learned these things while possessing only a small portion of the scriptures. He had access only to the books of Moses and a few of the historical books. How much greater is our ability to know God’s goodness when we have the full complement of the sixty-six books of the canon of scripture?

Before the completion of the Bible and the globalization of it we enjoy today, Satan had to contend with only a very small population that possessed any of the Word. Today the world is filled with copies of the Bible and Satan must work overtime to confuse the minds of those who read it. For this reason, he attacks the Word at its core. He twists not only the concepts of scripture but also the very words themselves. How does he do it? By flooding the marketplace with counterfeit scriptures. He plants mistranslations—even missing translation such as is found in the NIV. Once the words of scripture are changed or eliminated, he has great success at changing the doctrines. When we concede that the Bible has errors, it is only a short step to include men’s ideas of how those errors should be corrected. Thus, we get Bibles with interpretation instead of translation.

This is just one of the many tactics Satan uses in relation to the Word to distort the truth of God’s character. How do we avoid these errors? Without question, the first measure is to stick to a tried and true translation. We have a reliable text that God has used to save the souls of millions of English speaking people. For more than four hundred years, the King James Version has led people to Christ and established believers in the faith. Why change what we know God has approved? Be safe—stay with the Bible of our English forefathers. We are determined to do this at Berean. The foundation of truth must be solid before the faith built upon it can stand. Satan has many avenues of attack. This is one we refuse to allow. We will not let him begin his deception by taking away the true Word of God.

 

Pastor V. Mark Smith

 

I Hate Every False Way

Berean Baptist on January 15, 2018

Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. (Psalms 119:104)

Edward Reyner an English nonconformist of the early 17th century wrote, “Hatred is a stabbing, murdering affection.” If this were all we knew of Reyner’s quote, we would assume hatred is perfectly inconsistent with Christian teachings about love. However, we go on to read the rest of his thought in which he said, “Hate sin perfectly and perpetually and then you will not spare it but kill it presently. Till sin be hated, it cannot be mortified; you will not cry against it, as the Jews did against Christ, Crucify it! Crucify it! but show indulgence to it as David did to Absalom and say, Deal gently with the young man—with this or that lust, for my sake. Mercy to sin is cruelty to the soul.”

Reyner’s thoughts capture the meaning of Psalms 119:104 extremely well. Knowledge of God’s Word will cause us to hate every false way. The Word enlightens the mind to the destructive nature of sin. We hardly believe sin will kill us, and yet it was sin that brought death to the world. As Reyner said, “Mercy to sin is cruelty to the soul.” Sin always leaves death in its wake. To allow it and tolerate it, is to let it ruin us. Jonathan Edwards said hatred of sin is the way true religion may be known and distinguished.

These quotes show the great disparity of understanding about what Jesus taught. It is not uncommon in today’s world to hear Jesus’ approval attached to support nearly every false way rather than to hear Him thundering against sin. God’s love is defined. It exists within the parameters of His holiness, so that it cannot embrace sin any form—not the act nor the ones who commit it. The scriptures say God is love and God hates sin. Therefore, it is nonsense to create in our minds a Jesus who loves and is at the same time tolerant of sinful lifestyles.

From this point, I could go on to enumerate the multitude of sins that have become accepted as normal behavior, but I am sure you are very aware of our church’s position on these. Rather, I prefer to take a moment to speak of other false ways we must hate. We must hate and take to task any religion that denies the deity of Jesus Christ. We must hate and strongly preach against those religions that deny justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ. We must hate and take a resolute stand against religions that claim there is any other God but Jesus Christ, and any other way to the Father but Him. We must hate the influx into our society of those who say they practice their religion peacefully when that same religion teaches them to be violent and to kill those who disagree with them. We dare not fool ourselves that a religion is peaceful when its history is one of murder, especially murder of those who since Abraham have been called God’s chosen people. We are fooling ourselves to think we can take a cold, dormant viper into our bosom, warm him up, and not expect him to bite.

Sin in any form always destroys. Your personal sin will do it; your toleration of sin in others will do it. Your compassion to give it mercy is cruelty to your soul. When the preacher preaches against sin and those who perpetrate it, do not think he is without love. Hatred of sin distinguishes true Christians. No one can love your soul more than one who says, Crucify sin! Crucify it! Stand with the preacher who stands for God. Stand with the preacher who stands against a society without God, or one that tolerates the wrong god. Anything less is cruel death.

 

Pastor V. Mark Smith

Can You Thank God for Everything?

Berean Baptist on January 8, 2018

Psalms 119:71

In Psalm 119, there is an unexpected blessing for which the psalmist gave thanks. He said in the 71st verse, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.” Could you see yourself writing this line? Most of us would never welcome hardships as a teaching method, so we are not likely to ask God to send us pain in order to teach us a lesson. It is only after the pain is endured and has yielded the benefit of bringing us closer to the Lord that we appreciate it.

This thought is expressed in Hebrews 12 regarding chastisement. The writer said chastisement is always grievous, but it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Even when chastisement is not the issue, suffering has great benefits for the soul because it teaches us to pray and depend on God. The Bible never tells us to ask God that we would never suffer and neither does it promise we will not. God knows how to bless in mysterious ways and this is the realization of the psalmist after considering his problems.

While preparing this article, I found another interesting perspective on suffering. J.R. Illingsworth wrote: ”The earliest form of trouble is for most of us physical pain, and our instinctive tendency is to view pain as an unmitigated evil. But such a view of pain is not in accordance with the facts of life. Pain is beyond question the great educator of the soul. Pain makes men real. It indurates their character. It endows them with spiritual insight. But, beyond all this, pain invests a man with a mysterious attractiveness for others. There is a heroism in the very fact of suffering which lifts the sufferer above us, and makes us feel that he is moving in a realm of being to us unknown, till our sympathy is hushed into something of awe-struck admiration, and from the blending of sympathy with awe comes love.”

I thought this was a truly sublime thought. Think of those you have seen endure pain for long periods of time. Do you admire them for their courage to suffer without complaint? Isn’t there something about them that causes you to lift them up as a model you think you could never attain?

I still remember a lady that passed away more than fifty years ago from cancer. My dad would go to visit her and many times I went along somewhat reluctantly because I did not like those kinds of visits. She suffered terribly, and yet her faith was firmly in God and she never complained that God had been unfair to her. What caused me to remember her when there are so many in my dad’s ministry I have forgotten? Pain etched her memory in my mind. Her ability to endure it left an indelible impression. Did this lady know her pain was for this purpose? She probably never imagined it. But, such things God knows. Blessings do not always seem to be blessings until they have yielded the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

Learn to bless God in the bad times as well as the good. Either way, God works all things for your good. Patient endurance of suffering may very well be the work that attends your entrance into heaven and causes others to rejoice with thanksgiving to God.

 

Pastor V. Mark Smith

 

The Supremacy of God’s Word

Berean Baptist on January 1, 2018

Psalm 119

 

The 119th Psalm which is rightly called “The Ode to the Word.” Here are 176 verses of the psalmist’s praise for the Holy Scriptures which are the source of life for the Christian. Peter said we are born again by the Word of God, which shows the indispensable nature of God’s perfect revelation. The Holy Spirit uses the truth to speak to the heart and with the Word He regenerates to make us new creatures in Christ.

Upon conversion, the Word does not stop its powerful influences. It also sanctifies us (John 17:17) which means it perfects us in the holiness of God. Throughout our Christian lives, we can never depart from its usefulness for without it we have no means to discover how we can be pleasing to God. The Word declares Christ who is the Son of God, and is the model of God’s expectation for every son of God. It is the revelation of precepts by which we are given understanding of all false ways (119:104).

All roads to successful, victorious Christian living run through the scriptures. There we find all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). The psalmist makes this same point repeatedly. Each section begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet which is God’s way of showing us His word is A-Z of divine revelation. Everything that can be said in English must be said with 26 letters from A-Z. Our Bible is God’s complete revelation so that everything God has to say to the human race is contained in these 66 books we call the canon of scripture. There are no other revelations that will be given. There is no outside source that will discover to us anything more God wants us to know. Paul wrote that scripture is able to furnish unto all good works, so there is no area that needs further elucidation to increase our understanding of Him and make the servant of God complete (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

The Bible’s internal claim holds great significance. It at once dismisses the doctrines of cults that are claimed authoritative by their extraneous revelations. When groups like the Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses knock on your door with a claim they have another testament, another communication from God, you can dismiss them at once without further investigation. They are deemed deceivers by this criterion alone. Likewise, those who seem to be more orthodox can be turned away. Pentecostals must be rejected because they seek more revelation through tongues, dreams, and visions. Roman Catholicism must be rejected because the traditions of their church are claimed to be as authoritative as scripture. One thing is abundantly clear about this psalm—the psalmist has no patience for anything considered more valuable than scripture. He finds in it all he needs.

As I write this article, there is a knock at my door. The Jehovah Witnesses are peddling their literature. To them I say verse 29: “Remove from me the way of lying.” I say to them verse 95: “The wicked have waited for me to destroy me.” I say to them verse 115: “Depart from me, ye evildoers: for I will keep the commandments of my God.” And finally I say verses 118 and 119: “Thou hast trodden down all them that err from thy statutes: for their deceit is falsehood. Thou puttest away all the wicked of the earth like dross: therefore I love thy testimonies.”

I advise you to love the Holy Bible as the psalmist loved it. Feast on it every day. It has the power to change you and make you righteous. Let nothing come between you and the Word. To do so is to let something come between you and God.

 

Pastor V. Mark Smith