The Generation That Did Not Know | Sunday, January 28, 2024

Amen, that is such a good reminder. The battle belongs to the Lord. Thank you, Christian and the worship team. Good morning, Cross Connection Church! I am so glad to be back with you and to see you all this morning.

I had hoped that I would be here last Sunday. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Kentucky for a seminar at Southern Seminary in Louisville. My wife and I then met up with some friends of ours who had moved from California to Tennessee. Like some of those people, they have vacated our state. Unfortunately, I caught this plague in Tennessee. It's horrible—don't go to Tennessee! Honestly, it's the most sick I've been in many, many years. I had hoped to be here last Sunday, and in fact, I texted our pastors on Thursday beforehand to let them know that I wasn't feeling too well but thought I would be there on Sunday. Just in case, I asked if someone could be on deck, and Jason said he would be ready. Unfortunately for Jason, I told him midday Saturday that I wasn't going to make it. I am so grateful; thank you, Pastor Jason, for jumping in at the last minute.

Another thing I wanted to highlight this morning is that yesterday, Pastor Mark turned 60 years old! Happy birthday, Pastor Mark! By some accounting, you have arrived. I don't know what you've arrived at, but you've arrived! I have a little bit more time until I get the discount.

Before we get into the Scriptures, I want to mention that we are beginning a new series today. The fire on the screen back there has something to do with that. If you look in your bulletin, you'll see that there's a sermon guide that says "Dumpster Fire" on it. I'll explain what that means in a moment.

Before we do, I want to share with you some good things that are happening. You might notice that even though I'm told there's some sort of sporting event today, there are still a lot of people here. What we've seen over the last year is that our Sunday morning attendance has grown by about 40%. We have a lot of new people! Welcome if you're new to the church.

What that means is I want to share with you two things and ask you to do them. If you are a Christian and this is your home church, the first thing I want to encourage you to do is to continue to invite friends, co-workers, neighbors, and family members to come to Cross Connection to hear the Scriptures taught as we go through them each week. However, we are beginning to have less and less space to invite people to. I shared with you several months ago that...

We have been talking about, thinking about, and praying about adding a third service. We had three services before COVID, and we're at the point where we need to add a third service. Our hope, prayerfully, is that we will add a third service at Easter, which is not very far away; March 31st is Easter. So, we have a lot of work to do between now and then.

The biggest thing that we need is your help. We need your help in serving in kids' ministry, as ushers and greeters, with the tech ministry, sound team, worship team, and security. There are many different things that go on here on a Sunday morning, and we need your help. If you're a Christian and you consider this your home church, you need to plug in and be a part of the work God has called myself and the other leaders here to equip you for. The work of the ministry is your job; it's not just my job, it's your job.

I will be asking you over the next several weeks to plug in. If you're already ready to make that commitment, it's not as big of a commitment as you might think. If you would meet up with one of our pastors or our staff at the connection point after the service, we would love to help you get started in the process of doing a ride-along and learning more about how you can plug in here. There are a lot of people that we need to reach in this community.

Now, onto the Scriptures. If you don't have a Bible this morning, you can raise your hand, and one of our ushers will bring you one. We will get into the Book of Judges in just a little bit. We have been studying through some Old Testament books for the last several years. We began in Deuteronomy in 2020, and through all the circuitous, weird things that have happened over the last few years, it took us a while to get through Deuteronomy. Then we went into the next book, Joshua. We finished Joshua at the end of last year, and now this year we are going to be getting into the book that follows Joshua. The Book of Judges is where we will be this morning.

What I wanted to do today is to give a bit of an introduction to this book. Why the Book of Judges? Why for such a time as this? What is it about this book that I think has a message for us? A year ago, this last January, I went to the first of these doctoral seminars that I've been attending at Southern Seminary. The focus of that first doctoral seminar was on the Christian engaging in a countercultural world. Maybe you have some experience with that.

What I discovered is that I was in a room with about 14 of us, and we were talking about all kinds of different things that are going on in the world. I realized by the second day that everyone in the room, except...

For me, living in a very dark red state, the experience of interacting with people in the community, in the church, in the neighborhood, and within the family is different from my experience because I live in a blue state. In fact, I live in the bluest of blue states. I think you might recognize that if you've been in California for a long period of time. I grew up here, born and raised in San Diego, so I have had to interact with people who don't see the world the same way I do.

This actually matters in a very interesting way. When I was interacting with people in this classroom a year ago, I realized that most of the people in this room do not have that experience. I started to really think about what that means for us as Christians living in a world that is, in many ways, described as post-Christian. That is the world we live in here in California.

Have any of you noticed that the people you interact with do not view the world the same way you do if you're a Christian? Has anyone seen that? What I found in talking with my friends in Kentucky is that this has not been their experience. That's something they have never encountered living in rural Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, or Mississippi, which is where most of these guys come from. Some of them are from rural North Carolina, and they don't necessarily have this experience.

In the last several years, it has somewhat taken them by surprise to see some of the things happening in the culture. However, many of the things that happen in our culture, I don't know what your experience is, but I know for me, I look at it and think, "Well, it's kind of par for the course." I'm not surprised by some of the things that seem to be a big surprise to a lot of people in other parts of the country.

You know that you live in a blue state as a Christian if you have ever experienced the loss of a friendship or a relationship because of your worldview. You know that you live in a countercultural world if you have ever felt the inclination or temptation to self-censor your worldview when interacting with people at school, work, or in your neighborhood. You may question whether or not you should say what you want to say, or you might try to find a way to say it diplomatically. You know you are living in a post-Christian culture if you have ever wrestled with how to share your opinion as a Christian in a diplomatic way because you are concerned that you might lose a relationship.

Friendship can sometimes lead to losing a contract or receiving a bad grade because of what you say. If you've ever felt like an outsider in a countercultural world, you understand the challenges that come with it. This feeling is strange for many of us, especially since our culture has traditionally been united around the Judeo-Christian principles found in the Scriptures.

For Christians living on the West Coast, the East Coast, or in many parts of Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, or Canada, this is the reality of living in a post-Christian world. However, many people in the rest of our country have only recently begun to realize how challenging this can be as they observe the changes happening around them. If you have lived in California for any length of time, or perhaps your whole life, you have some understanding of what it means to be in the world but not of the world.

In the series we just completed, "Life and Connection," which we do at the beginning of every year, we discussed our connection with God, our connection with one another, and our connection with the world. I taught the first message, and then Pastor Jason taught the next two. During those messages, we revisited John chapter 17, where Jesus prays for His disciples. Importantly, He does not pray only for those who were physically present with Him, like Thomas, Bartholomew, James, and John. He also prays for those who will believe because of their word—that includes you if you are a Christian today.

One of the remarkable things He prayed is found in verse 14: "I have given them, my disciples, your word, Father, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world." He continues, "I do not pray that you should take them out of the world." How many of you would have wished that He had prayed for God to take us out, so that once we are saved, we could just go to heaven? I would vote for that proposition!

But instead, He prays, "I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth; your word is truth." What was Jesus praying there? He was praying that God, by His Spirit, would...

Through His Word, God would set you apart, even though you live in a world where you are a countercultural light shining in a dark place. He said, "Would you guard them, sanctify them, consecrate them by Your Word?" Because I'm leaving them in a world that hates them.

Now, for the better part of American history, the experience of most people here became a normative experience. You could expect that the person you would interact with had a basic understanding of the world that you did. That is no longer the case, and it has not been the case for a lot of people living on the East Coast and West Coast for a very long time. However, it has shocked many people in other parts of the country, especially over the last ten years or so.

A year ago, I was at a seminar where we talked about many of the things happening in our culture. We discussed critical theory, LGBTQ+ issues, and the overturn of Roe v. Wade, which has ignited a huge political wildfire in our culture in the last two years. We also talked about the crazy debates happening around gender and sexuality. During the conversations a year ago, I threw out a question to the people gathered there: "Do you think that the floodwaters of this craziness are coming up to your door? Do you think that we've reached the high watermark of this flood of chaos in our culture? Do you think that we've reached what some people refer to as 'peak woke'?"

The consensus of the thirteen or so people in that room, including the professor, was that they hoped so. We were back at it again a couple of weeks ago, discussing many of the same topics in the same room with the same professor and many of the same people. There was fairly broad agreement as I asked that question again: "Do you think that we've reached peak woke after the craziness?"

Let me just mention some things from the last twelve months that show the shift in our culture. Just one word will bring to mind: Target. Bud Light. I know you probably didn't expect to hear that at church on Sunday. Disney. We are seeing a shift within Disney, and within many of the news media outlets, there are a lot of people.

Losing their jobs because of wokeness, I asked a group of people a couple of weeks ago if they thought we had reached peak woke. The response from many in the room was affirmative; they believed we had. I said, "Hi, I'm from the future," and I expressed my hope that their belief was correct. I hoped that their thought that we had reached the high water mark was true. I wished for the floodwaters to begin to subside and for us to see a return to some form of rationality and reasonableness of thought within our culture. However, I was not entirely sure that we had.

We had a long conversation about this—actually, it spanned three days. One of the things we discussed, and something I have thought a lot about, is what if we haven't seen the high water mark? What happens if our culture continues down the path it has been on for quite a while, not just the last 25 years? A further question is: what is causing this? If we can determine the cause, then the follow-on question is whether there is anything that can be done to move the needle in the opposite direction. Is there anything we can do to change course?

This has been something I have been thinking about for many years. Pardon me; my plague from Tennessee is causing my nose to run. I have been contemplating these issues for a very long time, and sadly, they have caused me to lose sleep. They have led me on a never-ending quest to figure out how we can respond to these challenges. It drives my wife and kids crazy because I can't stop myself from thinking about this constantly.

Maybe it doesn't concern you, but it deeply concerns me. I am deeply worried that the worldview that formed the Western world, which is a Judeo-Christian worldview, is being gutted. It is being replaced by a different worldview that is caustic, toxic, and cancerous. This is the worldview that built the world that I believe you probably enjoy and recognize.

Built the world that makes this place the envy of the world and is the reason that so many people are trying to get into this country. I know there are a lot of opinions about what's happening on the southern border, but recognize that if you lived in a world other than this one, you'd try to find a way to get here too. In fact, your ancestors did; mine did. My dad's family came here from Naples, Italy, in the early part of the 20th century. Why? Because there's something about this place that's different. It has been like a light shining in a dark place, calling many people to come from all over the world. It is still the place that many people want to come to and are trying to reach.

This worldview that built this world has not only created an awesome place here, but it has also been a net benefit for the rest of the world over the better part of the last 500 years. I think you could verifiably prove that with even a shallow study of history. I have studied history extensively over the last 25 years, and I see it very clearly.

What is hard for us to imagine is that it could all fall apart very quickly. It's difficult to conceive of this because all that we enjoy seems normal to us. However, if you study history, you'll discover that what we have experienced in our lives is not normal in human history. I have grown up in this wonderful nation, and I have traveled all over the world. I can't wait to get back to this place when I travel. I love other parts of the world; I've lived in other places, and they are wonderful. But I can't wait to get back to San Diego, California.

It is hard for us to imagine that it could change because it feels normal to us. But it could fall apart. Why? I think there are some important answers to that question, and I believe we find those in the Scriptures, especially in passages in the Old Testament. This is why we've been studying these texts in the Old Testament for a while. The New Testament, which is the last third of the Bible, follows the Old Testament, which comprises the first two-thirds. The Apostle Paul, who wrote many of the things we find in the New Testament, speaks about the Old Testament. Those are the books from Genesis to Malachi. He says that all these things that happened to the children of Israel in the Old Testament are significant. The Old Testament is really the story of the people of Israel, the nation of Israel.

Things happen to them as examples for us that we might learn from them, upon whom the ends of the age have come. Now, I know a lot of Christians, when they hear "the ends of the age," it gives a tremor through their body, like, "Oh, the end of the world!" I don't know why we get all tricked out on the end of the world, but we do. There are a lot of opinions about what was meant by that. When he says the ends of the age have come, there are all kinds of different interpretations about what that means.

At the very least, it seems to mean that there are times in which the world changes significantly. You've been watching it; I've been watching it. The world around us is changing significantly. He says all these things happened to the children of Israel as examples; they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the age have come. Therefore, take heed when you think you stand, lest you fall. He calls Christians to humility, which is a really important thing for us to take note of.

There is a way in which we can think, "Hey, look at what we've achieved! Look at what we've built! Look at what we've made!" He says, "Take heed when you think you stand, lest you fall." The stories of Israel in the Old Testament show us repeatedly what happens to a people when they arrogantly think, "We've got this! Look at what we've done!" Then a slide begins to take place.

Now, I am, though, even in all the craziness that's happened in our world, one of those crazy ones who actually thinks that the Bible has important answers. Point number one, if you're taking notes this morning: the Bible contains answers and solutions to our biggest questions and problems. That’s one of my fundamental beliefs. This book that we study every week, and hopefully you read throughout the week, contains answers and solutions to our biggest questions and problems.

What are our biggest problems? Well, in our culture over the last 25 or so years, we've been told that our biggest problems are climate change. Our biggest problems are, right now, inflation. It's a big problem, isn't it? Our biggest problems are generationally high interest rates. Our biggest problems are immigration. Our biggest problems are racism. Our biggest problems are diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our biggest issue and question is, who will win the 2024 presidential election? Because it'll fix everything.

I hate to break it to you, but I'm from the future. Ultimately, when we open the pages of Scripture, we discover that our biggest problem is not those things; our biggest problem is sin. All of those things are just downstream effects of sin. For the last several generations in America, we've been told that those things are the biggest issues we need to concern ourselves with.

We've been told in our culture for a very long time—not just in the last two and a half decades, but for many decades—that there is no such thing as evil, there is no such thing as sin (what the Bible calls sin), and there is no such thing as God. Imagine there's no Heaven; it's easy if you try. None of this is new. When you open the pages of Scripture, both Old Testament and New, you discover that it's not new. In fact, three thousand years ago, a wise king named Solomon wrote these words in Ecclesiastes chapter 1: "That which has been is what will be, and that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, 'See, this is new'? It has already been in ancient times before us."

The experiments that this culture has been engaged in over the last several generations have been tried in the past. About four hundred years before Solomon, the people of Israel experimented with very much the same thoughts and philosophical ideas. It just so happens to be written down for us in the Book of Judges, where these experiments take place. Judges is the story of the people who lost their way in the world. It is the story about what happens to a people and nation when they lose their way, when they depart from belief in God and faithfulness to His word. It ends up in a dumpster fire. That's why I'm calling this series "Dumpster Fire," because that's what we're going to see for most of this year as we go through the Book of Judges: just one dumpster fire after another.

Everything goes to chaos. I kind of regret the day at the end of 2019 when I told the church that my word for 2020 is chaos. I had no idea, and it continues, but not for the reasons we might assume. The chaos started a long time before. You begin to wonder, though, what is causing this? How did we get here?

As I said, the Bible contains answers and solutions to our biggest questions and problems, so I think the Bible is a good place to start. I would like you to open your Bibles to the Book of Judges. If you don't have a Bible, you can raise your hand, and one of the ushers will bring you one. We are actually going to open to chapter two; we'll get to chapter one next time. Chapter two gives us an important framing for the book. It contains the theme idea or framing premise of the stories that we will discover in the time of Israel's history called the time of the judges.

Judges chapter two is the seventh book of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Judges. In verse seven, we read this: "So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua." He was the one who led the children of Israel after Moses's death and brought them into the conquering of the promised land, which we studied in the Book of Joshua. The people of Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua—his generation, his leaders, his judges, if you will. They served all the days of Joshua and the elders who outlived him, who had seen all the great works which the Lord had done for Israel.

Now, Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was 110 years old, and they buried him within the border of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash. All these things happen; this is history. When they tell us all these temporal markers, these specific locations and places, it tells us that this is history.

But look at this verse ten, and maybe put a highlight mark next to it, an exclamation point. This is key; this is important. When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers—a nice biblical poetic way of saying they died—when Joshua and the elders that were with Joshua...

Another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which God had done for Israel. What was the result? Verse 11 states that then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. In verse 12, it says they forsook the Lord God of their fathers and followed other gods. They bowed down to them, and the end of verse 12 says they provoked the Lord to anger. They forsook the Lord and served Baal and Asherah, two gods of the Canaanites. The anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, so He delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so they could no longer stand before their enemies. Whenever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity, as the Lord had said and as the Lord had sworn to them. They were greatly distressed.

This is the framing for this book: another generation arose that didn't know the Lord, and they did evil in the sight of the Lord. Later in the book, in Judges chapter 17, we will read that it is repeated four times: "In those days there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes." When Moses gathered the people before they came into the Promised Land, he read the law to them and taught them, which is the book of Deuteronomy. He told them God is to be your king; He is to govern, lead, and guide you by His word, His Torah, His law.

But during this time, the people forsook the Lord; they forgot about God. There was no God to govern or lead. There was no king in Egypt or in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. They followed the bad advice our culture gives: "Follow your heart." They did what was right in their own eyes, and they did evil in the sight of the Lord. They acted against God's law and against God's nature. God was supposed to be their ruler, their governor, their king. They forsook the Lord and did not respect God as king.

What happens next? If you're taking notes, point two is that God is the primary solution to our problems. If you depart from Him, you have major problems and no hope. That is going to be the story of this book. The children of Israel in this book will serve God as long as they have...

A good leader, like Joshua or the elders who were with him, can guide the people effectively. However, when those elders die, the people arrogantly think, "Look what we've done for ourselves! Look how good we are! Look how amazing we are! We've made this land fruitful." They begin to depart from God and slide into a place of idolatry and adultery with other gods. As a result, God allows them to fall into the hands of their enemies, who destroy, despoil, and persecute them. At the bottom of that despair, they cry out to God, "God, save us! We repent!" He then raises up a leader, a judge, who leads them back to repentance and guides them to victory against their enemies.

But what do you think happens when that judge dies? The children of Israel begin the cycle again. It is a cycle we will see over and over in the Book of Judges. There arose a generation that did not know the Lord, and they did evil in the sight of the Lord. God had made this clear through Moses that this was exactly what would happen. This means it was entirely avoidable.

Have any of you ever experienced something in your life that you look back on and realize was entirely avoidable? I'll never forget when I was just about to turn 21. It was a Sunday, and I came home from church to my parents' house. There, my younger brother's friend had his dirt bike. He asked me, "Miles, do you want to ride the dirt bike?" I said, "Yes, I think I do." My mom, the prophetess of the Lord, said, "I'm going in the house. You're going to end up in the ER." And by golly, I ended up in the ER that day.

Now, she's not really a prophet; she just understood a simple principle: play stupid games, win stupid prizes. That's exactly what Moses taught 3,400 years ago. It's right there in black and white in Deuteronomy chapter 28, which we call the blessings and the curses of the law. If you follow God and obey His law, you will be blessed. But if you disobey and reject God, you will be cursed. It is simple: if this, then that. These conditional realities have come to be known by theologians as the Deuteronomic.

The principle discussed is taught in the book of Deuteronomy, which is what the term "Deuteronomic principle" means. In the New Testament, it is presented as the law of sowing and reaping: you reap what you sow. How many of you have heard that before? You reap what you sow. What that means is, if you plant an orange tree, you are not going to get apples. No, you reap what you sow; like begets like.

Paul, in Galatians, would say that if you sow to the Spirit—meaning you do those things that God has revealed by His Spirit in His Word—if you sow to the Spirit and follow the teachings and principles of the Spirit, you will of the Spirit reap life. Conversely, if you sow to the flesh and do what is in your heart, you will reap corruption and destruction.

Here’s the amazing thing about the principles of God: if you follow the revealed principles of God, even if you do not believe in the miraculous events such as the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, and even if you are not an Orthodox Christian in the truest sense, those practical truths still yield blessings.

Let me give you an example. There was a man named Thomas Jefferson; perhaps you have heard of him. He was what we would call a deist, not a Christian. Those who argue that he was a true Christian are mistaken. He was, in fact, a slave owner, but he did believe that the truths of Scripture were important. He wrote some of the most amazing words in American history: "We hold these truths to be self-evident." Where did this idea come from? It is not self-evident.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." He, along with others—some of whom were actual Bible-believing Christians—banded together to create a more perfect union. It was not a perfect place; there have been many imperfections along the way and many things we have messed up. However, they endeavored to create a more perfect union founded upon the belief that there is a God who created us, made us equal, and endowed us with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Centuries of phenomenal transformation have occurred since Thomas Jefferson wrote those words. At that time, there were about a billion people living in the world, and more than 90% of them lived in absolute poverty. Fast forward 200 years, or about 230 to 240 years later, to 2015. The population of the world had increased from 1 billion to 7.4 billion, and now only 10% of the world lives in absolute poverty. How did that happen?

For all of human history, until around the end of the 17th and 18th centuries, the whole world lived in absolute poverty. In the space of 200 years, that situation has completely turned on its head. What caused this transformation? You don't have to search history very far to discover the answer to that question. If you obey and follow the principles that God has revealed in His Word, then you will be blessed. If you disobey and depart from those principles, then you will be cursed. If you sow to the Spirit, you will reap life; if you sow to the flesh, you will reap corruption.

Solomon understood this and wrote in Proverbs Chapter 14 that righteousness, which is doing what is right according to God's law, exalts a nation. Sin, which is lawlessness or the rejection of God's commands, brings destruction to any people. What we are witnessing in our culture today is the manifestation of these principles right before our eyes. You don't have to be a prophet to see what is coming; all you have to do is consider the Scriptures.

In fact, the Old Testament prophets—think of names like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi, and Habakkuk—were essentially experts in the book of Deuteronomy. That is why I set out to teach through the book of Deuteronomy before we explored any of those other books. You will better understand the history of Israel, including Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, as well as the prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel, if you understand Deuteronomy. These individuals were experts in Deuteronomy and could say, "Well, Deuteronomy 28 says, 'If this, then blessing; if this, then cursing.'" Here are all the things that you are doing, and you will end up facing the consequences.

Cursed, and after the fact, the people would be cursed. They would say, "Wow, that guy was a prophet." No, he was just an expert in the law who understood what the Scriptures say. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Let me bring this up to our time. Since the 19th century, the Western world has been flirting with godlessness. The things that you are seeing in our culture did not happen overnight; they are the consequences of many decisions made over time. Since the 19th century, we are now living in the 21st century. The Western world, especially in America, has been flirting with godlessness. This is a civilizational experiment to answer the question: Can man live without God?

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Western world experienced an Enlightenment—a phenomenal Enlightenment in politics and philosophy. If you study it, or if you take any college course on recent history, you will find that one of the products or outcomes of the Enlightenment was, in the 19th century, a scientific revolution. The most revolutionary idea of this scientific revolution came through a man by the name of Charles Darwin, who, in 1859, published a book called "On the Origin of Species."

Contained in "On the Origin of Species" was the theory that everything we see actually came about by random chance and mutation over billions of years. Charles Darwin died in 1882. In the same year, a German philosopher published a book called "The Gay Science." His name was Friedrich Nietzsche. In "The Gay Science," he wrote, "Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours? He ran into the marketplace and cried incessantly, 'I seek God! I seek God!'" As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around, he provoked much laughter. "Has he gotten lost?" asked one. "Did he lose his way like a child?" asked another.

Another question arises: Is God hiding? Is He afraid of us? Has He gone on a voyage? Has He immigrated? Thus, they yelled and laughed at the madman. The madman jumped into their midst, pierced them with his eyes, and said, "God is dead. I will tell you, we have killed Him. You and I are all His murderers. God is dead; God remains dead, and we have killed Him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? Who will wipe this blood off of us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement? What sacred games shall we have to invent here?"

The madman fell silent, looked again at his listeners, and they too were silent, staring at him in astonishment. At last, he threw down his lantern on the ground; it broke into pieces and went out. He said, "I have come too early. My time is not yet. This is a tremendous event; it's still on its way, still wandering. It has not reached the ears of men."

That was from 1882. Friedrich Nietzsche's premise in "The Gay Science" was that reason and rationality, through the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, had undermined the foundations of belief in God. He believed that God being officially dead meant that man could now joyfully and with carefree detachment from dogma and doctrine begin to create new possibilities of human existence and freedom, to create values from which new vistas of meaning and truth would arise. That's what he put forward.

Then Friedrich Nietzsche died in 1900 in Germany. What happened in the early 20th century in Germany? You know exactly what happened, though there are some who deny it. It's very clear what happened.

At this point, there will be many people who say, "Yes, but we course-corrected. We fixed that. We had the Nuremberg Trials; we dealt with that. It'll never happen again." Never again, you hear people say. "We fixed it. We course-corrected. We're enlightened. Look at what we've done for ourselves. Look at this amazing place we have made, the envy of all the world. They all want to come here. Look at what we've accomplished."

Following World War II, the World War II generation... you know, I was thinking about this the other day.

Thinking about GIS, I was curious about what "GI" means. It stands for galvanized iron. I didn't know that. That generation, the galvanized iron that was galvanized in the trenches of the First World War and on the grounds of IIMA and over Berlin, came back and became very bullish on babies. They produced a generation called Baby Boomers. There are a few of you here this morning who were born between 1946 and 1964. If that's you, would you raise your hand? No? Oh, come on, John, you are one, buddy!

During that period of time, the centers of military, political, economic, technological, and scientific power shifted to this country from where? From the United Kingdom. The U.S. became the center of the Western world. The U.S. also became the academic and educational center of the world. Fifty-one of the top universities in the world are here in the United States of America. Much of the philosophical thought of Friedrich Nietzsche and his progeny also moved into the academic institutions of the United States during that period.

So what happened? On April 8, 1966, Time Magazine released a cover story. The cover featured a bleak black backdrop with the red words, "Is God Dead?" The cover alone ignited a fire in American culture. The article did not really set out to answer the question, "Is God dead?" Instead, it interviewed theologians, philosophers, anthropologists, and various intellectuals in the United States and Western Europe about this idea of the deadness of God and what it means.

There were a lot of questions in the mid-1960s. The article basically tried to answer the question, "What happens after God's funeral? What happens after the death of God?" I'm not sure that we've entirely answered that question, but for the better part of the last 58 years, we've been playing out the experiment to find out.

Can man live without God? It's a simple question. How do you think it's going? When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord. That's not the Baby Boomer generation; that's the Baby Boomer generation's kids, their grandkids—Millennials and Gen Z. There arose another generation that did not know the Lord nor the things that He had done.

For the Western world today, nearly one-third of Americans—about 90 million—identify as a group of people called "The Nuns." They are not religiously affiliated; they don't believe in the God of the Bible. They might say that they're spiritual but not religious. Today, an increasing number of people in our country are mentally and emotionally unstable and unwell. Every indication shows it. People in our nation are self-medicating with alcohol, pornography, and all manner of mind-altering substances to try and deaden the numbness or the pain of nihilism.

Today, there is increasing confusion about identity and questions of purpose. Many have identified this as a meaning crisis in our culture. There are questions about whether the Western view of the world and the cultural values of this society have anything worthwhile to offer other than empire, colonialism, and patriarchy.

The hope of many religiously affiliated people in the United States is that if we just elect the right president, everything will be fixed. I'm from the future—wake up! Let me remind you that God is the primary solution to our problem. It is a sin problem. It's not a political problem, an economic problem, an education problem, an immigration problem, or a racism problem. It is a sin problem. All of those are the products of sin. God is the primary solution to our problems. If you depart from Him, you have major problems and no hope.

Today, we're facing an increasing number of believers and non-believers alike who think that we may be seeing...

The unraveling of the Western world raises the question: what would it look like if the Western world were gone? All we have to do is look at history and see what the world looked like before the things that came from this Judeo-Christian worldview, such as the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, and the Reformation. Most of the world lived in absolute poverty.

Could we ever go back to that? We have righted many of those wrongs, but have we truly addressed the root issues? God is the primary solution to our problems. If you depart from Him, you face major problems and no hope. Either that is true or it is not. I believe it is true, and if it is, how should we respond when we see these things happening in our world today?

This is the question that Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer asked in 1976: "How shall we then live?" I don’t have much time, but I want to share five steps for moving the needle in the opposite direction. You might want to write these down.

First, we must renew our minds through Scripture. The Apostle Paul, in Romans, understood the Roman world of the first century, in which he brought the gospel that turned the world upside down—or, I would say, right side up. The Roman world of the first century was very similar to the paganistic, pluralistic culture we now live in within our post-Christian society.

Read Roman history; it’s going to get a lot worse. One of the things the Romans did, following the pattern of the Greeks, was to promote sexual pedophilia as a way to raise boys. We are headed that way; that is where it is going. All old things are new again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Paul wrote to the church in Rome in Romans 12:1, "I beg you therefore, Church, by the mercies of God," asking for God's mercy. He urges that we present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is our only reasonable service.

The right response is to not be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. How? Through the Scriptures. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you might display, show, and prove what is good and acceptable—the perfect will of God. The world needs to see Christians living according to the perfect will of God, and that only comes through us offering ourselves to the Lord and being transformed by His Word.

Number one: renew our minds through the Scripture.

Number two: endeavor to be salt and light in a distasteful and dark world. Jesus preached to His disciples in the Sermon on the Mount, "You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall the earth be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled under the foot of men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven."

Number three: create and grow Christ-centered, countercultural communities of faith. What is that? That's a church. A church is a Christ-centered, countercultural community of those who believe—not just on Sunday, but as we gather together in homes for meals, as we gather together for growth groups and connect groups, as we are the people of God in this community. Create and grow Christ-centered and countercultural communities of faith.

Number four: engage and invest in the lost generation. What is the lost generation? It's not a specific age group; it is all those people in our culture who say, "I don't know if I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I don't know if there is a God. I'm agnostic. I'm atheistic." Engage and invest in the lost generation. Jesus said, "Go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them the things that I have commanded you." You are a chosen generation, said Peter, a royal priesthood, God's holy nation, His own special people, that you would proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light.

Renew our minds through the Scripture. Endeavor to be salt and light in a distasteful and dark world. Create and grow Christ-centered, countercultural communities of faith. Engage and invest.

In "Lost Generation," fifth and finally, engage the culture persuasively with the gospel. That word "persuasively" is key because this is what American Christians, I am convinced, have forgotten in the last 40 years of my lifetime. We don't know how to have persuasive conversations with people who don't agree with us. We just want to shout at them, yell at them, and tell them that they're sinners. We just want to tell them they're going to hell and to repent. We have no idea how to engage with them persuasively.

Let me tell you, all of the low-hanging fruit of easy people to win to faith is gone. You must learn how to have an actual conversation with someone who does not agree with you—someone who votes according to blue state values, who thinks that abortion is a woman's right to choose and a perfectly fine form of birth control, and who believes that you can change your sex on a whim and decide that you are now a female if you are a man. You have to learn how to speak persuasively with that group to help them see that it's not reality or truth and to convince them of the view that you have.

The Apostle Peter said, "Sanctify the Lord God in your heart and always be ready to give an answer, a defense, to the one who asks a reason for the hope that is within you, and do so with meekness and fear." Paul said to the church at Colossae, "Continue earnestly in prayer, be wide awake and vigilant in it with thanksgiving. Meanwhile, praying also for us that God would open to us a door for the word to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in prison, that I may make manifest as I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how to answer each one."

God has called you to reach your family members, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. It is my calling and job to equip you for the work of the ministry. I will do everything in my power to be able to do that. I can't stop myself from constantly trying to do that all the time. But there is only one hope for our culture. There is only one hope for our...

The world needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is only one plan: it's Plan A, and there is no Plan B. God help us.

Would you stand with me as we close in prayer?

Father God, we certainly need Your help. We are living in strange times, and they are going to get weirder. Lord, help us to redeem the times, for the days are evil. Having done all, let us stand therefore, having put on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, and the helmet of salvation. Let us have our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.

We take up the shield of faith with which we will quench the fiery darts of the wicked one, and we wield the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Help us, Lord. Help us to stand strong and to shine brightly in a dark world, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.