Humanism is presented as a philosophy that prioritizes human reason and self-sufficiency over divine guidance, tracing its roots from ancient Greek philosophy through the Renaissance and modern thought. The sermon argues that this man-centered worldview, characterized by "doctrines of demons," has infiltrated various aspects of society, including science, morality, family, government, and education, leading to a decline in ethical standards and a devaluation of human life. It contrasts the singular truth of God's Word with the plural, deceptive doctrines of humanism and urges listeners to be discerning and grounded in biblical truth to counteract its pervasive influence.
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here at Mid-South Bible Conference. And I've enjoyed the food in the dining hall. I've enjoyed the being pampered in the motel at the inn. That is very, very nice. And so we enjoyed the fellowship of the Christians here tremendously. And the ministry from my brother Woodhouse and the other men as they minister the Word of God and It's been a real joy. It's been all kinds of things. I've even enjoyed the sports, even though I've been the source of some of Rod Carson's jokes about the permanent divot. But I understand that now that our brother Lou's here said, it's right next to brother Lou's divot right out there in the middle of the field.
And you have to watch out on the field because there are getting an increasing number of holes out there. But our family has really enjoyed it. And if the Lord would... You know, give us the ability to come here as a camper next year. We would enjoy that as well. To hear Dan Smith and whoever the mystery speaker for next year. And so it's been a real joy. And I want to tell you something. I'm not looking forward to leaving tomorrow. Except we got a lot of clothes. We got to get washed. And this laundromat down here is awful expensive. It's seventy-five cents for a washer load. And twenty-five cents for ten minutes in a dryer. And so we got to get home to the. So one that's already bought and paid for. But we've really enjoyed this.
We've enjoyed getting to know you. And I have to admit, I do not know all of your names well yet. And I'm not sure I ever would, because I'm just terrible at that. But the Lord has given some really precious fellowship in time. And it's been a real privilege. And entering into friendships with people from all around the country, even from Nolum. And now that we've got that banner that Eddie Schwartz did, you know, with, you know, Fur Peace in Atlanta, Georgia, and all that. We've got that in the back of our car. And my wife is wanting us to do a puppet skit at our chapel. See, Missouri was a border state. It's half southern, you know, down the boot heel of Missouri.
And it's half northern. There were more battles fought in Missouri than any other state during the Civil War. And that's where Quantrill's Raiders and all the rest. You know, that's, you know, that's Missouri. But anyway, so we're going to go back and teach them how to speak Jewish Southern. This is probably the one session I feared the most of all the sessions that I had with you. This is not going to be necessarily a biblical exposition, though it could be. Yeah, if we wanted to go and talk about the carnal mind, which is at enmity with God, We want to talk about the mind that's blinded by Satan. We want to talk about the mind that has been darkened and the worldliness and all the rest.
We could go through a biblical exposition that way. But I think that what we want to pick up in terms of a subject that we're going to deal with it topically. And it's not that there's not scripture behind a lot of what we're going to be talking about. There is. But I would like to take a look at one verse, and that's in First Timothy chapter four. First Timothy chapter four. before we talk about humanism. And while you're turning to there, First Timothy chapter four, verse one, I see that the battle for the mind by Tim LaHaye is sold out. So if you can't get it here, I'm sure that you can find that in any Christian bookstore anywhere in the country.
It has sold a great deal. Tim LaHaye is one of the members of the moral majority. You know, you've heard of that outfit before. And he wrote this book as somewhat of a manifesto. for the moral majority. And he has a lot of very pointed things to say. There are a couple other books that are written from a popular viewpoint that you may enjoy reading. One is called Humanism in the Light of Holy Scripture by Homer Duncan. It was just published in nineteen eighty one. Homer Duncan's father was the superintendent of public instruction for Longview, Texas, I believe it was. And his father was one of the first battlers against humanism in public education. back forty years ago.
And he also has written another book called Secular Humanism, The Most Dangerous Religion in America. And this man's name is Homer Duncan. And those two books, I think you might find easy books to read. And finally, it's kind of interesting that in the first book I mentioned by him, Humanism in the Light of Holy Scripture, he wrote to the American Humanist Society asking for permission to reprint the humanist manifestos one and two. And he has a copy the letter returned to him by the American Humanist Association, denying him the privilege of returning humanist manifestos one and two, which is very interesting. And the letter is, you know, kind of interesting as well. But anyway, First Timothy chapter four, verse one.
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons. or devils here in the King James, but the word daimonia, the demons that are under the direction of Satan himself. And I find it very interesting that the word here is doctrines, plural. You know, when Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, that there is a statement here that truth is singular. In Acts chapter two, verse forty-two, it says, and they continue steadfast in the apostles' doctrines.
Singular. And I find this is very interesting. The Word of God in Second Timothy three sixteen is proper for instruction. No, it's for doctrine, singular. And so that the truth of the Word of God is seen in a body as a singular idea. It is unchangeable. That's it. But when it comes to a lie from the pit, from Satan, it's plural. Doctrines of demons. So if we want to try to tie down humanism as one singular form, it's not. There's all kinds of forms of humanism. Because humanism, in essence, is just man's answers to man's problems without God.
Man's answers to man's problems without God. And therefore, man has come up with all different kinds of answers to man's problems. I have an article here, How Humanism Affects Children by Dr. Paul Keenel. He's the executive director of the Association of Christian Schools International. And I'd like to read about three paragraphs out of this article. It says this, Humanism has had an awesome corrosive impact on the basic morality of our country. While America has more Christians than any other nation, the United States has become one of the most immoral nations on earth. Humanism, like Satan himself, is subtle and often undetected by the unwary, especially children and young people.
This is why, in my view, it is so wrong to send open-minded youngsters to public schools where they unknowingly absorb the humanistic doctrine of secular humanist educators. What is humanism? Please do not confuse humanism with humanitarianism. Okay, listen to this. All of us should be humanitarian. showing Christ-like compassion for others. Humanism is the exact opposite of humanitarianism. A humanist believes in himself, not God, and is more concerned about his own self-preservation than he is about the needs of others. Humanism is not new. It is the ancient struggle of self-centeredness, man's will versus God's will.
So we're going to talk about humanism today, and humanism has got all different kinds of varieties. There's no way at this point we could sit there and define all the doctrines of demonism or the doctrines of demons because there's such a variety of them. But I'd like to talk about the prevalent form of secular humanism today that has grown out of ancient Greek philosophy. That if you trace the philosophy of secular humanism today, it would go back to a man by the name of Aristotle and then, of course, his disciples. Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, that these are the men who are the founders of this ancient Greek philosophy which sought man's solutions to man's problems without God.
Now this form of Greek philosophy, and you take, if any of you have ever been subjected to reading Aristotle and Plato and Socrates and all these ancient Greek philosophers, that you start finding out that they have all different kinds of things and they can really mess your head up. I can remember taking courses in philosophy in the university. And he sits there, and by the time you sit there and study thirty of these different guys, you know, not just the ancient Greek ones, but the Roman philosophers and on up into the modern, you know, philosophers of existentialism today, that your head gets so messed up that they're thinking all, but all their answers are men's attempts to solve men's problems without God.
But this basic form of Greek philosophy almost died with the invasion of Rome. The Rome king took over the nation of Greece. But the Romans were not creative people. So the Romans brought over and had as their tutors the Greek teachers. So you see that the Greek philosophy, which was propagated by Aristotle and company, was brought over by the Greek teachers into the Roman culture. And of course the Roman culture incorporated that, and it was the thing that controlled the Roman Empire for about five centuries. It went into the Dark Ages, and the Greek philosophy was right on the verge of dying again. But then, in reaction to the Reformation, please understand this, in reaction to the Reformation, where biblical truth was resurrected by the Spirit of God and justification by faith, the priesthood of the believers, and the body of Christ, with men such as John Huss, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and men like this, that this Reformation movement of the Spirit of God, in reaction to that, there was a resurrection coming out of Constantinople of
Renaissance philosophy. Please, you probably have taught that the Renaissance was a good thing. It was diabolical. It was a resurrection of Greek philosophy. which was man-centeredness, it was selfishness to the core, and it left God, the Bible, and truth out completely. And so through the Renaissance that the doctrines of the Greek philosophy were resurrected, and the epitome of this Greek philosophy was demonstrated by the French Revolution in seventeen eighty-nine. The French Revolution with men such as Robespierre lived out the Greek philosophy of secular humanism, and they set up as their God after they overthrew the aristocracy and killed everybody.
You know who they set up as God? Reason, man's mind. They set up, they actually had a statue to it, set up in one of the Roman Catholic cathedrals in the country of France, and they worship reason. And man's life was unimportant. It was insignificant. And therefore, even the founders of the French Revolution ended up going to Madame Guillotine as well. Now, they were killed at Madame Guillotine because there was no value to human life. And that's what the Greek philosophy, the result of that was. This grew into and became even more prevalent in scientific circles in the middle-nineteenth century by a man that...
who had been religiously trained and this religiously trained man was a man by the name of Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin went out and he went to this famous island of Galapagos. And he came up and he developed his evolutionary theory. And the people within the biological sciences jumped on it like gangbusters because they were seeking for answers to life, growing out of Greek philosophy. And evolution says, hey, no God created that man is just a product of centuries, millennia, and decades of millennia of evolution.
evolution. And so evolution was a product of this Greek philosophy. It came over into the religious circle in the late eighteen hundred, that it, well, actually started in the late seventeen hundred. This came over into the documentary theory of the Bible and to form criticism and things like this, where they're saying that the Bible is only man's book. And there's evolution of religion. And if you want to find a popular presentation of this evolution of religion, He'd pick up a book by a man by the name of James Mitchner. Does anybody know the book that he wrote that popularizes the evolutionary theory of religion? The source. The source. And what did he say? That man started off as pantheist, and then he came to polytheist, then he came to monotheist, and finally he grew up and became an atheist.
And that's the product of the evolutionary way of thinking within the religious circle. And we could go on and we could talk about all different kinds of forms of things. Any of you have been equated with the writings of Francis Schaefer. That Francis Schaefer is probably one of the most capable men that God has raised up in our society today, analyzing what has happened philosophically to our culture. But analyzing the existentialism that he find out, you know, what the basic tenet of existentialism today is? Nothing matters. All existence is meaningless. And you take that philosophy and live it out, you have to make what they call the irrational leap.
The irrational leap is being made by young people today because the leading killer of high school students and college students, you know what it is? Suicide. That is an outgrowth of evolution. It is outgrowth of humanism. Life is meaningless. The Red Chinese, they know how meaningless life is. You want to take over North Korea? We'll just line up a thousand men, send them against the machine guns. When the bullets are all gone, the next wave will get them. Because life is meaningless. You got two hundred million in your army, it's meaningless. But that's an outgrowth. And you can take that communism, Nazism, and all the ultra-right, the ultra-left, and then we see the center now is being taken over by humanism. That life is meaningless.
Man is meaningless. And all the various things that we're doing. But now this humanism... had been somewhat protected from the American middle class until about forty or fifty years ago. Around forty or fifty years ago, with the outgrowth of so many of these things, with the Scopes trial here in the state of... Where was the Scopes trial? Tennessee. And you know who won that battle? Contrary to the movie. You know who won that battle? The battle in that particular trial went the right direction. But did you read that article in Interest Magazine that Clarence Darrell, who... defended the Tennessee school teacher against the state of Tennessee who was represented by William Jennings Bryan that Clarence Darrow said it is the height it is the height did you get that quote in interest magazine of prejudice to only teach one form of the origin of life and yet since that day that Tennessee trial about what was that fifty years ago Something like that.
Forty years ago, whatever. Yeah, so it's about sixty years ago then. So, you see, sixty years ago, from that time to now, you go to the state of Arkansas, and what's happening down there? They're not allowed to teach creation. You know, that's a minute. What about that quote from Clarence Darrell? Somehow, it's not in the press anymore, is it? Somehow, it's not in the media, because things have changed. And in our society, humanism, basically is taken over. And so that's why Francis Schaefer calls us, we're in a post-Christian culture. Now let's talk about some of the places where this philosophy of humanism is taken over. It's taken over in the area of science, where today to get a Ph.D.
from almost any major university, you cannot get it in the scientific field if you believe in creation. It's almost impossible. Now it happens every once in a while, but to get a Ph.D. in the biological sciences, whether it be geology or botany or biology or whatever these scientists are, they will not give you a PhD from their school if you believe in creation. Why? Because you're dumber than the rest of them? That's not it at all. See, the humanistic philosophy excludes creation. So science in the area of evolution. And you take the whole area of, like for instance, Sodium cyclamates are not in the market anymore.
You want to know why? Because they say cyclamates cause cancer. But you know who they cause cancer in? Mice. Rats. But to go from rats and mice to humans is to imply that all squashes are the same quash. Comparative anatomy. And that's not necessarily true. You read First Corinthians chapter fifteen. There's one kind of flesh for animals. There's another kind of flesh for fish or reptiles. There's another kind of flesh for human beings. Just because cyclamates give cancer to mice. It's not me. Let's see what happened. We've accepted that kind of thinking and it is taken over.
How about moral today? I was reading up in the city of Des Moines. In their newspaper they got a whole column of these escort services. You know what that is. That's just a fancy name for advertised prostitution. How can that happen? Except in the city of Des Moines, adult bookstores, and all these various things. And we see that, but pornography, what does it do? It makes man meaningless. It makes woman meaningless. It says people are unimportant. How about the family? What about the Equal Rights Amendment? What do you think this source of the Equal Rights Amendment was?
Now, there may have been some very good points behind the Equal Rights Amendment, but the basic thinking behind the people and the Equal Rights Amendment that they were breaking down the distinction between male and female. They're saying there is no such thing as a difference between male and female. And you try taking this book and sharing this with Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan. People like that. Do you think they would be very open to this book? Would you like to try to sit there and say, but the Bible says? How about abortion today? What do you think abortion is saying? Hey, listen. The baby's inconvenient. It's unimportant. And so, you know how many babies we killed? Up until nineteen eighty in our country? By legal abortions.
Does anybody have any idea? Up to nineteen eighty, how many legal abortions were performed in the United States? Six million. Six million babies in heaven. That's a side effect of it. You hear that thing out there in California when they, you know, this thing where they went to this guy's house, they found all these garbage bags. And they started looking in the garbage bags and what they found. Did you hear all this in the paper? Babies. I call them babies. They call them fetuses. And the reason they call them fetuses is because, you know, you don't want to give it a person's name to it. And they're all in garbage. But what happens is, for it to be a legal abortion, you can't bury it.
You can't bury the baby. So they sent the babies all to a laboratory. The laboratory... This man worked at a laboratory and he brought him home. And what he was doing was thousands of babies in garbage bags in his garage in a house. I don't have the faintest idea. But see, now the medical examiner out in Los Angeles County has got all these bags of fetuses. And he says, what do I do with them? And Jim Dobson and other people like that said, bury them. They're babies. And he says, no, I can't bury them. That would say they were babies then. And so he's got this tremendous problem. But that is humanism. Do you understand that? Humanism says life is unimportant. You know, that people are unimportant. Evolution, and all these various forms of humanism.
Oh, well, we're an answer. Five more. No, we're over at five thirty, but I want to be finished talking to it because I really want interaction from you all. And how about the government? That our government, when was the last time you, have you ever heard the Supreme Court quote the Bible? You ever heard that, did you hear in that nineteen, what's it, nineteen seventy-three Roe versus Wade? You know what that is? Nineteen seventy-three Roe versus Wade. Does anybody know what that was? You ought to know that, like that, because that was when we gave doctors permission to murder babies. But you know what, not one U.S. Supreme Court justice went to the Bible for a source of authority.
I wonder how many of our senators and congressmen are going to the Bible for their authority or going to humanistic reasoning. Oh, how about advertisements? You've come a long way, baby. What's behind that advertisement? Poor woman. You couldn't smoke out in public before. Right? Now you've come a long way. Right? The media. The other night, I think I was telling you about how the fact that they were sitting there trying to set up Ed McIntyre to look bad on the TV.
And yet, you know, that's the way the TV, the radio. You'll remember when Chuck Colson, when he went in, and after he became a Christian, I can remember when it first came out, that, you know, Chuck Colson went in to... admit that he had done wrong. Not to what they wanted him to admit, but they said Chuck Colson just went in to the court and has said that he had done wrong. And he said, the reason he did that is because he has received the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and he's born again. Well, see, it all happened so quick they didn't have time to screen the news. One hour later, I heard the news come back on. And they said, Chuck Colson has pleaded guilty to such and such because of a religious experience.
What happened? See, at the very beginning, the humanism hadn't had a chance to siphon it out. And then the humanism said, we just want to turn this over to religious experience. And if you ever saw the cartoons that were on Chuck Colson, you know, with a white robe, brief pens, you know, and all these different things, and it's really amazing how the media made him look. How about the movies? How about TV? I think one thing that we have today that is one of the primary things humanistic educators that we have in our society is that boob tube. And it sits there and it stares at us and it pours out humanistic doctrine. And one of the worst things that pours out humanistic doctrine is, you know what it is? It comes on at six and at ten.
It's the news. Because it is manipulated. It is controlled by three offices in the city of New York. CBS, ABC, and NBC, they control it. And you think it's all just, no, they've already got their stories planned. They've already got them prepared and things like that. And it's just, I've had enough experience working with the news media to know that what you want to get into the news media may not get there. In fact, it probably won't. How about our cultural and ethical societies, our secret societies? Now, the other day, I mentioned ACLU. Anybody know what that means, Laura? That's not a radio station, by the way.
It's American Civil Liberties Union. You know who is taking on the Christians on the creation issue in public schools? It's the ACLU. They're the ones who are attacking it. Who do you think that fought prayer in public schools? The ACLU. Who do you think is fighting one issue after another that's contrary to the Word of God? It's the ACLU. And they're a group of lawyers. But I think one of the things that is so deeply hit at my heart, and this is the one I like to close with, is the whole area of education. that we have bought into a system, that education our country started off, you know where? In a home. And then it came into the churches.
And the churches provided the education. The education then, because of the influence of a number of men who were transcendentalists. Anybody know what transcendentalist is? He's not a Christian. People like Thoreau and Emerson. that they convinced the people that we ought to provide some sort of public education. Well, even then, it didn't take on great depth within our country until a number of years later, and primarily under the influence of a man by the name of John Dewey. John Dewey was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto I in nineteen thirty-three. John Dewey was an atheist.
John Dewey says what we teach in school, read and write and arithmetic, isn't that the most important thing? The most important thing is teach people how to adapt to their society, get along with other people. Because read and write and arithmetic, you know, that's not going to make a big effect on things. And so John Dewey influenced, and so that we have seen that as Dewey in education is coming to public education, that it seems like SAT scores and ACT scores going down, down, down. I was talking to a professor at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. And she teaches a course in childhood psychology. And she said, what I used to be able to give for an A in my class, if I used the same standard for ABCDF, I would slunk every student. And yet they're coming out with the same grades or better from the public high schools.
And she says, I don't understand it. They give the best test in St. Louis, the basic essential skills test. And doing education is influenced so much now that the average graduate from a St. Louis high school can read at about an eighth grade level. that they have learned how to relate to people. In fact, they've learned how to relate to people so well that in Denmark, where they have this kind of education going on, that over a period of years, that when they started in nineteen seventy up to nineteen eighty, assault rates increased by three hundred percent. VD. in persons over twenty was up two hundred and fifty percent. V.D. in persons sixteen to twenty was up two hundred and fifty percent. V.D. in persons fifteen and under was up four hundred and forty percent.
Abortions were up five hundred percent. Illegitimate pregnancies were up two hundred percent. Divorce was up two hundred percent. And the birth rate was the lowest level in recorded history. They're not replacing the population in Denmark. Same kind of education as we have going on. And what's happened is, is that this Dewey and Education, which is basically humanist-informed, and he was a humanist, which was reaffirmed in nineteen seventy-three with Humanist Manifesto II. And this humanist education is so taken over today that we have got serious problems. I can remember back when I was first getting ready to put my son in kindergarten. And I grew up in public school. Look at me. I was fine. No problems at all.
And I was getting ready for my kids in school. And my wife said, you know, she went over to the public school. She saw the kids being taught in the gym there. She says, there's got to be another option for this. They're so crowded. So she went over to this Christian school. And we started getting exposed to some of, Y'all want to come in? I don't think you can fan her hard enough there, Ireland, to get the rain off. And, you know, Proverbs chapter nineteen, verse twenty seven says this. Well, I can quote it. Seize my son to hear the instruction that causes me to err from the words of knowledge, to err from the truth.
And did I quote that right? I think I got close anyway. from the words of knowledge. Teach my son to hear the instruction that causes it to err from the words of knowledge. So that if we're exposed to teaching that causes us to be turned away from the word of God, then we have some real problems. How many of you were taught evolution in school? Okay. Now, be honest. I mean, maybe if you're a gray head, you may not have been taught evolution. But if you're as young as I am or younger, how many of you are taught evolution in school? Okay. How many of you are taught creation in school? Okay.
Where do you go to school? Where do you go to school? Is that Catholic school? No. Is that public school? Okay. Where do you go to school? Was your teacher Christian? Some teachers do that at risk of their job. There was a teacher who did that up in the state of Illinois and was fired. Who else was taught creation in public school? In public school? As a theory or a myth. That's one of the reasons, by the way, I'm somewhat got some mixed feelings about the Louisiana case and the Arkansas case.
I'm not sure I want an evolutionist teaching creation. Now, I've got some real problems with that, you know. Hey, well, there are some other hairbane crackpots who believe in this, and here's what they believe. I'm not sure I want that either. Yeah. Go ahead. What a comparison, right? Okay, but anybody else here was taught creation? Still teaching? Oh, okay. Well, you're older than I am, I think. Maybe not by much.
You were too. Okay. Now, I want to say... Not yet. Okay. I want to say that I think the only saving factor for the public education so far in our country has been the fact that Christians have been involved. But the hostility between the system and Christianity is becoming very, very intense. And let me tell you something. There's a great reaction to the discipline problems in school. There's great reactions to textbooks that they're forced to read in school and many other things like this.
And so many Christian parents are pulling the kids out of and putting them into Christian schools. We're some of them, okay? Now we have our children in Christian schools, not saying that the Christian schools are perfect, but we're saying if I'm going to put my children under tutors, I'm going to have my children tutor by people who are as close to my belief as possible. I don't want humanistic tutors. In fact, the Word of God says I'm not to put my children under that kind of situation. Cease to hear it. Now, what happens is though every child I pull out of that system may lose six hundred, seven hundred, eight hundred dollars per year. One child, that won't hurt them too badly. But, you know, from the State Board of Education. But you pull out two, three, four, five, ten, hundred, a thousand, a thousand times six hundred dollars.
Hey, you're talking about big bucks. You're talking about the fact that we're going to have to fire some teachers. You're talking about the fact we're going to have to close some schools. You're talking about the fact that we're not going to be able to run some of the programs that we like to run. Like programs that don't work, like Head Start, for instance. You know, all the studies now behind head start. Head start does not work. It sounds good. You know, I mean, grab the kids when they're two and three and get them a head start on education. No problem is it hasn't worked. How many of you have listened to Dr. James Dobbson's program on Christian radio? Did you hear that program that he had with Dr. Raymond Moore? No. Dr. Raymond Moore wrote a book called Homegrown Kids. And Dr.
Raymond Moore, along with, there's a man we've been listening to KMORX radio. He says that, you know, the whole humanistic theory that you get the kids to school as soon as possible and train them and, you know, that so they can be socialized. Can I tell you something? The evidence is the sooner you put your kids to school, the worse it is. that a child who starts at ten or eleven or twelve years of age. Too late for most of you, right? Ten or eleven or twelve years of age will catch up with a child that starts at five and pass them.
That's the studies. Who does God hold primary responsible for teaching children anyway? If the children fight, oh, I'd love to give you my sermon in Nehemiah chapter thirteen about these parents, you know, Jewish parents, who married Philistine as husbands and wives. And then their children grew up, and they didn't speak Jewish anymore. And they say, what happened to our children? What happened to our children was you married the world. And the children came out speaking the language of the world. You marry the world, it's going to have tremendous consequences. And I am responsible to God. Now, humanistic doctrine in government has done this. The doctrine up till the last few years has been, in local parenthesis, That is, the school teaches in the place of the parents.
But the parents, parent-teacher association, sport of education, that they're the ones that have the final control of the children. But it has been bought over by a doctrine called parents-patriotic, humanistic doctrine. Parents-patriotic says the state is the father. Parents, parent-patriotic, fatherland. The fatherland is the parent. And what is the primary means of humanistic laws that are causing a change in that? Do you know what area is causing those changes? The whole area of child abuse. Now, I'm horrified by child abuse. I've had a work in it. And you see a battered child or a child who's got all kinds of scars and spiders because of things that have happened. But just a minute, before we, you know, buy a doctrine that saying the state has the right to pull children away from any parent that pleases, just a minute.
By what authority? And from whom do they get that authority? Can they take their children away? They don't get it from God. It's a usurped authority. And it's a humanistic doctrine saying that we have the right of the control of children. Child abuse legislation. And I tell you, I've already been hearing in the news media in St. Louis that, you know, hey, listen, you force your children to go to church? That's abuse. You're putting your kids in Christian school? They're not sending them to high school? That's abuse. And I want to tell you, it's out there, and this is really happening.
But let me finish here. I'd like to have some interaction here from you, and this whole area of... We've not even begun to cover this. This is such a big subject. I really like some interaction and things. I know you've done some things here. I told you I was going to pick on this. Is there anything you want to say? Thirty seconds. Thirty seconds. Well, this is... the idea of the media, the idea of science, a lot of other things. I don't know anything that illustrates it any more clearly than the thing they brought up about the smoke strike. And John Whitehead has just recently read a book. He wrote a book, I've not read it yet.
John Whitehead is one of the lawyers that was not allowed to be one of the primary lawyers in Arkansas, but he is one of the primary lawyers in Louisiana case. made a statement once when I heard him speak. And he said, if you tell a lie long enough, hard enough, that it will eventually become the truth. And that's the case in the Scopes trial. Because of the Broadway play in Harrison Wind, as well as the movie, sorry, Spencer Tracy, the same name, in Harrison Wind, that Scopes trial has made, one thing the Broadway play started out with, Scopes in jail. And the whole thing centered around, supposedly, a small bigoted prejudice, small town, creating just havoc because this guy, they're trying to force this guy into narrow-minded thinking.
And so you see this guy sculpted the scene, somewhat of a hero standing for free thinking and all that. The fascinating thing is in Smoked on Diaries, he never spent a minute in jail. The whole thing was arranged by the ACLU. He met the ACLU lawyers. the sheriff and the school board principal in the back room of a pharmacy. They arranged it. He came off of a tennis mat, off a tennis court to sit in on the meeting. When it was all said and done, the sheriff said, okay, you're arrested for teaching evolution. We're going to quit this thing because this would look like a success case. You can go back and play tennis. The guy never spent a minute in jail.
He was not the victim of a prejudiced figured it's small down in Genesee. Just said something in Genesee. But that lie has been told so often. So much that now anybody outside of the Christian world thinks the scope trial was just an atrocity. Oh, yeah. And yet the ACLU was behind it. And they were there back then. The sad thing that I feel about it is that Christians who know some of these things. Some Christians don't even take the effort to know these things. They accept what the world does. They accept what the media does.
One of the largest gatherings of human beings, I guess maybe it was the power of Abel. One of the largest gatherings of human beings together ever. In modern history. We never heard about it. You know why? You know where it was? Anybody know where that? The largest gathering of human bodies ever to be assembled together in one meeting. You know where it was? Was that the Billy Graham Crusade in Seoul, Korea? It was in Korea. Exactly. It was the Jesus festival in Korea. Two and a half million people. Christian. But you never heard about it in America.
To me, it didn't back up. But if the ACLU gets ten people to march on Washington, it's there. Why? That's where the control is. Here's the five basic tenets of humanism. Atheism, evolution, amorality, autonomous man, man by himself, and a socialist one-world view. Sounds like the United Nations to me, doesn't it? We are all aware of the fact, or should be, that the best way to be insulated against that which involves you to be saturated with truth. But I'm thinking of maybe some people here as well as elsewhere who don't know these things.
They are being deceived and really unaware. That's right. There might be some here. They have children in the fourth grade, fifth grade. What are they to do? I mean, maybe they're thinking, all right, this is new to me. I'm understanding some of this. But now what am I to do? What are your suggestions to those who have children? Okay. Starting with children is at first, I think what's happened here is that we have allowed ourselves to be desensitized to evil. Because we have allowed ourselves to be saturated with evil in our home. We have allowed ourselves to be saturated with evil by letting ourselves be bombarded by the media, whether it be TV or radio or magazines or whatever.
And then we have allowed ourselves to be bombarded by worldly viewpoints from other sources, maybe friends and things like that. So I think the first thing to do before you start educational arrest is get the home in order, that the father and the mother take personal responsibility before God of cleansing their home from evil and learning how to be alert to spiritual danger. There's no way that you can read enough books to find out about all the different doctrines of demons. There's no way. And you can't find out about all the different cults. So the key thing is to be immersed in the Word of God and to immerse your children in the Word of God so that you have that kind of thing going on so that when your children get the place where they have the responsibility of making decisions their own life, that they will make decisions based upon the Word of God.
So the first thing has got to be within the home, I think. And the second thing is that you have to start looking at where do we go from outside of here. Now, how many of you would like to send, now we just had a former Jehovah's Witness baptized out there. How many of you would like to say, well, now listen, we don't want to be narrow-minded about this. We want to be open. We want to be subject our children all the time. How many of you would send your children to go to a Jehovah's Witness Sunday school? Anybody send your children to go to Jehovah's Witness Sunday school? Now, hey, listen, I mean, they've got to be out there in the world where children are going to be in from kindergarten to twelfth grade and thirteen years of education if you send them to school. Did you notice that last statement? If you sent them to school.
Thirteen years of education. You know who your teachers are? Your children's teachers are? Have you ever talked to them about their moral character? There was up in Des Moines, just before I left up there, there was a lady went in to pick up her child of being babysat in a daycare center. And this daycare center, the lady was asleep, and the man was gone. So two of the older kids took the mother up there to this room, and they had this room of two by two by two boxes. that all had doors on the front. And they went into this place and they said, well, your little boy's in there. And they all had latches. They undid the latch in there. And there he was in there. And it soiled his pants. And then she looked in, and there were little holes bored in the doors of each of these. And she was horrified. Left.
Went to the police. By the time the police got back to place, the people had just mailed all the boxes and put them out in the garage. The evidence was gone. But in the process of this, it was found out that this lady, who was the daycare center runner, was a former prostitute in the city of Des Moines. Now, I got a question. Hey, mother, how well did you know who was babysitting your child for more of their child's waking hours than you have them? Do you even know her character? Do you know her person? I know all my kids' teachers, even in Christian school. I want to know them. I want to know who they are. I know what their standards are.
And if they've got problems, I go and talk to them. I get to be a pest sometimes. And if you have your children in public school, now I want to say that you're right. You have that freedom to make that decision. But I would really like you to consider the fact that there may be some other options beside that. But if your kids are in public school, do you know your teacher? How many of you know who your teacher is going to be for your kids next year? Okay. I do. I'm trying. I know. Unless they fire them since we've been gone. Okay. I know who my kids' teachers are going to be. How many of you have kids? You don't know who your teacher is going to be? Well, are you going to find out? Are you going to find out what their moral character is? We live...
Oh, well. By the way, please understand that what... So, to answer what you're saying, Eddie, I think consider, you know, where you're putting your children on it as far as the education of your children. And I would like to... We got an assembly in St. Louis that started their own Christian school. And I tell you, it has been the best thing that that assembly has done. You know, they decided we're going to have a Christian school, and that assembly has grown like gangbusters. I mean, whoosh, in the Southside Bible Chapel where Stuart Henrich and people like that are there. And it's been a tremendously positive thing within that particular assembly. And so they started school, and it's been building up and built up the assembly as well.
Johnny? I'll just touch this a little bit. Sure. I got in late, and I don't know how much you guys got the experience I knew, but when I saw them again on television tonight, Well, I'm no expert on it, but it seems like you check out where the ACLU is whenever they get involved in a situation, they're always on the wrong side. There have been a couple instances where the ACLU has defended Christians, and I wish they hadn't let them do it. Glendale said, he says, If I ever get arrested, I want you brothers in this assembly, and I want my wife to know, don't let the ACLU defend me.
Jesus didn't need the testimony of the demons to proclaim his deity in the world, and he muscled and said, you be quiet. I don't want to hear that from you, and I don't think we need that kind of defense. But the ACLU is an organization. I don't know an awful lot about it, but if you look at what they've done, they've always been on the wrong side. Communistic, atheistic. They belong to a socialist one-world view. One of the things that starts me is that we mentioned a while ago that how many Supreme Court justices are congressmen use the Bible in their work. So there's this kind of thing. Well, it bothers me that some of the people I know who, they stand on the fact that the separation of church and state, which is a good thing, you know, we don't want the government meddling in the church service.
But they've taken a step further, I think, on to this point where they won't even tell their congressmen or attempt to tell them their feelings about morality and church issues because they feel like they shouldn't get involved in politics. Yes. Isn't it interesting what happened this last election, you know, that the liberal churches have been funding, haven't they? I mean, they've been sending money to congressmen. Read this month's Reader's Digest. You know, Karl Marx or Jesus Christ. Did you see that article? How many of you read that article? About the World Council of Churches, which almost every major denomination belongs to, and how they've been sending money consistently to rebel organizations that are funding violent overthrow of governments all around the world and establishing in the place of it Marxist governments.
And so that's what, and they have been involved, you know, they've been, you know, the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Church has been involved in the anti-nuclear rallies, they've been involved in the ERA movement, they've been involved in Women's Liberation, and a number of others of these kind of concepts. And, oh, they've been doing it for years now, haven't they? Now, it's not a new thing for the World Council of Churches. And now, Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye and Ed McIntyre and guys like that, said, okay, now just a minute, we don't think abortion is a political issue. We think it's a moral issue. We don't think women's liberation is a political issue. It's a moral issue. So they got out there and said, okay, now you people out there who believe like we do, let's vote for delegates that we believe in, okay?
And so they voted for delegates they believed in, and Birch Bayh got voted out in Indiana. George McGovern got voted out in Minnesota. And all of a sudden, the liberal, the humanist, said, wow! Wow! That's not fair. You're mixing religion and politics. Now, just a cotton pick a minute. You people have been doing this for fifty years already. And now the religious right, so-called, comes up and says, we aren't going to vote for people who believe in abortion. We're going to vote for pro-life candidates. We're going to vote for people who stand for biblical issues. And so without getting into the summary, And so they voted for it.
And these liberals got voted out. And Ronald Reagan got voted in. And even in our own state, a guy that was almost an unknown, almost defeated Tom Eagleton. Almost. But anyway, and he was coming in on the coattails of an American public who was saying, hey, listen, we don't like some of the things that we're seeing. And so they called foul. That's not fair. And so there's a real reaction going with Barry Commoner and people like that are really reacting to this. And what I've got to say is this is not the time to back off. It's not the time for Christians to say, hey, listen, we shouldn't be involved in politics. I want to tell you something that the abortion issue probably has been the one issue that has solidified evangelical Christians more than any other issue.
Because that is not a political issue for me. The murder of six million children legalized by our country makes me part of it. Because I'm a citizen of this country. I'm a citizen of heaven primarily. I'm a citizen of this country. And when it says it's legal to commit abortions within this country, that makes me part of that. And I, therefore, become party to a society that has legalized murder. And that causes me great problems. So I say, no, this is not a political issue. This is a moral issue for me. And I don't go around, you know, preaching on humanism from the pulpit primarily, but I do say I'm going to stand up and be counted on this. So, like, as a person, you lose your right to have impendence.
And even more of your post, in a way, and also you don't have the right to have rights because the ACLU won't do it. It seems like they ignore the rights of people that they're against and already they defend the rights of the... See, the First Amendment, and they say that the Constitution is totally twisted by the modern legal system, you know, that the intent by the original founding fathers were primarily Christians. That the intent of the Constitution has been so totally twisted, it's unreal. And they've taken the First Amendment, which guaranteed the freedom of... I didn't finish that one discussion. I know you're all getting empty here. But we went from the home school to the church school to the public school where God was still at the center.
Then we went from the public school to the secular school. That is, we'll leave God out. But now the switch has been and is being made from secular to anti-Christians. Where not only are they leaving God out, that the beliefs that we have as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are being attacked with greater and greater and greater increasing attacks. And I just don't want you to go home when you have children or if you've got grandchildren. We have one lady in our church, and she was really opposing the putting of her grandchildren into a Christian school.
She says, I don't like this. I don't like this. So I said to her, Mary, could I ask you a question? Do you remember those Kent State Revolt back in the state of Ohio? She said, yeah, wasn't it terrible? All those kids, those rebels against authority, all those different things, and she had read some of that, and I knew, or feelings of that, if you ever read about the Kent State Revolt, The National Guard was provoked by obscene girl by this some terrible thing. And I said, okay, here it is. It's about seven years later. Okay, where do you think they are now? Where do you think those kids are who are doing all that at Kent State University? Where do you think they are now? Kent State has a large teaching school.
A lot of them are not teaching in the schools right now. In fact, Jack Hiles did a study, and he found that of the kids in his church that had been offered drugs by somebody in school, sixty percent of them were offered drugs by their teachers. I'm not saying all the teachers are doing that. I know Mary Little Phelan is not doing it, okay? And I know a lot of Christians. You know, they're... Okay. So I'm saying, yeah, this is what... In his church, these kids admitted to doing that. So we have to... We can't just hide our heads in this. The decorations on her door, it couldn't have anything to do with Jesus at Christmas time.
The decorations on her door couldn't have anything to do with Jesus at Christmas time in her school. Yeah. I mean, so you get to put Santa Claus up there, right? And a reindeer and all that's really... I teach the kids that myth is more important than reality. But see, that's what humanism is. It's a rational leap. There's no meaning to life. There's nothing that's important. And therefore, Santa Claus is as good as Jesus Christ. Can't hear you. You can't?
Well, if there's no other school, I just want to know how you can. Well, there's no other school. Well, there's no other school. Okay. Well, if the option of not taking children and putting them into a Christian school or starting a Christian school or teaching them at home, those are not options. I don't know. Need some help. Where do you live? Atlanta. With a lot of Christian schools in Atlanta. I know that. And, you know, there are correspondence courses that you can get through. Children, if you're not working and you could teach them home, you could do that. But let's say those aren't options. I'm not willing to accept that as reality. But, yeah, I think maybe. But if we accept those aren't options. Okay.
One of the things that could be very helpful is, you know, in a non-offensive, loving way, Let that teacher know that you're very committed to your child's education, and that you're involved in the process, and that you meet that teacher and talk to that teacher with regularity, and pray for that teacher a whole bunch. Invite that teacher just on the evangelistic crusade that's your assembly. Send trash in your kids' school. And I'll say this. I think the skill, the most important thing is the home. In spite of a school, the home is the most important thing.
And I think that the home is strong, and the mom and dad are doing a good job at home, that that's the most important thing. And if you're doing a good job at home, maybe then, in spite of what the kids are getting at school, they will be insulated from it. But that's just not the way I would prefer to do it. I'd rather not have them in a hostile environment when they're growing plants. I mean, we're going to... They're going to be out there long enough. I don't want to rush the process up any... But, you know, I pray for that teacher. Pray for the teacher's salvation and become a friend to that teacher. That teacher may need... Desperate be in need of just having a friend. You know, because most teachers don't have many parents as friends. They're enemies.
And I think that's... And if you think teachers have got it bad, you think principals got it even worse. You know, principals don't have any friends, not even their wives, because they work too many hours. But, you know, it's... I think getting to know the teacher and not just being confrontational, but being loving and really praying for the teacher if those other three are not options, okay? And if we were to accept that, then, you know, be involved, but not to the point of being a pastor because if all of a sudden, you know, every time, you know, the classroom opens and you're there, that would be a real problem. That could disturb the educational process. But I think something I, that's not an option I like. You know, I, but maybe that isn't. You know what?
We did it this last year with my daughter, and we had a super year. We weren't prepared to deal with all of our children because we started in a Christian school, and our Christian school is basically a good school. It has some problems. I teach there. It's got a lot of problems. And I teach there part-time. But we had a super year with my daughter this last year. It's very good. My wife and my daughter became fast friends, and my daughter got an education that she would not have gotten to school. She knows about eggs and chickens and... and lambs from sheep and all different kinds of things. Besides the fact she learned everything that Pensacola Christian Correspondence School has offered, which our school only teaches half a month. So, and she did it in three hours by the way.
Nine to twelve in the morning and she was done and she had the rest of the day free. Because there's another thing that the effective teaching time in a good school is forty, forty percent of the time in school is effective teaching time in school. How do you feel that it is related to the pressure of friends or relatives? All I can say on that is at this point, we're working on that. But it's the same problem that they have with going to Christian school when their friends' neighborhood are going to public school. But I think that the type of thing that we're having to teach our children, not only the fact that they have the right kinds of friends, if they are consistently having friends that are non-Christian, they've got the wrong kinds of friends.
They need to have Christians. Because bad company corrupts good morals. That's a better translation of Christian Corinthians, and bad company corrupts good morals. So we need to teach the children to have the right kinds of friends. But then there's another point I was going to make. I forgot it. Oh, there's a need to teach the children how to stand alone. We are desperately need a kid that they get in a group of ten kids and the kids say, let's do such and such. I was just talking to George Fiber who went to Amaya's Bible School and they decided to do something at Amaya's Bible School that they were going to go and get a bunch of water balloons with a trumpet and run into the girls' dorm and have and bombard all the girls in the girls' dorm with water balloons, you know, blow the trumpet, run in, hit the girls with water balloons and run out.
I mean, that really sounds like fun, doesn't it? Except it's wrong. And the thing about it, all the guys that are involved, every one of them knew it was wrong. But not one of them had the courage to say, and I think they all would have wished somebody would have. Especially after they got called in, Dan Smith and Dave Glock. And it was only two days from graduation and things like that. But if one person said, no, I don't think we should do it, I don't think any would have done it. And we need to teach our children to say, courageously, to stand up. and be counted, if necessary, all by themselves. And that's not easy, even for us adults, isn't it?
That's right. Three tests of false doctrine. They test their words. They test their fruits. and you test their spirit. And sometimes you may not be able to detect in their words, but your spirit detects it. Now, I have a good friend of mine who has a mentally retarded girl. She's borderline mentally retarded. She's going to public school, and she came back, and she had a book that she was having to read in school, and she says to her daddy, when she's about fifteen years old, that daddy has a bad book. Oh? because he had read it in school himself. And so he read the book and he came back to, he says, you sure there's no wrong with that book?
Oh yeah, Daddy, I know that's a bad book. And she couldn't articulate why it was a bad book. He went back and read the book. What's wrong with it? And he read it five or six times before all of a sudden he began realizing that that had taught evil without consequences, that you can sin and not get caught. And he didn't pick it up, but she did just like that. And so being able to detect evil, you know, like you're saying, is a very, very important thing. Okay. I learned then over here. What about Christian schools? You mentioned the assembly of Christian schools, the movement, and Christian schools. Are you, how do you stand, sending your children to another domination of the movement of the movement?
Ours is primarily Baptist. Yeah, our granddaughter, her parents are born, and the wife and the mother, the assistant, I go into the movement of the movement of the movement. It's my name. You know, what I do there, like with any school, just because it's called Christians, doesn't mean necessarily that it's Christian, because I have learned of some cults that have got Christian schools that I wouldn't send my children to, because the only purpose of school is to teach their doctrine. You have to evaluate it school by school, just because it's a Baptist school or a Lutheran school or an independent school or whatever. That doesn't make it good. If it's a segregation academy, I'm not sure I'm happy with segregation academy.
I'm not happy with segregation academy. And by the way, can I tell you this, by the way, that Christian schools have never been shown to be deficient in the quality of education. Our test scores are super high on the SAT and the ACT. What? You'd have to evaluate it. You have to evaluate it school by school. I... Well, I was trying to avoid being dogmatic, but... On tape, that was Vernon Schlieb. Let me say this.
I teach high school. My best student... Oh, no. That was true. Uh-huh. Hey, respect for authority is a very, very important thing. That's very important. Some of those sisters really know how to teach respect for authority. It's called a ten-foot chain. That's right. Aren't you being off to the possibility of maybe teaching religion classes in a Catholic school?
Possibility. Wouldn't that be neat? Okay. Okay. I think we better stop with maybe one more question. Paul? Where does the Baptist church stand on? Which Baptist church? Southern Baptist. Southern Baptist is a member. I believe so. I believe the Southern Baptist. Are you sure? They're affiliate members, aren't they?
They're not. Okay. Correction on the tape. I think their membership is not a full membership. It's an affiliate membership is what I think. But the Southern Baptist Convention, you got to understand, the Southern Baptist churches do not really belong to the denomination. They belong to conventions. In every church, basically, they say it's their own church. And so they have no doctrinal statements. They don't have anything that they, you know, say every Baptist church has to subscribe to except that it's evangelistic. That's the basic tenets of the Southern Baptist Convention. So they do have, you know, their large convention meetings, and they are fighting the issue of inerrancy with the Southern Baptist Convention today. But the most of Baptist schools, they are not Southern Baptist schools. They're independent Baptist schools, being fed by Bob Jones University, Pensacola Christian schools, Tennessee Temple University, Hiles Anderson, and schools like that, including Calvary Bible College, Bible Institute of Los Angeles, Moody Bible Institute.
And this is the places these kinds of schools are feeding Christian teachers into the Christian school movement, like gangbusters. So to say which Baptist church, whether it's Southern Baptist or whatever, you don't know. But some Baptist churches I know are members, like the Northern Baptist Church definitely is a member of the World Council of Churches. But the Southern Baptist Convention is a little bit different ballgame. But the General Association of American Baptists, are they members? No way. But there's so many different Baptist groups, I don't know. They're dancers. I think we better close. You look like you... taps beyond your point of address. I really appreciate your input, and I know this is not an easy subject, but remember that we are not to be ignorant of Satan's devices.
Verse thirteen. For brethren ye have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. This I say, then, walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.
And these are contrary, the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, terraces, in-beings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such right, of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.
Against such, there is no law. and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lust. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another in being one another. Seek, Lord, thy servants. Hear it. We were singing, Consecrate me now, To thy service, Lord. Tonight we want to speak about Christian service. And my text is verse thirteen, the latter part of the verse.
But by love, serve one another. At times we have some difficulty, perhaps great difficulty, in knowing whether this or that is the will of God for our life. And keep in mind, dear fellow believers, each one of us who names the name of Christ must not only find the will of God for our life, we must follow the will of God, we must finish the will of God. But there are times when we have some difficulty, maybe much difficulty, in knowing whether this or that is the will of God for their life. But when it comes to Christian service, When it comes to serving one another in love, there is no doubt.
No need to pray about it. It is a definite command. When we do this, we can rest assured that we are doing the will of God. Jesus said to Satan, Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Matthew four and ten. Paul said about God, Whose I am and whom I serve. Acts twenty-seven, twenty-three. And Paul said to the Christians at Thessalonica, He turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.
This mighty man of God also said, For to me to live is Christ. which I believe is another way of saying, for me to live is to serve my blessed Lord and Savior. Fellow believer in Christ, our Savior died that we might live in Him, that we might live for Him, and that we might live with Him. We want to think about Christian service. We want to think about, by love, serve one another. Now when we think of Christian service, perhaps we are thinking of something very broad, something very deep.
So let's think first of all of Christian service, its meaning. What does it mean to be engaged in Christian service? What does the apostle mean by love serve one another? Christian service, its meaning. Does going to some distant land as a missionary, is that Christian service? Indeed it is. Is being engaged in some full-time activity here in this country for the Lord's Christian service? Indeed it is. It's being active in some public way, whether in music or whether teaching a Sunday school class or engaged in youth work, whatever it might be, some public service is that Christian service.
Indeed it is. But let's not stop there. And I dare say oftentimes when we think about Christian service, We are inclined to think only in terms of a missionary or a full-time preacher or serving in some public way as such. What does Christian service mean? What does it mean in love or by love to serve one another? The Lord Jesus said, Hesoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name. because he belonged to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.
That is, Mark chapter nine, verse forty-one. Does the Lord mean to convey that simply giving a cup of water in the Lord's name is Christian service? Indeed it is. Let's not limit Christian service just to some public activity or some full-time capacity. The Apostle Paul also said in First Corinthians chapter ten and verse thirty-one, whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. Now you might say, I have difficulty with that. Whatever I do, I'm to do to the glory of God?
Absolutely. Going to work in the morning? Yes. Eating meals? Whatever we do, do all to the glory of God. Paul also said, And whatsoever ye do in word. And maybe I should pause right there and remind us of the fact that we serve the Lord by what we say, as well as by what we don't say. Sometimes we can say the right things, and sometimes we can say the wrong things. Whatsoever ye do in words or deeds. Now, had we written that, I'm sure we would have written it differently.
We would probably say whatever you say in words or do in deeds. But the apostle is impressing upon us that we do as much in the service for the Lord, or out of the service for the Lord by our lips, as well as by our life. Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. In verse twenty-four of Colossians three, Paul said, And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men. Knowing that of the Lord, ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ.
Would it God the Holy Spirit would impress that deeply upon our hearts and our minds? Whatever we say, whatever we do, is to be done, realizing that we are serving the Lord Jesus Christ. Christian service. Think of a fact-proof. Just picture in your mind some factory and think of a hundred employees in that factory, all working. Maybe they are all working, doing the same thing, or at least working on the same product. And there might be one there who's a Christian. There might be other Christians. But let's think of one who not only has a right relationship to God, who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, but he is ever mindful of the fact that in all things the Lord Jesus Christ is to have the preeminence.
He's aware of the fact that whatever he does, He is to do heartily as to the Lord and not unto men. He's serving men, of course. But he knows that ultimately he is serving the Lord by operating that machine, by working on that product, whatever it is, and out of a hundred in that factory all doing the same thing or at least all working on the same product, there is one who is serving the Lord. So all the others might be doing the same thing. One is serving the Lord. because he knows Christ and he knows he's doing what he does for the glory of God. So whether it's some foreign deal, whether it's some public service here at home, let us keep in mind that even a cup of cold water or anything that's done by the Christian in the name of Christ is serving the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let's keep that in mind as we go to the offices, as we go to the factories, as we go to the homes, the neighborhoods, wherever. Christian service, it means. But let's think too of Christian service, it means. How is Christian service done? You will note, not only in the book of Galatians, but in chapter five, from which we have read, that Paul is given some contrasts. He's speaking on the one hand, in verse thirteen, Thy love serves one another, but he is also saying in verse fifteen, But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
So he's giving some contrast here. He is contrasting law with grace. He is contrasting legalism with Christian liberty. He is contrasting two attitudes, two attitudes that result in two different actions in life, one that is controlled by the flesh, one that is controlled by the Holy Spirit of God. The one who is the fleshly attitude that regards others as a threat. And then there is the other, the spiritual attitude, that believes I should be a servant to Christ and thus to others.
And I should, by love, serve others. So he contrasts two attitudes. He contrasts the flesh against the Holy Spirit. These are contrary one to the other. He said in verse seventeen... and the flesh lusteth against the Spirit. That is, the flesh wants to have its way, but the Holy Spirit of God who dwells within every believer wants to have his way, and there is the struggle. Is it going to be the flesh, or is it going to be the Holy Spirit of God? Either the flesh controls us, The old nature controls us, and if it does, we will provoke one another, we will envy one another, we will devour one another, and we will be consumed of one another, or the Holy Spirit controls it.
And it will be by love that we will serve one another. It was Oswald Smith who said that God has given our sickle Not to use on one another, but to use in the service of their allure for the harvest. Now, when we think of being controlled by the flesh, Paul emphasizes in this chapter and throughout the book that the law and legalism cannot produce fruit.
Law and legalism cannot produce fruit. In fact, the old nature knows no law. And the new nature of God needs no law. This is what he is emphasizing. Some say, well, all right, I might be a servant, but don't treat me like one. That's the flesh. We're all servants of Christ, aren't we? having been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. We are not our own. We are saved to serve Him. So the old nature knows no law, and the new nature needs no law. But no law ever could be given to produce fruit.
Suppose we were to go to the city council or the state legislature and say to them, listen, I have an orchard, and I'm not getting any fruit. Could you pass a law that would give me some fruit. I'm sure they would be calling the sixth floor of tone hospice, or some hospice, because there is no law that can be given to produce fruit. Those who would hear such a request would say, listen, you don't need a law to produce fruit, you need life. This is what Paul is emphasizing, and the only way that we who have this old nature that wants its way, and it's not natural for the flesh to want to serve someone else, is it?
It's not natural. We want to be served. And the only way we, with this old nature, can obey this injunction by love, serve one another is by being yielded to the Holy Spirit of God. You know, I'm sure, that throughout the Bible the old nature is pictured in many different ways, one of which is the wild ass. When you go back to Ishmael, a product of the flesh. His very name Ishmael means wild ass.
In fact, if you were to look in the Darby translation, you would find wild ass of a man, Ishmael. And throughout the Old Testament, as well as the new, that animal, that wild beast pictures the old nature. It pictures the flesh. Well, how can we who have such a nature Obey the word of God. By love, serve one another. By yielding ourselves unreservedly to Christ. These are words we use, and maybe we use rather loosely at times, without realizing the full import of them, by yielding ourselves unreservedly to Christ.
When you go to Mark chapter eleven, you remember... The Lord Jesus gave instructions that his disciples were to go to a certain place and they were to fetch the cult of a mass upon which never man sat, a wild beast. He said, you bring him to me. And the Lord Jesus rode upon that beast into Jerusalem, just as Zechariah had prophesied. And there were the people thronging about and waving their palm leaves and singing their Hosannas. And yet that beast was under control. Why? Because the Lord Jesus had him under control. And the only way that we can serve one another is by yielding ourselves and allowing the Spirit of Christ to have his way.
That's the way it's done. That's the means of Christian service by yielding ourselves to the Holy Spirit of God. And praying, O Lord, whatever I do, whether it's in the home, in the office, in the shop, I want to realize that what I'm doing, I'm doing in service to you. and I am doing the will of God. Christian service, its meaning. Christian service, its meaning. But let's go further and think of Christian service, its motive. What is your motive for doing what you do in the way of Christian service?
What is your motive, fellow believer? Now the motive with which the Christian renders his service will determine whether or not it is service which just anyone can do or that service which only the Christian can do and will be rewarded by the Lord Jesus. Think of the factory once again. But let's go further and think of motive in Christian service. The Lord Jesus said to Peter, who had denied him three times, and before he used him greatly on the day of Pentecost. Peter, do you love me? Now, I want to find that out.
Peter, I'm not going to rebuke you publicly by reminding you of all the things that you did wrong, reminding you of how you boasted when you failed so miserably. I'm not going to remind you, I'm sure the Lord spoke to him about those things privately. But Peter, I want to know one thing. Do you love me? Peter, I want to be sure that your heart is right. You might not know a lot of things. You don't know everything, Peter. But I want to be sure that your heart is right. Fellow believer in Christ, do you love the Lord?
Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? If so, you will be fully satisfied with him. If you love Christ, you will want to please him. If you love Christ, you will want to serve him. But keep in mind, one might be true to the great fundamentals of the faith. One might dot every eye and cross every key, and one might hold tenaciously to the fundamentals of the faith and be straight as a gun barrel. And yet his heart not be right to Christ. We can do a lot of things in Christians' earth, which in the final analysis will mean very little of nothing if we don't have the right motive.
You turn to Revelation chapter two and you find the Lord Jesus speaking to the church at Ephesus, and he reminds them of their works, their labor, and their patience. He said, I know thy work. and thy labor, and thy patience. And you read further as to what the Lord Jesus had to say to the church at Ephesus about the way they were so straight in everything. They could not stand evil, and they would not tolerate any false teachers. But the Lord Jesus said, it's your work and labor and patience, not the work of faith, not the labor of love.
not the patience of hope. And I believe it's even possible for a Christian to be a martyr for Christ and not have the right motive, and thus is not rendering Christian service. It seems that Paul must have foreseen that when he wrote, Though I give my body to be burned and have not loved, it profiteth me nothing. Some motives are wrong. Some are inadequate. Some are less than the highest motive. Let's think of a few wrong motives in Christian terms.
Duty. That might be better than no motive at all, but that's a wrong motive. Or at least, it is not a praiseworthy motive. It's not the highest motive. And I dare say... that sometimes and maybe oftentimes we do things out of a sense of duty. It might be that way in connection with the work. It might be that way in the local church. But to do things out of duty is not the highest motive. You remember there were those mighty men of whom we read in Second Samuel chapter twenty-three. And no doubt David was thinking out loud when he said, Oh, that I would have a drink of the water from the well of Bethlehem.
Now those men evidently had to be close enough to him to have heard it. Because they broke through the enemy line, putting their lives in danger. But they broke through the enemy line to go to the well of Bethlehem, to draw from that well some water for their captain whom they wanted to please. It wasn't a command. They did it. David was so touched he poured it out as a drink offering unto the Lord, knowing that he couldn't take it back. They did what they did not out of a sense of duty because it wasn't commanded them. And if we do the service of the Lord, if we were to serve one another out of a sense of duty, then there is that possibility of coming to a point where we think we've done enough.
It might be we're getting older and we say to ourselves, listen, I've done this for a number of years. Let someone else do it. Maybe it is time for someone else to do it. But if we do things out of a sense of duty, then there is that danger that we will stop when we feel that we have fulfilled our obligation. Duty is a motive, but it's not the highest motive. And then there is fear. Some people do things or refrain from doing things. Some people do things that they should do. or they refrain from doing some things they shouldn't do out of fear.
Let me tell you one thing. I don't run around on my wife. Not because I fear the consequences. There would be some consequences, of course. But I do not run around on my wife because of fear of the consequences if I were to get caught. I don't run around on my wife because I love my wife. And I believe there are times in every Christian life that the reason we don't fall for this temptation or go after that or do this thing or that is because we fear the consequences only. Well, here once again, that's better than no motive at all, but it's not the highest.
It's not out of duty. It's not out of fear that we serve the Lord. And it's not with the attitude of reciprocation. You scratch my back? I'll scratch your back. You do this for me? Okay. I'm obligated now. I do this for you. You invited me over for a meal? Okay. Now it's my turn to have you over. We sometimes do things because of the attitude of reciprocation. We have to pay back. That's not the right motive because, you see, when we have you back over for supper or whatever it might be, then I feel I'll fulfill my obligation.
That's it. Now I don't owe you anything until you invite me again. Isn't that true? It's not out of the attitude of reciprocation. And it's not even out of the attitude of love for people. Now, loving people, as we see from our text here, is certainly essential.