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You know, despite all your comments about the Scots, I noticed you have another couple of Scotsmen coming next year. I think you must be having a romance with these Scottish preachers. And, uh, I'm reminded of the fact that, you know, these British people, many of them love Christianity. The English love Christianity because they can talk about it. The Welsh love Christianity because they can sing about it. The Irish love Christianity because they can fight about it. And the Scots, they love Christianity because grace is free. Let's look at the book of Haggai, and we'll read in the first chapter again.
And we're going to read just the first eleven verses again of chapter one of Haggai. In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. This is what the Lord Almighty says. These people say, the time has not yet come for the Lord's house to be built. Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai. Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin? Now this is what the Lord Almighty says, give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much but have harvested little, and so on.
Down to verse seven. This is what the Lord Almighty said, give careful thought to your ways. Go into the mountains and bring down timber and build a house so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord. You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home I blew away. Why, declares the Lord Almighty, because of my house, which remains a ruin while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you, the heavens have withheld their due and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands. And God will add his blessing to the reading of his word.
Shall we pray? O God our Father, we look to you again in utter dependence because we realize that we need your Holy Spirit to teach, to remind, and to hear your word, and so for speaker and hearer alike, we pray that your Holy Spirit would have freedom and that his power might be demonstrated among us in the conviction of sin and in our restoration to you and in our motivation for Christian service. Thank you for what we've already enjoyed and been challenged with. Continue to speak to us, we pray, our God, and make us different Christians. Make us committed Christians, and make us Christians who have a vision for what you can do and are able to do through us.
For we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Let me just recap a little for the sake of those who perhaps were not with us this morning, and just to remind those of you who were, uh, just what we are trying to do. We're looking at the prophecy of Haggai, and, uh, I was originally asked to speak on the effects of humanism on the church. I've tried to broaden that to look at the effects of secularism on the church, and we're trying to make an analogy here between the temple in Haggai's day, which was in ruins, and the church of God, which in many senses is in ruins in our day. And there is a very close analogy between the Old Testament and the New in terms of this thought of the temple that, uh, Paul calls the universal church the temple of God in chapter 2 of E- of Ephesians, and as we were reminded just this afternoon again that in First Corinthians, the local church is viewed as the temple of God.
It's the place where God dwells. So that's the analogy, and we find that the house is in ruins, and, uh, what I try to do this morning is to look at the causes of ruin, first of all, in Haggai's day, and we saw it was the result of years of influence of the pagan culture around them and their idolatry, the idolatry and the immorality and the view of the Sabbath, which rubbed off on the people of God, and despite all the messages of the prophets, they failed to repent, and so God punished them through the nation of Babylon. That was the cause of ruin in the day of Haggai. In our day, the causes of ruin of the church is secularism. And we looked at secularism, try to define some of the major points and parts, uh, that make up this whole umbrella of secularism.
The secularism being defined as any worldview that, uh, ignores the eternal and the divine perspective on living, and within that, we looked, uh, at existentialism, at humanism, at pragmatism, at positivism, at pluralism, and relativism, and hedonism, just very briefly. And I know it was a lot, and, uh, and I apologize for that, but it was a foundation that we needed to lay. Um, and so that, these are the causes, um, of ruin in our day, because these things have influenced the church, as we'll see in a moment. And just to summarize again, uh, we live in a culture which is the result of a mix of all kinds of ethnic backgrounds, and with those ethnic backgrounds, all kinds of philosophies.
Uh, I was listening just on the radio yesterday to a commentator on one of the radio stations nearby who felt that a large percentage of American youth is very much committed to Zen Buddhism, whether they realize it or not, as a result of Japanese influence in our society. And he says, conversely, in Japan, Americanism has influenced them as well. But that's the kind of world we live in, and it's a complex mixture of culture. It's not always very easy to define, uh, the way in which a person thinks or to put them into a certain slot. In general, the way we react is because we think, uh, within this, uh, pot, this stirred melting pot of culture, which is made up of all of these influences that we have been talking about.
And so that's, uh, the causes of ruin, but maybe some of you may be thinking, well, I'm not so sure that the Church of God is indeed in ruins today, and what I want to try to talk about, uh, a little bit this afternoon is evidence of, of ruin. We'll talk first about fo- first of all about evidences of ruin in Haggai's day, which were very obvious, and then we'll talk about some evidences of ruin in our own day, and then I want to rush on and get on to the, what I had intended to be the second message of the conference, and that is the effects of secularism on Christians, and we see a people in lethargy. Let us then look at the evidences of ruin in Haggai's day.
We already tried to map out the historical background, that in five ninety BC the captivity began, the desolation of, uh, Jerusalem as a result of Babylonian conquest. Uh, then Medo-Persia conquered Babylonia, and the Medo-Persians, uh, particularly Cyrus, made a decree for the, some of the Jews to return, which they did, as recorded in Ezra chapter one and two, in five thirty BC under the leadership of the Rabbabos, some fifty thousand of them. And they laid the foundation. And in two years, the foundations were complete, and they had a great celebration, as we were thinking earlier, but now fourteen years later, something's gone wrong. Nothing else had been done in the fourteen-year period up until then, and so it was very clear this, the state of the Church of God, the state of the temple of God in Haggai's day was still very much that of ruin.
There was a foundation, but that was it, and there was still no priestly ministry within the function, with- within the, the temple. There was still no place where God could put his name, and it was really a shameful state of affairs. In addition to that, of course, there was no wall around Jerusalem either, and Brother Dan has been addressing that, uh, throughout the conference. But now, what about our day? We're making an analogy between the church of today and the temple in Haggai's day, and it's my feeling that in there is, there are in many senses great ruin amongst Christendom, and I'm going to talk very broadly initially and then focus on the assembly movement in a moment. But within Christendom, there has been great declension and great ruin in many countries of the world, and although there are bright spots, let me not be totally negative, there are bright spots everywhere, and God has his people in every generation.
But, by and large, I feel that there is much evidence of ruin and much dissipation of faith. And we want to look just briefly at some of the, some of the statistics and some of the, the trends that we see in the Church of Chri- of Christ, in the Church of, of the living God today. First of all, in terms of church attendance, let me give you some, uh, figures which show the disturbing decline in church membership and attendance. Now, this is particularly true in Europe, and many of these trends that we've been talking about, these isms, they originate in Europe, and, uh, some of them are particularly American, but many of them have begun in Europe, and in there is a sense in which European churches and the Church of God in England and in Scotland and in Germany and these other places has felt the force of these isms more even than in North America.
And in many European countries, the tragic situation is there are very, very few Christians and, and people who attend church even. Statistics show that no more of six percent of the population regularly attend church services in England. That's the home of the Reformation. That's the home of the, of the English Reformation. That's the home of the Puritans, of the Pietists, and yet today six percent attend church services, and I venture to say that probably most of those attend, uh, uh, state Anglican churches, some of which are very much dead. Four percent in Australia, four percent or less in West Germany, East Germany, and Scandinavia. In Madrid, Spain, regular attendance of mass, this is the Catholic Church, uh, that I'm talking about here, has dropped.
Even, even organized religion has, uh, seen a drop from, uh, uh, to between three and five percent. A country that used to be known as a Catholic church, a Catholic church country. In Brazil, no more than nine percent of Brazilians today are practicing religion of any kind, but thirty three percent are, uh, practicing spiritists. According to one recent study, only seven point six percent of Japanese youth have any religious faith. It's estimated that less than half of all Dutch Catholics continue to believe in the divinity of Christ. Fewer still accept life after death. In a seventy poll indicated that only twenty nine percent of British people affirm a personal God, as compared to thirty eight percent in nineteen sixty three.
And one of two Methodist churches in England now has fewer than twenty five people at a typical Sunday morning service, service. What about the glorious country of Scotland? Over the past sixteen years, the Church of Scotland has lost one third of its entire membership, and this dismal trend is continuing. The church apparently lost twenty thousand members in nineteen eighty two alone. And so we can go on. In Poland and Northern Ireland, there is a resurgence of religion, but often associated with the political movement. These are some of the crumbling foundations of society. L- a reduction in church attendance, be it Catholic, be it Protestant.
Then we come to the United States of America. The growth rate in churches in the United States is fairly stable, but a downward slide of the mainline denominations continues, uh, apparently at a, a little bit of a slower pace, pace than before. But recent studies of, of Ameri- the American religious situation lend themselves to various interpretations. A Gallup poll taken in July nineteen eighty three indicates an upsurge of interest in religion among college young people, yet Gallup cautioned that only twelve percent of the US population can be said to be highly committed to religious practice. Moreover, his poll showed that the perceived improvement in the spiritual climate seems to hinge on the enhanced feeling of personal material well-being amongst Americans, and we're going to talk about this new age and self-movement in just a moment, which is a part of the American church scene.
A disquieting study of, uh, Minnesota churchgoers, for example, in September eighty three portrays most Christians in that state as theologically adrift on a tumultuous sea of moral and social ambiguity. American college youth, on the whole, continue to affirm the existence of God through their conce- but their conceptions of God are often hazy and equivocal. This stands in marked contrast to university students in France, forty percent of whom have no compunction in identifying themselves as atheists. So, in a sense, the USA still shows some signs, uh, of hope. But at the same time, the growing, and this is a great problem in America, the growing biblical illiteracy among young Americans reveals the gulf between religiosity and biblical piety.
The trend towards a more permissive lifestyle among our young people, especially in the area of sexuality, further attests the erosion of biblical norms and values. So I try to give you a survey of regular church attendance in Europe, in South America, in Japan, in the USA, and the general trend is not good. Then there's a second reason why I believe that the church is having less and less impact on society, uh, and is in ruins, uh, rather is that it is having such a poor impact on society. Theoretical atheism, for example, is very much on the upturn, and it's only one indication of the declining influence in the church.
And there's also, perhaps what's even more prevalent, is practical atheism, people who live, uh, totally, uh, devoid of God and apart from God, and it's reflected in their craving for material possessions. And then if we look at the rising incidence of divorce and venereal disease and AIDS, of course, and the accelerating number of abortions, where is the impact of the church in our culture? It's not there because the church is in ruins. More so in Europe than in the United States of America. There have been some good signs in the United States of America on that score, but in France, for example, it is a, a, a true statistic that there are more abortions than there are live births.
In Sweden, half of all pregnancies end in abortion. Even Catholic Italy has given legal sanction to abortion on demand, and then the US Supreme Court ruling of June nineteen eighty three, removing most state restrictions on abortions, is a sign that the abortion mentality has triumphed in this country. And although there have been some good signs, yet this is the prevailing climate. And then there is the appalling rise of teenage suicides in our society, apparently five thousand every year in the USA, Five thousand teenagers taking their lives. It's a further evidence of a vacuum within people, which is the result of the failure of the church to make an impact on society. The fact that this disturbing phenomenon is conspicuously present among teenagers from affluent families in our society shows that the technological growth cannot, that that technological growth cannot provide a vision or goal sufficient to maintain the health of the social order.
But, you know, when you look at all those isms that we were considering this morning and the prevalent feeling of utter hopelessness, you don't wonder that five thousand teenagers are taking their own lives each year, because there isn't a whole lot for them to live for, if that's the kind of thing that they are being exposed to. Charles Fager says that we live in a nation that is not merely secular in the sense of being emancipated from religious frames of reference, but is even actively pagan. That is to say, contemptuous of and even hostile towards the values these traditions represent. And then, of course, we all know that within the organized church in, in, in North America, there is tremendous growth, but it's a growth which is characterized often by humanism, and which is so infiltrated by humanism that we really cannot even consider it a part of the work of the Church of God.
Religion and prayer, spirituality and prayer become reduced to techniques that facilitate self-realization. And we all know about the work of the, the min- and the ministry of Robert Schuller and his power of positive thinking, and then the prosperity movement, the Rhema movement, as it's called in some parts of the world, where, um, coming to Christianity is a quick route to becoming rich. These are the kinds of things that are present within organized Christendom in our continent. Christianity itself. in the American setting, is in danger of falling under the spell of the cult of positive thinking, where efforts are focused on methodically cultivating a positive attitude towards life for the purpose of gaining peace and security.
And even in evangelical circles, people are speaking of a technology of the spirit, scientifically tested methods that guarantee happiness and inner peace. Spiritual progress charts and prayer chains, which play an important role. Now, there's nothing wrong with prayer chains. We have a great prayer chain in our church, but sometimes these programs substitute for the real work of prayer, and we become so enhanced with these programs, we forget the purpose of them. Then we have faith healing, which becomes less an act of faith than a technique to bend the will of God. And there's a great movement towards faith in faith rather than faith in God. These are some of the tremendous and perilous things going on within our church, which is an evidence that the Church of God, in many senses, is in a state of ruin.
Then we have the growth of the large church movement, and this is a difficult area. There are some churches which are very large as a result of the blessing of God, but there are others which are nothing more than great bureaucracies, and, uh, we which are manned and governed by men who have a craving for power, uh, that amounts to nothing more than worldliness. And church mergers are often encouraged for the sake of greater efficiency in organization and for the purpose of wielding greater political and economic power. And we would do well to heed the warning of Christoph Blumhardt, who said, if formerly the totality of mankind built the Tower of Babel, we now see the Christian churches building that tower.
They want to be infallible, to be the greatest and the most clever. They figure things out, and they will suppress God's word and, with their own words, bring in the kingdom. And so we have a great, great problem. There are bright spots. The evangelical wing of the church, and the true Church of Jesus Christ today is in some areas making an uncompromising stand against abortion on demand and against pornography, legalized gambling, and the intrusion of secular humanism into public schools. But by and large, we have seen a great declension in the last twenty years, which is unparalleled, and we need to be very aware of that.
And what of our brethren assemblies? We were hearing of some of the trends earlier on today. There's a tremendous lack of growth, tremendous dearth in many brethren assemblies, a tremendous, uh, movement of young people out of the brethren assemblies. And there is a very, very real sense in which the Church of Christ in this, and this area of it, in the Brethren movement, uh, the, the movement of assemblies is suffering tremendously. And in the last twenty years, there are more assemblies which are going defunct than are growing. We had a conference recently with Stewart Foundation and Letters of Interest in Vancouver, in which Letters of Interest and the, the leaders of that movement are very anxious and have set some goals and have a vision, and this is very encouraging.
They want to see two hundred new assemblies begin and flourish in North America in the next twenty years. They have a vision for God, and we need to catch a hold of that vision. But by and large, there's a great trend within our brethren assemblies of young people away. Why? Because of a lack of expository preaching, because of a lack of evangelical emphasis, and we need to return to these things. And so let me make this point, if you've missed it already, uh, if you- if you've missed it up till now, that the Church of God is by and large in a state of ruin. But now let's begin to look again to the text, and let us notice the effects of secularism on Christians.
I want you to notice, first of all, what was happening in Haggai's day, and then we shall make the analogy with our day. And there's some tremendous things, and we're really finally getting down to the text of scripture, which is where I'm much happier. Let's look at then at the text and see what was going on in Haggai's day and how the individual people there were responding, uh, to the effects of culture and to the opposition around them. And I want to make some points here with regard to what was happening. Notice this very key phrase, uh, in verse two. God speaks through Haggai, and, uh, he comes to Zerubbabel, and he comes to Joshua, the high priest. And I want you to notice, please, that in verse one it's indicative that this first vision came through the leaders, and we've had a healthy emphasis already in this conference on the great need for leadership, and this first vision, this first chapter was given to the leaders amongst God's people.
And notice what Haggai says. This is what the Lord Almighty says, verse two: These people say the time has not yet come for the Lord's house to be built. The time has not yet come. Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai. Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin? And then down to verse, uh, number nine: What you brought home I blew away. Why, declares the Lord Almighty? Because of my house, which remains a ruin while, uh, each of you is busy with his own house. What effect had the secular society had on the Jewish people of Haggai's day?
The first thing I want to suggest that had happened to them was that they had begun to procrastinate, and they had become indolent. They had become lazy. They had developed a very unhealthy inertia. The time isn't right. Haggai quotes their own words. You're saying the time isn't right, and that sounds very pious, and it sounds like you have some sort of inside, uh, story about the purposes of God. This couldn't be the right time for building the house of God, and, uh, Haggai absolutely tears them apart, but this is the first thing he exposes. There was procrastination, and we've looked at the dates involved here. For fourteen years, there had been no activity on building the house of God. Why was that?
First of all, I want to say it was the result of opposition. The Samaritans, when they saw the Samaritans in the surrounding area, when they saw the foundation of the temple being built, felt quite threatened. They had their political reasons for that. But as a result of being threatened, what they did was they made a false, uh, sort of picture to Artaxerxes, the then Persian emperor, who made a decree that the building was to stop. And so as a result of this opposition, the building had stopped. Uh, but however, in five twenty BC, two years before Haggai, uh, brought this message, Darius had taken over, uh, the emperorship of the Medo-Persian emperor from Artaxerxes, and Darius had an interest in religion of all his people, and he gave full support for the rebuilding of the temple.
That's recorded in Efe- in in Ezra chapter five. And so, as a matter of fact, these people were pro- procrastinating, but they had no reason. It was just an excuse to say the time isn't right. Because Darius wanted them to build. Someone has said there are always difficulties in the way of anything being done for God, and it is easy to quietly accept them and to regard them as an indication that we should just let things stand as they are. Perhaps the equivalent of the statement they were making when they said the time is not right, uh, the equivalent that we say today is, oh well, this is the last days, and things aren't going to happen too much there, so therefore we should just sit back and be idle and let our society go to ruin and let our churches die and not become involved in evangelism.
So the first reason why they had procrastinated and why they were indolent was the result of opposition, but now that opposition had been taken away, they were still indolent, and they were still suffering from inertia, because the real reason why they were procrastinating was not so much the result of opposition, but the result of seduction. It was a result of the infiltration of their culture, in one sense, but it was also the result of a wrong interpretation of prophecy. You see, they were saying this is the period of desolations, and they knew that period had begun, uh, in five ninety BC.
Maybe they didn't realize the seventy years was up as it was in five twenty BC. That's the great significance of Haggai's book. And in fact, in chapter two, in the third vision, uh, Haggai highlights a date which is very important. It's very important because it contrasts with the date in, uh, Ezekiel chapter twenty four, uh, which, if you compare the dates, the one in Ezekiel is the beginning of the period of desolations, and the one in the third, uh, the third vision of Haggai is exactly to the day seventy years from the start of the period of desolations. And so one of Haggai's messages, he tells them to sit up and think and give careful thoughts of what's happening is, listen, that period of desolations is over.
Stop using that as an excuse. Stop being seduced by this false idea about this prophecy. You see, they thought because Isaiah and Jeremiah had prophesied desolation that it was going to continue forever, and they'd forgotten that they would, they also said it would stop. And Haggai reminds them the seventy-year period, year period of desolation is over. And I want to say to you that if your view of theology, of your view of prophecy, no matter what it is, prevents you from activity, there's something wrong with your theology, and there's something wrong with your prophecy and your eschatology, because in every era we are meant to devote ourselves to the work of God. And so there's procrastination. The second thing, it was not only procrastination of effort, there was also confusion of priorities.
This is one of the most powerful passages in scripture for me, because he say, uh, Haggai takes their own reasoning and turns it right round to them. They were saying the time isn't right to build God's house. And Haggai turns on and says to them, listen, how come you're living in paneled, well-embellished, luxurious homes then? Commentators tells us, tell us that this idea of being paneled, that they were paneled with cedar paneling, and that was usually reserved for royal dwellings. These people were living pretty affluent lives. That reminds me of North American culture. They were busy, you see, but they were busy not in God's house, they were busy in their own houses, and they were not serving the interests of God, they were serving their own interests.
And that's a result of the influence of culture, and when we do that, that's a result of the influence of our culture, and particularly of secular humanism upon us. You see, when God's chief interest, one of the early brethren wrote, when God's chief interest ceases to be our chief interest, some form of self-consideration is usually to blame. And then notice, thirdly, that not only is there procrastination of effort and confusion of priorities, there's frustration of purposes. Notice how in verse five and six he says, listen, you've been really busy doing a lot of things, but have you noticed how none of it's really worked out? You've planted much but have harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill.
You put on clothes but aren't warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it. They probably were overtaxed in their day too. You see, it wasn't as though these people were doing nothing. They were very busy people, but they were busy and unproductive. They were frantic, but they were frustrated. Why? Because they were not giving priority to build. Say that whatever realm it is, be it your business realm or the local church, that if you're not giving priority to God and to his work, then you're going to suffer frustration and, and futility. Because frustration and futility always result when we cater to ourselves and our selfishness.
There's a basic principle here that catering to ourselves causes frustration, and God designed us that way. Whether it be in business or in church life, we need to make God our priority and his house and the local church our priority, if we would have God give us a sense of satisfaction and not be frustrated and feel futile. The Christian principle that we say we believe is it's more blessed to give than to receive. And I want to say that one of the greatest effects of secular humanism on our churches today is that people are moving from assembly to assembly or from church to church. Why?
Oh, well, my needs aren't being met where I go. And God told us that may be true in some instances, and I'm not excusing churches that don't meet the needs of people, especially in expository preaching. But I would say this, that as Christians, we're not supposed to be looking around for our needs to be met. We're meant to be looking around for our ministries to be fulfilled. We're called to serve and to give, just as Jesus came to serve and to give. And if the disciples found that difficult in their day, we seem to find it doubly difficult today. Three times in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus predicts his death, and I am astounded at how the disciples who are meant to be following him in that path of death and self-denial didn't understand.
And if you've ever read that, uh, wonderful section of Mark's gospel, the Passion section, when he's moving towards the cross and predicts his death, notice what happens every time he predicts his death. The people of God don't understand. The disciples at one point are going along the road arguing as to who is the greatest in the kingdom of God. And God had called them to self-denial. God had called them to serve. Even as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. That's the Christian ethic. So, very quickly, to transfer from Haggai's day to our own day, I wonder if within your life and within the life of your church there is any procrastination and any indolence and any inertia.
Are you overwhelmed by the opposition? Are you so discouraged with the barrage of humanism that you've given up? Don't give up. We can make that an excuse. And I want to say that in our society, where all of these isms are being propounded and believed, the inevitable result is within the hearts of men and women, as never before, there is an absolute bankruptcy. That is the result, the inevitable result of these worldviews. People are going to find out that they're empty and that they're unsatisfied and that they're unfulfilled, and never before in our world has there been such hunger within the hearts of people.
And so don't let the opposition and the humanism and the pragmatism and the existentialism get you down, but let it re- let it make you realize that there are people who believe those things, who are going to bump their heads, and who need the message of the gospel as never before, and we need to take it out to them. We need to make a clear presentation of the clear facts of the gospel, loudly and eloquently, as we never have done before. Maybe it's this fact of pluralism, maybe it's this worldview of pluralism and relativism that stops you from witnessing, because you keep on finding people who say to you, oh, well, that's all right, if that works for you, it's fine, but don't you dare say that I have to do that, and don't inflict your culture on other people, and don't present what's worked for you to other people as authoritative, and you become scared to present absolutes.
Don't be overwhelmed. I want you to recover your faith in the absolute God and his absolute truth, and the absolute message of salvation by faith alone, by grace alone, and take that and preach it and share it with the people around you. Then we'll begin to make an influence in our culture, and then our churches will stop being in a state of ruin. But maybe it's not so much that you're overwhelmed by opposition, maybe you're like the people of Israel in that day, you've been seduced by the opposition. And I think this is very true within many, uh, Christian circles, and even amongst ourselves and in our own lives. We become so confused by this barrage of secularism that sometimes the way we're responding is nothing less and nothing more than secularistic.
Christians, be very careful. That's why I try to make the motto of what we're considering, give careful thought to these things. Christians, think. God gave you a brain to think about what's going on, and when you respond, ask yourself, am I responding biblically, or am I responding in a secular fashion? The effect of existentialism, uh, has been very profound in theology. And it's portrayed in the sense that existential, uh, theology makes a big play on feelings, and that's very prevalent in our society today.
And existential theology, uh, has led to tremendous confusion. The result of it is there's no clear message for people. I want to say that liberalism, which stems from this existentialism, there can be never the marrying of existentialism with biblical Christianity. It results in liberalism, and it's liberalism that is the, the devi- the demise of evangelical influence and power. And I believe, folks, that our primary danger in this world today is not so much opposition. Sometimes I wish we would just have a little bit of persecution. It might wake us up. It's more the danger of seduction. We are adopting, in many senses, a very pragmatic attitude towards all kinds of issues.
We need to stand up and be counted in the area of evangelism and in the area of standards in our society. I was reading about the New York Governor Cuomo recently, who I believe is a candidate for the presidency of the USA. He made a speech at Notre Dame, and apparently Cuomo accepts the Roman Catholic view of abortion, that it's, it's not right, but he says in his speech, we're living in a pluralistic society, and I cannot force my view on others. Therefore, if the majority of people want abortion, then I'll have to go with it. Pragmatism.
We need to be very wary that that kind of thing doesn't infiltrate into our thinking, that we be clear cut on how we stand on these issues and make a stand, uh, and make it clearly. So our great danger is that of procrastination because we get seduced by the opposition and overwhelmed by the opposition. But I'm going to move on. The next trend that, that characterized the Jews in Haggai's day was not, not just indolence, it was also idolatry. And you say to me, idolatry amongst God's people today? Come on. What kind of idolatry pertained in the day of the Jews? It was just the idolatry that God's house was in ruins, and they were worshiping their own houses and living in wonderful, embellished and paneled houses.
And what they were really saying is, all that counts in my life is solving my own problems. And I want to say that perhaps the number one curse of North American Christianity is that we're sold out to materialism, and we have a pragmatic attitude towards life. And all that counts for some of us is leaving a big bank balance behind. There's nothing wrong with making money, and I wish you success in your business, but don't let it be an idol, and don't be so consumed in terms of time and your whole life that you lose a sense of your primary purpose on earth, which is to worship God and to serve God and to evangelize and make disciples.
We are so busy, some of us, in just the ordinary run-of-the-mill lives. We're living in such busy age that we are too busy for God and for prayer and for the study of theology and the great doctrines of the faith, and we are the poorer for it. There's also idolatry amongst the people of God in the sense of hedonism. We are so much a people seeking for pleasure. Pleasure in all kinds of ways, moral and immoral. A Gallup poll recently taken staggered me when it said that religious interest is growing at an unprecedented rate in the USA, but so is immoral behavior, and little differences exist between those who go to church and those who don't.
That is tragic, and it's the result of the idolatry of pleasure that has influenced, influenced us today. And then there is the idolatry of self, and that's perhaps the greatest and the most subtle. We have these proponents of self-esteem rampant in our society and in their books. Self-esteem doctrine of Schuller and Norman Vincent Peale, the New Age movement of Donald Keys and others, in which they are deifying man and making man into gods. You know, if we can only just strive hard enough in our spirituality, we'll become God. That's what they're saying. I thought that used to be reserved for the Mormons, but it isn't. It's amongst evangelicalism. There are people who are trying to visualize Jesus, and they're saying if you visualize Jesus in a certain situation in your life, you'll get healing and you'll get cure for your particular psychological problem.
But what kind of Jesus is it that we're visualizing? And we forget that idolatry is making images of God. And then there is this prosperity doctrine, which is greatly influenced by shamanism, which is a heathen cult, uh, very prevalent in Korea, and Yonggi, Pastor Yonggi Cho has been very prominent in propagating the prosperity doctrine, but his trouble is he's greatly influenced by shamanism. And then there's a great emphasis, very unhealthy emphasis in North American Christendom on psychology, and it's the cure for all ills. Now, there's a place for psychology, I believe, for those who are adequately trained and those who are biblically trained, but there's a great emphasis on our own needs and our own feelings, and and uh, we're always running off to the psychologist instead of to the word of God.
And then another influence, uh, which is tantamount to idolatry is the raising up of Christian heroes. You know, all of us are guilty of that. We get, fix our eyes on a certain preacher who we think is just top, and we get shattered when we find out that they're human and they fail. But our society wants to prop men up and make them big, and we worship these men. And then there is an idolatry of programs. We all want a quick fix type of Christianity that will solve all our problems and solve them today and right now. And so these are the great trends in the Church of God. Indolence, because we're overwhelmed by opposition and seduced by opposition.
Idolatry, the idolatries of pragmatism and hedonism and selfish, uh, selfish esteem and the New Age movement and all of these things, and we forget the great message of Jesus, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. You know, some of us even show our preoccupation with self by the amount of time that we spend talking about ourself and our feelings to one another. A. W. Tozer, the man of God whose writings I dearly love, he says, you know, boasting is an evidence that we're pleased with self, but belittling ourselves indicates that we're disappointed with ourselves and that therefore we have a high view of what we are.
And either way, he says, we reveal that we have a high opinion of ourselves. The victorious Christian neither exalts or downgrades himself. He interests himself, uh, in the work of God. His interests have shifted from self to Christ, and what he is or what he is not no longer concerns him. But today, unfortunately, we are fixed, we have a fixation with ourselves and our failures and our own ministries. I had the privilege of a talk yesterday at Dallas Theological Seminary, and the speaker was Dr. Wells from a Reformed seminary, uh, the name has escaped me, Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and he gave a brilliant talk, and this was really the theme he was on, and so I got my pencil out and I was taking down some notes.
And here was something which I thought I'd pass on to you that he said, which was very, very significant. He, someone, uh, by the name of Hunter has made a survey of the book and publishing companies, Christian book companies, Christian book houses, and they made a survey of these books, and fifty-seven percent of books were self-orientated. Here are some of the titles: I Want Happiness Now, Feeling Good About Feeling Bad, Relax and Live Long. twenty eight percent of these books were downright hedonistic. Things like Self-Love by Schuller. You can be the person you want to be.
And four percent were on matters of doctrinal or expository substance. Four percent. That's the kind of world that we live in. That's the kind of church that we're a part of. And then the third thing is, if we live this kind of lifestyle of being indolent and in- having inertia and idolatry, God's going to frustrate our purposes. We might be very busy in the work of God, but if God's house and God is not our priority, we're going to be unproductive. Why? Because God has designed us to serve him and to lose ourselves in him. God and his house must become our chief interest, not self-fulfillment.
Our ministry must be preeminent and not our receiving all the time. One of the great symptoms of frustration, which is our, as I, which I have observed and which I've already mentioned, is this movement of people from church to church. I've never been in a society like that, where people move so much in terms of churches. And part of it is just downright selfish. My needs aren't being met, and we don't think about how can I get stuck into the work of God and help that church. And we move on to another church, and we soon get frustrated because we find that where we thought our needs would be met really isn't meeting our needs there either, and there are too many problems, and when we find out the problems, we quickly move on.
We haven't caught the mind of Christ, which is to serve. Remember Philippians chapter two, He emptied himself. We need a bit of self-emptying. We need to love and to serve one another. Be busy in our ministries, yes, but not to exalt our ministries and not to exalt our programs and not to exalt ourselves, because if we do, you're going to be a frustrated Christian. You would think, having read the book of Ecclesiastes, that as Christians we would learn these lessons, because Ecclesiastes tried all these, all this stuff, he tried all this self-indulgence, and he says, vanity of vanities, all this vanity and vexation of spirit.
We need a return to the great dictum of Christ. If any man would come after me, let him deny himself. And remember this, that whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me in the gospel, he will save it. Shall we pray? Bring the truth of your word, O God our Father, into our hearts, and convict us by your spirit, and help us to make the regulations and the changes that are needed, changes of attitude, changes of action.
And help us, O God, to be those who get involved in building your great house. Help us to lose ourselves in you and in your service. Help us to be worshiping people, to recover our view of our sovereign God. To understand these great things from your word and live in the light of them. Help us to be react- be those people who react biblically in every circumstance of our lives. Bless your word to us, we pray. We give thanks for the sessions this day and commend ourselves to you, and ask that as we continue in our considerations of your wonderful book, that you will stir our hearts and bring glory to your name.
For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.