Seven Threats of Our Time

And possibly where God has given us over to a depraved mind.

Where we increasingly see in our culture the reality that people no longer respond to things with logic and common sense. Reasonableness is tossed away and that is why sometimes we look at what is going on and say, "this is absolutely crazy." And in some cases it is crazy but we have to recognize and understand that may possibly be because God has given us over to a depraved mind. And so we need to understand how do we deal with a culture in which many have been given over to a depraved mind.

So, the next one was

This is that continual pressure of our culture in particular that is calling us over and over again to consider that we are some kind of a divine being, in particular, our heart, that when our heart speaks we think that’s a divine proclamation. And so, for this reason we have granted to even young people, way younger than they should be granted even anything in this way to declare themselves to be a woman or a man and we have to bow down to that, as if that is a divine proclamation. Meo Christianity is taking that same "all-about-me" from the world and applying it to christianity and beginning to think that christianity, primarily, is all about me.

The third one was

There we were talking about how God had made the male and female and He made them differently. We believe in the scripture, we believe in how God made mankind and He made them male and female. And He made them differently, He made them with different drives. And so, we looked at what happened when a culture turns away from that which is true and good and noble and righteous, then what is left for both the male and the female is an unbridled sense of compassion and that turns into what we call malevolent compassion. And that is the prime ethic which is driving our culture today. It is important for you to understand that, because it seems like every piece of legislation we have today is being driven by malevolent compassion. And if you do not agree with that then you are not compassionate, you are a hater and all of those other things. But it is not a compassion that moves us towards good things, but it is a compassion that actually allows us to embrace evil.

And then the fourth one was this whole notion associated with

and that is the unprecedented thing that we find today in our culture where it is no longer just simply the massive power of the State. We’ve seen that through all the history of the nation-states where a State has assumed increasingly power, [it] consolidates more and more power in the hands of the State. And Tyrants arise and that usually ends with that State collapsing eventually. But what we see today is a very, very unique consolidation of power that is beyond just the State. We see the rise of mega-industries that are multi-national. We see the rise of all kinds of entertainment forms and internet forms and many, many things that now have power way beyond anything in the history of mankind. They have the power to shut you down financially, they have the power to shut you down socially. There is a lot of power. And, of course, at that point with great trepidation, I use the image from Revelation regarding the harlot [who] was riding on the beast. And again, not that I am saying that what is happening today is in alignment with whatever we might understand those words in Revelation to be thinking in terms of an actual time in history, but I borrow that imagery because it is an excellent way for us to see and understand how a harlot could be riding this beast with all of these horns. If you look at it from the perspective of what’s happening today this is the distorted feminine compassion, of malevolent compassion which is now driving all of these powers. In fact we have large technical companies, we have all kinds of major, major tech companies, very, very powerful companies that are all signalling how compassionate they are. That is the key ethic that is driving our culture in one of the great storm fronts.

And then last time we looked at

This is a worldview that is pitting people against each other. It has its roots, of course, all the way back into the garden of Eden where Satan tried to pit Adam and Eve against God, "Did God really say," "You will be like God," God is your oppressor, you are the oppressed." We have this same exact thing going on in our culture today. An attempt to stir up animosity against people that are first declared to be oppressed against another group of people that are declared to be the oppressor. And so, this is what is driving the rise of all kinds of segmentation in our country. And it has brought us now to a rift within our culture.

Ok, so this brings us now to this next threat, number six.

I spent a lot of time wrestling over this title, I didn’t want to tie it directly to America, but I think it is important to do so. All the statistics I will give here tonight are based upon statistics here in the United States. And so, we’re looking more specifically, not just at Western culture now, but we’re looking specifically at our culture, America.

And when you try to assess, if someone is hit with any kind of a disease or a virus or even an injury of some sort, a significant injury, the significant factor in whether someone will survive or do well in that situation is what is their current mental & physical & spiritual health. Are they strong and hardy or are they weak and lacking the will to fight? There’s no difference when one is assessing out the threats to a culture: are the people strong in character? Are they resilient, are they alert, are they capable of withstanding these storms or are they weak and ready to give in. Are they unified by a noble and high cultural vision. Do they have a spiritual wellness associated with them?

The scripture, rightly says,

The Hebrew word there could be understood that they "[are unrestrained]." Which is an interesting way to think about what happens in our culture when there is no vision, the people become unrestrained, there is little self-control, little self-restraint in individuals. And that of course is what we see in happening today and I think a great deal of it is because of what the scripture tells us here. That we now live in a culture that no longer has a biblical worldview consensus. We talked about that, it doesn’t mean that everybody was holy, but there was a consensus of a biblical worldview for many, many years in this country. Regardless of how well we followed it, there was a consensus of what was right and what was wrong. But now that has radically changed and not only is there a great divide there, but even on both sides of that divide, there has been a great falling away from a sense of who we are in the sight of God. One nation under God is still written on our currency, but it is not an accurate perspective of what our culture thinks and how we act and how we walk.

And so, losing that larger story, losing the metanarrative of God is a great loss in our culture.

So, losing that larger story, losing the metanarrative of God is a great loss in our culture. And as the scripture says, there are consequences for losing that vision, for losing that perspective, that right perspective. And people will become unrestrained and eventually they will perish.

So, we’ve looked at several ways to assess our culture, that’s what we’ve been going through in these first five [threats]. A lot of those could be boiled down to the very first one where we were talking about this deep self-centeredness that has descended upon people. And part of that self-centeredness is a rejection of God and a rejection of His absolute truth, rejecting Who He is, a rejection of who we are in that larger story and how we are to act.

So, we’ll just continue on and we’ll talk now about these areas [of addiction and softness, dependencies and lostness].

But, first of all, I think it is most important, as I have said many, many times that we go back again, ground ourselves in Who God is. The very character of God. I believe last time we went through this and so I won’t spend a lot of time. And think it is always valuable to our eyes, [and] gaze upon the face of God. And it going to be critical again for what we’re going to be saying today to understand Who God is. And we could list attributes almost forever, I only have a few of them for us that I think will be pertinent for what we’re going to be talking about [today & tonight].

But in conjunction with last time that

God is One.
There is a unity associated with the triune nature of God

He is
socially complex.
Father, Son, Holy Spirit and yet He is One. He is not only one in terms of being the Only God, but He is also One as Jesus said in John 17, where He was praying that we might be one. And in the use of that word, talking about how we might be united. That we might be bound together. One of the things that has happened in our culture, and this is the result of a demonic worldview, that Satan has always attempted to pit people against each other, to tear them apart. His number one scheme is to destroy relationships.

So we have to go back and ground ourself again. In fact, God is not like that, God is One in essence, He is socially Complex.

He is also a
Rational
being. He speaks to us. He calls us. He says, "Come, let us reason together." He is truth. He has laid before us in logical order, as the children of Israel assembled before mount Ebal and mount Gerizim and God laid the logic for them, "If you do this then this will happen, If you do [that] then [that] will happen." A very logical structure. And so, God is a rational being. He’s created a rational universe. And we will look at some things [today] in this threat in which people are pursuing things that are not rational at all. And God’s truth has be laid before us.

So, there is both
Unity and Diversity
within God’s character. And there are a lot of things that can be said about this. What I mentioned for [today & tonight] is that we’ll be speaking of things that may make you angry. May cause you to be angry towards other people. There is a diversity that God has created. We have a great diversity in humanity. Even physical characteristics are diverse. But in God’s design, He has designed, for example, the husband and wife to become together in unity. That diversity of male and female, could well be the greatest diversity in humanity. [And yet] God brings that together in a unity, as He says in Malachi, "He made them one." And what was He seeking? He was seeking godly offspring. He was seeking the fruitfulness associated with the male and the female coming together, uniting as one in the design of God, and therefore, being fruitful.

That brings us then to this last one. I refer to it as the
Modus Operandi of God.
And that is that God creates the universe, He creates it with great diversity, but He brings it together in unity. That is why our entire universe is filled with the most exquisite systems that are comprised of the most diverse pieces and parts. Electrons, Neutrons, Protons, extremely different from each other. Even the quarks are extremely different from each other. [named: down, up, strange, charm bottom and up quarks]. Great diversity brought together in a unity for a higher purpose, and to produce fruit. That modus operandi of God is seen in the inanimate world around us, [it] is also seen in the living world around us from plants to animals to human beings.

And His modus operandi is that He calls His creatures in that unity, in that diversity and unity of that diversity to bring forth fruit. And it is the fruit of God’s creatures that bring forth glory to God. This is what we read in John when Jesus said, "By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit." It is the fruitfulness of God’s creatures, the heaven’s declare the glory of God, the Sun glorifies God by shining. The fruit of the Sun is light and all that that light means. The heat, the energy and everything, that is the fruit of the Sun. We would be in extreme straits if the Sun woke up tomorrow and said, "you know what, I’m not gonna…​ [shine], I’m tired of being fruitful. I’m gonna sleep today."

And so too the rest of creation obeys God and it brings forth its fruit. But it is only in humanity where those creatures do not obey God and we rebel against Him. We think we have a better idea concerning God’s design, especially for social order and for the social institutions that God has made for us, that we might bring forth fruit and that brings glory to God.

So that is the Modus Operandi of God: that He creates, He equips, He empowers, He sends His creatures, so that even the smallest creature might bring forth fruit.

Now, Satan’s modus operandi is to consolidate power and make dependant and to destroy people’s fruitfulness, to destroy their incentive for fruitfulness. And there are other ways that he destroys their fruitfulness and we’re going to see those [tonight]. So that is why we spent some time laying that groundwork. [And again, the whole point of becoming aware of and understanding the threats that we’re facing today in our culture is so that we can then know what to do and how to engage our neighbors that are providentially near us.]

And so [tonight], we’re going to look at Assessing America
from these four characteristics. You could add more, I’m sure,

of our culture. [Beginning] with a notion of Addiction tonight - The compulsion to repetitively involve oneself with a substance or activity that is overall unhealthy.

So, we are now extending the invitation to anyone who is subject to it. Come as we stand and sing.

https://www.deltackett.com/resources/36776/7-threats-in-our-times-6-america-addicted-and-soft-dependent-and-lost