Posts
by Samuel E. Ward
April 28, May 5, 2013
View PowerPoint Presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/samward1/a-need-to-know-basis-21544307
Introduction
A. Biblical Illiteracy Is a Problem
1. In our general culture
2. In our churches
"Americans revere the Bible - but, by and large, they don't read it. And because they don't read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates."
- - George Gallup and Jim Castelli
B. Biblical Illiteracy Is a Scandal (according to researcher Albert Mohler)
1. Fewer than half of all adults can name the four gospels.
2. Many professing Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciples.
3. Sixty percent of Americans can't name even five of the Ten Commandments.
4. Eighty-two percent of Americans believe "God helps those who help themselves" is a Bible verse.
5. Twelve percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.
6. A survey of graduating high school seniors revealed that over 50 percent thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife.
7. A considerable number of respondents to one poll indicated that the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Billy Graham.
Pollster George Barna writes, "Increasingly, America is biblically illiterate." No community of people, whether a nation or the church, can afford to forget God and His Word without experiencing dire consequences.
C. Israel has provided many examples in its history of God's judgment and discipline for their failure to teach God's ways to their children in spite of God's many warnings, Deu 8:10-20; 2 Kings 17:37-41.
D. Do not think that God will not judge the church (globally, locally, and individual members) if it does not keep in its memory God's Word and its practice, Heb 12:5-6, 11
I. Ignorance of God Word Has Serious Effects
A. On Individuals
1. People are destroyed as a result of ignoring God's Word and therefore are unable to make wise and righteous choices, Hos 4:1, 6.
2. People are brought to spiritual starvation because they have ignored God's Word and no longer remember to turn to it for help, Amos 8:11-13.
3. People are left without a compass for life, Psa 119:105.
4. People are without a clue on where to find true joy or peace, Psa 119:111,165.
B. On Churches
1. There is a dearth in our churches of trained teachers and those willing to be trained. This ought not to be! (Heb 5:12-6:3, 7-8)
Whose fault does it become if the church falls into sin and error? Everyone should be able to teach at some level and not just the elementary things of the faith. But the church lacks teachers who have even a basic knowledge of God's Word and the whole church suffers for it.
(Heb 5:12-14 NIV) In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! {13} Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. {14} But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
(Heb 6:1-3 NIV) Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, {2} instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. {3} And God permitting, we will do so.
(Heb 6:7-8 NIV) Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. {8} But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
2. There is a widespread shallowness of the biblical view of contemporary issues that is evidenced by how many in the church have come to accept society's view of issues. All this is because Christians are so ignorant concerning God's Word they are not able to discern the biblical view, Isa 5:20.
(Isa 5:20 NIV) Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
C. On Society
Because the "person in the pew" is not knowledgeable about God's Word, they can hardly have a credible, defendable, and persuasive answer on many issues and therefore must simply capitulate in the discussion.
1. Because of our ignorance of God's Word, our standards of morality are "turned in – side out" so that good is evil and evil is good, Isa 5:20.
a. We have those who claim to be Christians who slaughter the innocent (abortion).
b. We have those who claim to be Christians but put the wicked on a pedestal while denigrating and insulting the righteous, Phil 3:18-20.
(Phil 3:18-20 NIV) For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. {19} Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. {20} But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,
c. We have those who claim to be Christians who participate in and approve of the same perversions and wickedness as those whom God says deserve death, Rom 1:24-32.
(Rom 1:24-32 NIV) Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. {25} They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen. {26} Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. {27} In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. {28} Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. {29} They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, {30} slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; {31} they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. {32} Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
2. Because of our toleration of the world's view of morality even within the church, it is no wonder that . . .
a. Pornography and promiscuity exists in the church at levels nearly equivalent to that in the general population. Some research groups call these statistics into question. However, consider:
· 29% of born again adults in the U.S. feel it is morally acceptable to view movies with explicit sexual behavior. (The Barna Group)
· 57% of pastors say that addiction to pornography is the most sexually damaging issue to their congregation.(Christians and Sex Leadership Journal Survey, March 2005)
http://www.archomaha.org/pastoral/se/pdf/PornStats.pdfhttp://www.archomaha.org/pastoral/se/pdf/PornStats.pdf
b. Children are deprived the kind of parenting that is their God-given right because marriage is being re-defined.
c. Juvenile delinquency rates increase in families with single-parents, especially if the cause was divorce.
Divorce was highly significant when predicting the variation in juvenile violent crime. These findings show a positive relationship between divorce and violent juvenile crime which support previous research showing that divorce can lead to crime.
--Jeannie A. Frye
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-05192010-095240/unrestricted/Fry_JF_T_2010.pdf , p. 40.
The Most Serious Effect of Ignoring God's Word
When there is no absolute rule binding a society or community (including the church), the result can only lead to anarchy which usually leads to authoritarian rule. This is our future unless the teachings of Scripture become the absolute guide first for the church and then positively impact our society and awaken it again to God.
We do well be aware that our own hearts are prone to write our own rules. But we need to accept the warnings of God's Word.
(Prov 21:2 NIV) All a man's ways seem right to him, but the LORD weighs the heart.
(2 Cor 5:10 NIV) For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
II. Ignorance of God's Word Can Be Prevented
A. By Spending "Alone Time with God," Psa 1:1-3; 119:97-98
(Psa 1:1-3 NIV) Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. {2} But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. {3} He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
(Psa 119:97-98 NIV) Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. {98} Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.
B. By Sitting Under the Instruction of Gifted Teachers and Encouraging Each Other to Practice What You Learn, Heb 3:12-14; 10:24-25.
(Heb 3:12-14 NIV) See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. {13} But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. {14} We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.
(Heb 10:24-25 NIV) And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. {25} Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
C. By Training Your Children Regularly and Diligently in God's Word, Deu 6:6-7; Eph 6:4
(Deu 6:6-7 NIV) These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. {7} Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
(Eph 6:4 NIV) Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Conclusion: Albert Mohler exhorts the church:
Churches must recover the centrality and urgency of biblical teaching and preaching, and refuse to sideline the teaching ministry of the preacher. Pastors and churches too busy–or too distracted–to make biblical knowledge a central aim of ministry will produce believers who simply do not know enough to be faithful disciples.
We will not believe more than we know, and we will not live higher than our beliefs. The many fronts of Christian compromise in this generation can be directly traced to biblical illiteracy in the pews and the absence of biblical preaching and teaching in our homes and churches.
This generation must get deadly serious about the problem of biblical illiteracy, or a frighteningly large number of Americans–Christians included–will go on thinking that Sodom and Gomorrah lived happily ever after.
