All right, if we have Psalm chapter
14 in our sights today, and we'll be looking at secular humanism,
a movement not new, but one certainly that is at variance and enmity
with the gospel, with the Word of God, with Christ's salvation,
and all of that. Look at the Psalm chapter 14,
and we'll read it. There are seven verses here in
this chapter. The fool has said in his heart,
there is no God. They are corrupt. They have done
abominable works. There is none that doeth good.
The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see
if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone
aside, they're all together become filthy, there is none that doeth
good, no not one. Have all the workers of iniquity
no knowledge? Who eat up my people as they
eat bread, and call not upon the Lord? There were they in
great fear, for God is in the generation of the righteous. Ye have shamed the counsel of
the poor, because the Lord is his refuge. Oh, that the salvation
of Israel were come out of Zion. When the Lord brings back the
captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall
be glad. Now just look at verse one again.
The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Now, I call your attention to
the fact that though you're likely aware of it already, there is
another psalm that is almost verbatim with this one, and that's
the 53rd psalm. One has six verses and the other
have seven. You might notice something else,
that the Apostle Paul in the New Testament in Romans chapter
3 and verse 10 through verse 18 draws very heavily out of
this psalm as he says before the collective indictment bill
against both Jew and Gentile that they are all under sin,
that they are all without righteousness, and that there is none that understands
and that none seeks after God. So for now, let's store up in
our mind those words of the Psalm. The fool has said in his heart,
there is no God, and they will come before us again later in
the course of our study. Now today, we want to focus upon
some question. For example, what has happened
to the truth of God? It is trampled in the street
and underfoot. What has happened to a admiration
and a declaration of the scripture in so many of the churches? Where has the gospel gone? Why have so many diluted it down? Why is Christianity in our day
so anemic? Meaning, how is it so watered
down and perverted in our day and in our generation? So that
we have become, in a sense, like Israel of old, that Christianity
has, in effect, played the harlot with almost every movement that
has come up on the scene. to quote from Ezekiel chapter
16 and verse 15, that they had poured out their fornications
on everyone that passed by. And the picture there in Ezekiel
16 is that of a harlotess and an unfaithful wife who has gone
in the way with many lovers. who is very quick to be unfaithful
unto her husband, who is God. Ezekiel chapter 16 and verse
25. Just a shell of what God originally
established and ordained did become Judaism and in effect
has also become Christianity. Now, the question today is, why
is it that so many churches seem to freely and to fully embrace
those secular movements that are nothing but the brainchild
of men and their imagination? Why would the church welcome
them, as it were, with open arms and support and promote them,
and in many cases even try to Christianize them? Remember the
sermon, if you will, on Chrislam. when in fact these things are
actually the enemy of God, the enemy of the gospel, and the
enemy of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are contrary to Christianity,
and they are contrary under the scripture. and they are a perversion
of the Christian faith and of the Christian truth, but they
are legion, and I think we ought to include among these even the
cults as we refer to them in our day. Now today, we want to
examine one of these movements that is alive in the world. I named it secular humanism and
its contrast and its conflict with biblical Christianity, that
it is in no way compatible with the word of God and with the
Christian faith. that it is, as I read one writer
called it, quote, an ominous philosophy, unquote. Now, a philosophy may be defined
as a concept or as a view of life, or a worldview, a theory
that one might have in their own mind concerning life and
the world and mankind and the origin and the cause of all things
as they exist and move. A view of things as they appear
to be or as the individual wishes or determine them to be. And may I say again, all have
a worldview. They may deny it, and I've heard
people deny it, but all have a worldview, all have a philosophy,
all have a certain outlook on life, determined and originated
and influenced by one thing or another. Now, secular humanism
and the question, why deal with it at all? Why spend our time
on it? Why not just simply preach the
Bible and preach the word of God? Why take up a secular issue
when we have the word of God and the gospel? Well, I answer
to show its evil and to show its contrariness onto Christianity
and the danger of it if it is espoused either in conjunction
with Christianity or strictly as a secular philosophy and a
guide and a rule of life. Scripture warns us very clearly
not to learn the way of the heathen. Jeremiah chapter 10 and verse
2, not to take up their way, not to take up their belief,
but to hold firm and fast to the scripture and to the word
of God. Do not as they do. Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter
15, is it verse 33, evil communication corrupt good manners. Again, why speak on the subject
of secular humanism or secular issue? And I say, because so
many of them have found their way into the church here. And
because when we look at the scripture and follow Paul, our great apostle,
we find Paul condemning Gnosticism in the church at Colossae. As he writes to them, chapter
2 and verse 8, we find him warning them. about mysticism in that
same church, chapter 2 and verse 18. He warns them against asceticism
in the end of the second chapter of Colossae. Now that means that
these things were either present or had an influence or were in
some way being espoused by those that were there. When Paul came
to Ephesus, he made a big deal against witchcraft in the 19th
chapter of the book of Acts. He stood against it with all
of his might. by a mighty work of God gave
it a deadly blow in that city. He condemned polytheism as he
stood on Mars Hill in Athens in Acts chapter 17. He warned
the Corinthians of the danger of idolatry in 1 Corinthians
chapter 8. chapter 9 and chapter 10. He also warned them of the love
of worldly wisdom instead of the wisdom of the gospel. He
warned them in Galatia of gospel perverted, and he shows the futility
of Grecian wisdom and philosophy to bring one to a happy position
in life or in the world to come. since God brings to nothing the
wisdom of the wise 1st Corinthians 119 taken from Isaiah 29 and
verse 14. So we see at Paul at time that
Paul did write Paul did speak on these things that are out
there in the world that might prove a danger or a detriment
unto the gospel. Now with that behind us, let's
work our way slowly into the subject that we have taken up
for today. Taking a look at at this thing
called humanism, or secular humanism. And when we do, let's not mistake
the word here that is to be emphasized. We did not say humanitarianism. and we did not say humanitarian,
one who does as a group or an individual good, one who tries
to help their fellow man. When they have suffered tragedy
or in a bad state or been ravaged by some great storm or catastrophe
or whatever, and they have a need, we find it commendable that one
would be humanitarian in their help and in their work toward
another. But humanism is the philosophy
and is the belief of the practice of a life centered only and about
man. It is a self-centered philosophy
and a practice that man is the center of it all, secular humanism. It is a belief that there is
no God to guide and to help and to deliver and to get us out
of our dilemma. No God, no providence, therefore
men must use their reason and must use their intellect and
solve the problems of the world and society, not by the help
of God, but by the reason and by the intellect of man. Now, it is common for us, I think,
when we think of the scripture, think of the world, it is common
for us to divide all mankind simply into two categories. That is, the believer and the
unbeliever. We look out on the world, certainly
that's true. One is either a believer or an
unbeliever. They're either saved or lost,
They're either in Christ or out. They're either elect or reprobate. And in essence, this certainly
is true. But I want to remind us that
not all unbelievers are of the same mind or of the same degree. Some who are unbelievers would
even say that they would choose the Christian position if they
ever decide to become religious. This would be their choice. But
others are splintered in every direction that we might imagine. There are isms of all kind on
every side and in every place. Quickly, I'll name two or three.
There is the position called agnostic, and this is one who
doubts whether or not God can be known. And agnostic believe
that we cannot be sure. We cannot be sure if there is
a God if he has a hand in all of these things, and that nothing
can be known about God's existence or things that are beyond or
outside of the pale of human reason and experience. Now, one name that you'll find
associated with this evil would be the name of Thomas Huxley
back in history. Then, of course, there is that
position that some claim of atheism, the absolute outright denial
that there is such a being as God. that there is no God, there
is no God to believe in, no God to help. And this puts them in
the class of fools according to the passage of scripture that
we have read this morning. We've heard another type of a
person. We might call them the free spirits
or the free thinkers as we knew them, who think outside of the
box. They're not confined to existing
beliefs and values and such like. They love to shop the modesty
of others by going against the traditional values of society. We had a wave of this in the
60s and in the 70s in the hippie movement. But now, humanism,
or more precisely, secular humanism. Now the word secular actually
means worldly or belonging unto the world. Viewed from from a
worldly perspective only, not having to do with any ecclesiastical
or religious ties or church ties whatsoever, but belonging strictly
to the affairs of the human family and of the world. In other words,
Secular humanism is classified as non-religious. It is not attached to any religion
or ecclesiastical order. And as stated already, humanism
is basically concerned strictly with human affair and with self
and individual. So let's try to get a short historical
perspective or outlook of this movement, then trace out its
origin and its development, and then its relationship or non-relationship
unto Christianity. Some writers, some historical
writers, in writing up the history of secular humanism, go all the
way back to France and the cultural revival in the 13th and the 14th
century and such times as the Enlightenment. If you've heard
the statement, the Enlightenment, it was a time, they say, a time
and a movement that emphasized rationalism. That is, it put
all the emphasis upon reason. human reason. Let us reason this
out and emphasize intellectual freedom. Then you'll come across
other terms such as the Renaissance, called the scientific revolution,
with a great revival in that time of the art and the learning
and of culture. And the French word Renaissance
mean a new birth or a new beginning. And so we look back upon that
in history. It would seem that a point might
be made that deism, the belief and the practice of deism actually
in some way helped to pave the way or secular humanism, and
became, as it were, stepping stone, forerunners for the preparing
of the way. For deism held to the notion
that God existed, that he created the world, but that he took no
hand at all in the governing or the upkeeping of the world. He did not reveal himself and
therefore the truth unto the people. So in other words, he
was a silent and an inactive God. And you can see that it
might be a short leap from deism into secular humanism. As for
humanism, in researching, I found three humanist manifestos put
out by the movement over the course of time here in America. The first one, of course, you
would find about 1933, Human Manifesto I. Then there was Human
Manifesto No. 2 in about 1973, Human Manifesto
No. 3 in about the year 2003. Now
here is a part, I'm quoting, a part, Human Manifesto No. 1a. Humanists regard the universe
as self-existing and not created. Humanists regard the universe
as self-existent and not created. That takes God, creation, the
Bible out of the equation immediately. And then B, that man is part
of nature and has emerged as a result of continuous process. In other words, evolution. So
there are evolutionists. And then C, you will read, human
is fine. that the traditional do-ism of
mind and body must be rejected. There is nothing spiritual or
everlasting about humans. They are simply human beings.
And indeed, man's religious culture and civilization are the product
of gradual development through interaction with his natural
environment and social heritage. E, we are convinced that the
time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and varieties of thought. And by the way, something interesting
with Humanist Manifesto number one there, there's a name signed
there, John Dewey. You search this out, you will
find had a great impact upon education in this country. So humanism likes to present
itself as working to solve the problems of humanity and present
itself as making the world a better place, doing those things that
will improve the quality of life that can only be solved by humans,
problems only humans are able to solve. But how can they? do these things when they have
an evolutionary, atheistic view of the world. And it has evolved
now with them. In the third Humanist Manifesto,
you find things included like environmentalism, the threat
of overpopulation, poverty, travel restriction, and yes, self-esteem
to be a part of the humanist movement. Now, secularists are
the new pagans. They are pagans indeed. They
may wear suits, they may have good jobs, they may be leaders,
but they are, as to their philosophy and outlook, pagans. They are
wolves and they are sheep in sheep's clothing. Under the pretext
of doing good, they do evil. They suppress the truth of God
in unrighteousness. They, as it were, would worship
themselves. They are their gods. We, you,
shall be as God. They are in open defiance of
God, open defiance of the Lord Jesus Christ, and open defiance
of the Holy Scripture. As to their belief, they deny
the fall of the race in Adam. They deny depravity and original
sin, though they do acknowledge that there is evil in the world,
but that it can be cured by human reason and action. They deny
that men and women are sinners. They deny that there is any need
to be saved from sin. And they say that talk of heaven
and hell are illusory. That is, they are deceptive and
even, quote, harmful. Unquote. Secular humanism therefore
qualifies as an aggregation of fools, for they deny God, as
in our text, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Now, a physician does not correctly
diagnose the disease, he therefore cannot prescribe the proper antidote
or remedy. As humanism gains grounds, so
do social evil, because it is a failure. It's an empty delusion. It's a cheap substitute. It's
a recipe for disaster for man to take things in his own hands
and leave God out of the equation. For nothing can bring civility
that denies or ignores the doctrine of human depravity and the morality
of the law and the word of Almighty God. Still, we can see how humanism
would become and is appealing and satisfying unto so many who
reject the doctrine of the fall and the sin of the race in Adam,
and who believe that there is no damning sin. that all people
are basically and intrinsically good, and can do good without
religion, and without God, and without Christ, and without the
scripture, and that any problem can be solved by rational reasoning
by intellectual men. But one thing seems undeniable,
and that is, the further that society gets away from the principles,
the mooring, and the anchor of the Word of God, and the practice
of Christianity by Jesus Christ, the worse the situation does
become. Humanism. is not making things
better. It is not improving the world. It is not improving the human
family. And as for mixing humanism with
Christianity, then you would have what some people are calling
Christian secularism. It would be as bad as holding
to theistic evolution. that God created by a process
of evolution is the belief in the teaching of many. Now we
must be able to discern, to know the difference between secular
humanism and biblical Christianity, for they are nothing alike. But one of the first principles
of both humanism and Christianity has to do with the existence
of God, the origin of all things, and of the world and of the universe. Humanists deny the being of God. They claim the world is self-existing
and man has emerged through a process of evolution and is conditioned
by his environment. The Bible, on the other hand,
declares that God is eternal, that he has no beginning, that
he will have no end, being the eternal God, Deuteronomy 33 and
27. 1st Timothy 1 and verse 17, that
he is the self-existent one, that he has life in himself. He was never non-existent. God has always been. He is from everlasting to everlasting,
Psalm chapter 90 and verse 2. That is our doctrine of the eternal
God. and that he created the heavens
and the earth, Genesis chapter one and verse one. Now this is
the first thing mentioned in the scripture. Should you open
the scripture and begin to read, the very first thing that you
will read is a declaration that God in the beginning created
the heaven and the earth. This is the foundation of all
of the other scripture and of the word of God. Existing before
everything out of nothing, God made the world and all things. Speaking it into existence by
the word of his power. No, not by rearranging. already pre-existent matter,
but by calling forth the world into existence by the word of
His power. As Brother Baker spoke a few
weeks ago, creation out of nothing. It's having a good hit on the
internet. Psalm 102, verse 25. Of old thou has laid the foundation
of the earth and the heavens are the work of thy hands. Faith neither stumbles nor staggers
when it runs upon these things in the scripture. It does not
stumble or halter at the opening declaration of the scripture. Faith believes that in the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth. We read in Hebrews 11
and verse 3. By faith we understand that the
heavens or the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things
which are were not made of things which do not appear." So the
conclusion is the world is certainly by the Christian and the scripture
not self-existent. It did not come into being on
its own. And to add to that, it is not
so fragile that cars and lawnmowers and barbecue grills and air conditioners
will be the end of it or its destruction. There are many who
today are worshippers of nature, and they're not among the Christian
view, but they are worshippers of nature. Mother nature, we
so often hear it called, but seldom hear about Father God. And these movements and these
laws and such like are not based upon sound scripture, or the
truth of the Word of God. Concerning man, the human family,
they're not a product of evolution. They did not come up through
the lower species, out of the marshes, and finally into man. No, God created man in his own
image, after his own likeness. And the scripture said, breathe
in the Adam, the breath of life, and man became a living soul. He endowed the man whom he had
created with certain faculty, the conscience, the understanding,
the man Adam he made from the dust of the earth, the woman
he made from the rib of the man from which he had taken that
rib and he put them in the garden and he met with them in the cool
of the day as we read in the scripture. But in that time Satan
made use of the serpent to deceive our mother who gave the forbidden
fruit under her husband with her and he did eat and human
nature fell and corrupted in Adam. Sin entered the world by
one man and death by sin. Death spiritual, death physical,
and death eternal except for the grace of God. And death passed
upon all men. and that rule and that law is
still in force. For all have sinned and death
reigns over all. Death is the direct result of
sin. Were there no sin, there would
have been no death. And the human family is corrupt
and even sinks lower as it is less restrained by the ways of
God and is incapable of purifying itself. God is the judge. God is the standard. He has pronounced
the whole world to be guilty before him by and under his holy
law. Our text said they are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none that doeth good,
there is none that understands. Now while humanism looks out
upon the sons of men and sees them as glorious and noble creatures,
capable of much good with so much potential. The Holy God
looks out upon that same family and sees that they are all gone
aside, that they are all together become filthy, that there is
none doing good, and that there are no exceptions. All to the
last person have apostatized from the way. Not one in themselves
can be counted righteous. They are born in sin, Psalm 51
and 5. They go astray from the womb,
Psalm 58 and 3. They are dead in trespasses and
sin, Ephesians 2, 1 and 2, and none can deliver them or they deliver themselves, save
God and Christ only. Now, let's emphasize, this doctrine
of human depravity is one of the major doctrines to be found
in the scripture. We cannot weaken it, we cannot
delete it out of the word of God. It's taught in the Holy
Scripture. It is one of the most prominent
truths to be found anywhere in the Bible, that man is a sinner. He is astray from God. He is
unable to save himself. He is evil and will perish apart
from the grace of God. that all the evil that people
do, they do because they are sinners in the sight of God. And when we read the Bible, this
truth leaps out at us from almost every place that we were to read
in the scripture. Every book, almost every page,
there is a record of the history of the depravity of man. And this is why God sent his
only begotten son into the world to save sinners, to bear the
sin of his people, and to forgive, and to justify them, and to bring
them to reconciliation again unto God. So the conclusion is
humanism, Secular humanism has nothing in common with biblical
Christianity, though it is everywhere in our society. In fact, it is
contrary to every point of Christianity. None can be first a humanist
and also a Christian, and none can be first a Christian and
also a secular humanist. They cannot be mixed. They cannot
find common ground. They have no shared goals. And any preacher who is a friend
of secular humanism is an enemy of Christ. or with increased
acceptance of humanism, psychobabble has replaced the scripture and
the truth of the gospel and has far-reaching detrimental effects
upon our society. Then I'd like to make this point
before we're done this morning concerning what is called Arminianism. And we look at Arminianism, at
least this morning, from two aspects. A, Arminianism, I think,
has two aspects when we look at it and examine it. A, there are those deep deep
apostates from the truth of God who hardly believe in and who
hardly even use the Bible, even in their churches. Among these,
I would name the Unitarian the Episcopal, most or many of the
Methodists, and of course others, being more Pelagianism, Pelagius,
and they are Arminian. But then secondly, be what we
might call evangelical Arminians in our day. And we can name the
Baptists and the Assemblies, many of the mega-churches in
our day. But Arminianism, when stripped
down, is little more than religious humanism. Why? Well, freewillism
carries the day in Arminianism. It's all about freewill. It's
all about whether man will choose God or let Christ save him or
not. And it's all about what is called
in theology synergism, that is, man working with and man cooperating
with God and with Christ to save and convert and their weakness
on the doctrine of human depravity with the inventing of the supposed
age of accountability and that all are born innocent up until
a certain age of accountability and insistence that the death
and the blood of Christ might miscarry in the case of many. And then there's their denial
of the sovereignty of God, their perversion of the doctrine of
election and for ordination and for knowledge. Arminianism, I
tell you, brother and sister, is much too popular, is much
too well received, is too firmly entrenched and attached in the
churches, too well entertained to be the truth and the doctrine
of God. It has no offense to the whirling,
he is told whether he lives all of his days in sin, that God
still loves him, and whether or not he ever accepts it, God
has given Christ and Christ has paid the debt of his sin until
he strikes the bargain with God that will make it effectual.
So what is our conclusion? God is all in all. Man is like the dust of the balance. God rules over all. Christ is Lord of all, and this
is the doctrine of the Bible and of Christianity. Man is a
deficient and a wayward and a weak creature, not able to bring the
world to a better state or even himself. apart from some restraining
influence. And so I say again in mixing,
or rather in closing, that they do not mix together. There's
no common ground, there's no common goal to be found to work
toward between secular humanism and Christianity. It is not the
truth, the Bible, God is true, and every man is a liar. and let that sink into our heart
this morning for what God may make it worth unto us.