Recently I read some excerpts
from a speech by Robert Ingersoll. Ingersoll was a relatively famous
agnostic who went around the country and the world lecturing
on the subject, why I am an agnostic. His views were quite controversial,
especially at the time, yet in reality he spoke much truth even
though he was not aware of the exact points where his ramblings
and the truth coincided. His main point was that it is
impossible to know about God. He did not exactly deny the existence
of God, he just did not believe that it was possible for man
to recognize God or know anything about Him in a meaningful way
so as to shape man's outlook. David said, the fool has said
in his heart, there is no God. While Ingersoll would not say
that he didn't believe that there was a supreme being, he did nonetheless
fall into the category of those that David described. For the
essence of what David was saying was not that the man who engages
in an intellectual admission that there is a God avoids being
a fool. But rather that man is a fool
who says that there is no absolute, predestinating God, before whom
he will bow his knee and worship. Or simply put, he says, there
is no God for me. Paul said the invisible things
of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power
and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Man intuitively
knows that this creation is presided over by its maker and director. The folly of man is that he will
not fall down in worship at the feet of this absolute God, being
blinded by his own innate lust to exalt his own free will and
self-determination, denying that God has a right to do with his
own as he wills. Because of man's spiritual blindness,
he cannot, and thus will not, glorify the true God. For by
his nature he prefers that which he sees with his natural eye
to that which he cannot. Loving his own free will and
convinced that he is able to shape his own future, he has
designed his own gods and their accompanying religions which
he is comfortable with. Ingersoll correctly identified
the fact that the gods and resulting religions which men serve are
mere figments of their imaginations and are futile attempts on their
part to make sense of the world around them along with their
own existence. What he did not recognize was
the fact that man is innately corrupt and unable to know God. not because of intellectual inhibitions,
but rather due to the fact that he is dead in trespasses and
sins and cannot, by searching, find him out. He looked at all
of this as an intellectual exercise, and thus he in reality describes
modern-day Christianity in general, which embraces the same notion.
Most of those today who claim to be preachers of the gospel
go about this task by appealing to the free will of men, to their
intellect, their emotions, and, of course, their pocketbooks.
They believe that a man must be equipped to do this by schooling
in the higher institutions of learning and in various preacher
schools of one type or another. They assume that in order for
a man to declare the truth of God, he must be prepped to do
so by learning the Bible. Now, to be sure, the Lord has
spoken to us by and through his written word, which is complete
and without any lack. But the only way that men are
prepared to declare the unsearchable riches of Christ is to be given
unction rather than education. The Lord's hand is not shortened
to save by many or by few, and He is able to use ignorant and
unlearned men as well as those who have sat at the feet of great
teachers just like the Apostle Paul. Modern day religion has
lost sight of this fact and touts its featured speakers and eloquent
orators as being the key to declaring the gospel, as they set the mood
with proper music and use the right kind of methods to persuade
men to do something. Thus they assume that by this
persuasion they can produce believers and lead men to the Lord. They
have forgotten the words of the Lord, who said, No man can come
to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I
will raise him up at the last day. All that the Father giveth
me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no
wise cast out.