This messge was delivered at Hillcrest Baptist Church on the evening of March 1, 2015. This message deals with the importance of establishing God as the Creator, when evangelizing in our current culture. This post contains a audio recording of the sermon, along with my sermon notes. (The notes are not a full transcript.)
SERMON AUDIO:
SERMON NOTES:
This narration could easily be describing America. It seems that not much has changed in the last 2000 years.
v.16:
The city was given over to false religion, the church was silent, and Paul was stirred because they weren’t worshipping the one true God (are you?)
Isaiah 45:6
v.17:
We need to go public, as Paul did.
Paul began to address the problem, He didn’t ignore it. He went to the synagogue (church), which apparently had been silent on the issue. And to the streets (the marketplace).
vv.18-21:
Paul got the attention of the locals, and began to ruffle some feathers.
They didn’t understand what Paul was preaching, and they took Paul to court (The Areopogus).
These people apparently didn’t work, they just talked about things (v.21).
vv.22-23:
Much like our society, they had plenty of religion, but it was wrong. Paul pointed out that the problem was that they did not know who God was.
Today, God is being educated out of our society. We have people walking away from the church in droves. According to a recent poll:
- 80-90% of children from Christian homes attend public schools.
- 86% had begun to question the Bible by their high school years.
- 82% cited doubts about the Bibles authority or trustworthiness.
How is this biblical doubt created? Look at what out textbooks are teaching.
“Virtually all biologists consider evolution to be a fact” (Campbell and Reece, AP edition biology, 2005, p.272)
“When contraception fails, pregnancy can be terminated by abortion.” (Biology: Life on Earth, 2005, p.739)
These are just 2 quotes of many.
You can’t have a complete education that is Godless.
Proverbs 1:7
Proverbs 9:10
Education can’t be neutral. The Bible teaches no neutrality. Jesus says that you are either for Him or against Him.
Luke 11:23
- The average child spends 30 hours a week being indoctrinated in government schools.
- Spends another 30 hours in front of the TV.
- Hopefully receives one hour of reprogramming each week in church. (But in most cases the church isn’t even doing that.)
As a result, we have repeated history, and raised up a generation who do not know God.
Judges 2:8-11
We now have a society which is much the same as the Greeks.
1 Corinthians 1:23
We cannot assume that the people we speak to know who God is. That is why Paul started out with God the creator, and this is exactly what has been eliminated from our society.
People no longer, automatically know who God is, what sin is, or why they need to be saved. Christ crucified is foolishness to them.
What’s more, we live in a self-righteous society. In this era of self-defined morality, many people have no concept of sin. They themselves decide what’s right and wrong. There is no solid foundation for morality. If it feels good do it, it’s all about me, I just want to be happy, etc. These are the philosophies of the day. Until we establish that God is the creator, and has ownership, that attitude is not likely to change.
We’re fighting a war and our children are the enemies objective. We need to take up arms (the Bible), take the offensive.
Ephesians 6:12
It’s a battle of ideologies, with eternal consequences. We need to fight it on God’s terms, with His weapons.
Ephesians 6:13-18
His word cannot be compromised.
In Defense: The Blog 
Posted on February 28, 2015
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