Deadly Types of Ignorance

TNG Radio, where today's culture and timeless truths come together. It's reasoned, relevant content apologetics, worldview, and answers to the questions that you need to know. From Alex McFarland Ministries, this is Truth for a New Generation Radio.

And now the man who preached in 50 states in 50 days, speaker, writer, and advocate for Christian apologetics, Dr. Alex McFarland. Have you ever been driving in the winter and seen a sign that said, chains required beyond this point? I've seen that in two places in Colorado and once in Pennsylvania when I was driving in the snow in, frankly, a blizzard. And there were signs, chains required beyond this point. And there was a warning that if you were trying to drive through the blizzard without the right equipment, you could be pulled over.

And you know, I think about that as it relates to life because as we live and grow and age and mature, there are some key types of equipment required as we navigate this path of life. And we're going to read from a scripture passage in a moment, Ephesians 4, 17 through 19. I invite you to turn there if you're at a place where you can follow along in the Bible. But I want to welcome you to the program Truth for a New Generation. Alex McFarland here, very honored to have you with us. And I want to say before we go any farther, a big thank you to the people of Richmond, Virginia. We were just there a few days ago for Truth for a New Generation. We had an amazing event, an amazing event. And I want to thank the people that came from Maryland and Ohio and the Carolinas and Tennessee, and of course all the great people in Virginia.

We were at Mount Vernon Baptist Church, really in Glen Allen, a suburb of Richmond, and it just went great, it really did. I want to say a big thank you to Liberty University for helping us put it on, Liberty University. I have two degrees from Liberty, and they have been a big part of our life for 25 years. It's a great school, and they underwrite the TNG Apologetics Tour, but also the American Family Association, publishing ads in the AFA Journal and helping me promote, and then providing great speakers like Miki Addison and Abe Hamilton and Will Addison.

They're just phenomenal. Hey, I want to say thanks to all the people. Not only was I in Richmond for Truth for a New Generation, then after that I was in western North Carolina and Lubbock, Texas. And people come up and they say, oh, you know, we listened to Exploring the Word, and we listened to TNG Radio, Truth for a New Generation. And I just want to say thanks to one and all for helping us preach the Gospel and learn the Word of God and live a Biblical life. We are going to be in Cincinnati, Ohio, November 15-16, with Josh McDowell, Erwin Lutzer, and more, and it's going to be phenomenal. And I invite everybody to go to alexmcfarland.com to follow along and learn about that.

And we do hope to see you in Cincinnati in November, the final TNG in 2019. But I want to read a little bit from Ephesians 4, and I want to talk with you about deadly types of ignorance. Ignorance is not bliss, as some people say.

Ignorance can be very costly and very tragic. And in Ephesians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul writes about the different members of the body of Christ coming together in the unity of belief in Jesus, in the unity of the Word of God, and in the unity of Spirit. And it talks about not being like children anymore, not being tossed back and forth, but coming up in love, in unity, in agreement, and in Christ-likeness into the head of the body Jesus.

And it says, Jesus, we are all fitly formed in Him, joined together, and this is the love of Christ and the plan of God that would impact the world for all of eternity. Now verse 17 of Ephesians 4, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you henceforth in other words from this point on do not walk as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned in Christ. Okay, lasciviousness, which is a word that really means callous disobedience and iniquity and blindness, which obviously means to be in the dark spiritually.

These types of ignorance that we are not to walk in as those who do not know God. You know there were the Jews and the Gentiles, there are the Jews and the Gentiles, and when the New Testament speaks of Gentiles, it is really speaking of those who do not yet know the true God. And in fact there was a euphemism, I am sure many people have heard it discussed, that Gentiles were dogs. And it really meant profane. And the word profane, from which we get the word profanity, means outside the temple.

Things that were outside the presence of God and not in a relationship with God were profane. And the Gentiles here speaks of those who do not know the true God. Alright in verse 17, the walk or the manner of life of those who do not know God is for one thing vanity, in other words empty, literally void and empty, and darkened understanding.

I mean they do not really know truth. Alienated from the life of God. In other words, dead verse 18. Dead and alienated from God. And they are ignorant, blind, lascivious, just given over to living for sin and indulgence. And it says in verse 19 that they have done this for so long they are past feeling.

Do you know what it talks about in Romans 1 about being given over to a depraved mind. And depravity means no longer being able to discern between right and wrong. Many people speculate about the condition of our world. Maybe we are in a depraved culture. A culture that we have for so long tried to rationalize and legitimize that which is false. Maybe we can't even understand right from wrong anymore.

Well let me say I am going to give several types of deadly ignorance that I fear our culture is flirting with and in some cases even embracing. Now stay tuned we've got a brief break and we're going to come back and from Ephesians 4 we're going to talk about the deadly types of ignorance from which God wants to save you. From I Am A Watchman Ministries, here's today's I Am A Watchman Minute. Do you know the story of the prophet Amos? He lived a humble life, was from a rather obscure place, worked as a shepherd and itinerant farmer, a tender of sycamore trees. He was not a priest, not of a noble line, and not educated, but God loved him and called him to a mighty work. Amos was a prophet and he warned the people that God was not pleased with how they were living. He told the people that God had established a, quote, plumb line, expectations that he wanted his people to follow. And Amos told them that judgment was coming and all needed to be ready. I believe if Amos lived today, his message would be the same. Visit I am a watchman dot com for resources to help you be God's voice in such a time as this. Be bold, be faithful, be a watchman.

I am a watchman dot com. At Liberty University, you'll earn more than a degree. You'll earn the satisfaction of seeing what you can accomplish and what God can accomplish through you. Choose for more than 600 degree options from an associate to a PhD and study 100% online more affordably than you think. Discover God's truth through every degree at Liberty University, where we train champions for Christ. Go to Liberty dot edu backslash explore to learn more.

That's Liberty dot edu backslash explore to learn more. As a group, millennials have more than a trillion dollars in purchasing power, so you know businesses are watching us. By 2025, we'll comprise 75% of the workforce, so employers are watching us. Despite these positives, millennials are losing our faith, so we know Satan is watching us. Engage Magazine is for millennials by millennials, and it speaks to faith, purpose, and a closer walk with Jesus. Because above all, God is watching us.

Visit engage magazine dot net. If you're a Christian parent, you of course want to instill a biblical view of life in the hearts of your children. If you're a pastor, you want to offer ministry that draws young families to your church. This is Alex McFarland encouraging you to check out my new book and video curriculum, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask About Christianity. Why do bad things happen? I interviewed hundreds of children, ages 5 to 12, and we address actual questions from actual children, the spiritual issues that are on the minds of your kids.

Did Jesus ever sin? The book and video lessons are great for groups of any size, and was produced with the goal of equipping kids to stand strong for Christ in any situation. The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask, the book, study guide, and video series. You'll find it at AFASTORE.NET. For apologetics resources, books by Alex McFarland, and to find out where Alex is speaking, visit alexmcfarland.com. Welcome back to the program.

Alex McFarland here. We're talking about the deadly types of ignorance. And just like we need the right equipment to do a job, we need the right vehicle to get through a storm or a blizzard, and we need the right types of knowledge to make the right types of decisions, we're going to talk about God's truth, which is the answer against the pitfalls of deadly ignorance that Ephesians 4 warns us about. And so let's talk about some types of ignorance that really do imperil people, and I would say endanger our nation today, and one is historical ignorance. I meet so many people who really don't seem to care about the fact that our Constitution must be preserved, and therefore in the preservation of our Constitution is the guarding and the preservation of our liberties. And a lot of people don't seem to care about the faraway past, and what was done to birth this nation, and how our government works, and the Christian foundation that really permeates our laws and our government. You know, at Truth for a New Generation, one of our frequent speakers is William J. Federer, Bill Federer, and I would encourage you to have his wonderful book, America's God and Country Quotation book. He's written many other books, but that one would be a good primer to get you into an appreciation for all that was done from a Christian perspective to build our land. But he talks about the fact that in Connecticut there are plaques everywhere for a couple of preachers, one in New England, Roger Williams, a Baptist preacher, and the other was Thomas Hooker, called the Father of Democracy, and the fact that we could have a representative republic and we could govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments, and we ultimately have this America with the houses of Congress and the divisions of power, the separation of powers. It was birthed out of the Church and out of a Christian worldview.

And there is a great historical ignorance right now that squelches patriotism and really opens the door for a descent into socialism and the loss of our freedoms, and if we don't recover not only some knowledge of what America is all about but some love and patriotism for what America is all about, the outcomes will be very sad indeed. We live in a time of great biblical ignorance. You know it's funny how people will email me and they'll often misquote the Bible and they'll say things like, well God helps those who help themselves. You know that's actually from one of Aesop's fables, Hercules and the Wagoneer, that there's a line that says the gods help them that help themselves.

But God helps those who help themselves is not found in the Word of God. I frequently hear people say, well the Bible says don't judge, don't judge anything. No, the Bible tells us to use discernment, and the Bible tells us to look at life from a scriptural perspective. People think the sum of the scriptures is reduced to the idea that we're not to use any discernment or judgment.

No, we are to judge all things from a biblical perspective. Money is the root of all evil. Is that a Bible verse?

Well not actually, it's 1 Timothy 6.10, for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. But we live in a time of great biblical ignorance. And the Bible says you must be born again and there's no way to heaven except through a relationship with Jesus. And let me say biblically, we can't declassify any sins. What was wrong in the eyes of God is still wrong.

Adultery, fornication, lying, yes all homosexual activity in the eyes of God is a sin. Now the good news is we can repent of sin, we can turn to Christ and be forgiven, but to be saved you must repent and forsake sin and turn to Christ. And read Luke 13.3, and read 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and unrepentant sinners, those that are doggedly resolved to continue in what the Bible specifically condemns, what they're showing is they've not met the true and living God yet. Because if you are born again and regenerated, made alive, that which is dead is made alive. And 2 Corinthians 5.17, to pass from death to life and to become a new creature and the old things pass away, that's being born again.

In Christ we are new and we're on a different path because we've done a 180, we've turned. And there's biblical ignorance to think that you can go to heaven without having repented of sin and turned to Christ. That's biblical ignorance.

I would say there is, number 3, a real eschatological ignorance, eschatology. The Bible says that evil men will wax worse and worse. The Bible says that in the last days perilous times will come and people will deny truth and false Christ will arise. People will say they are Jesus or they have the way to Jesus, and the Bible says there will be a time of violence and greed, lack of self-control, and in the end times before the return of the Lord there will be an increase in demonic activity. And let me say this dear friends, we're not going to usher in utopia here on earth. We're not going to usher in this humanistic heaven on earth. There will be the ushering in of heaven and the new Jerusalem, but it will only be after Christ returns.

We, with all of our accomplishments and all of our technological advances, what's really happened, rather than man progressing, we're degenerating because the rise of technology has been paralleled with an absolute erosion of morality. And really, this is what God predicts in the last days just before Christ's return. People need to have eschatological truth, eschatology, knowledge of the last days, not ignorance. Fourthly, there's what I would call really a soteriological ignorance, lack of knowledge about salvation. And we're going to have to come back to this after the break, but salvation, the Greek word soterios means to save. And back in Ephesians 4, it says that we're to walk in the new life and put off the old life. In verse 17 of Ephesians 4, henceforth don't walk in the ways of the lost world as we used to, but having been saved, having been born again, let that be evidenced by a new life, but a new set of priorities.

Living, planning, valuing that which God's Word says. And do you know in the third century, the Christian leader Jerome said knowledge of the Scriptures is knowledge of Christ. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ. We need this knowledge of our Savior, the Son of God, whom we find in the pages of the Word of God.

Stay tuned and we'll come back and finish our talk about the deadly types of ignorance present in our world today. Alex McFarland is here to bring you answers for the tough questions, scripture that speaks to the issues and help to develop a personal, stable and strong Christian faith. And with the help of notable names like apologist and author Josh McDowell and award-winning author and pastor emeritus of Moody Church, Erwin Lutzer, Alex and the Truth for a New Generation Conference is committed to impacting our nation for Christ and the future and to equipping you to be a difference maker.

Don't miss the final TNG Unashamed Conference for 2019, November 15th and 16th at Landmark Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Romans 1 16 says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes. Register now by calling 877-YES-GOD-1. That's 877-YES-GOD and the number one or visit truthforanewgeneration.com. First Peter 3 15 tells us to be ready always to give an answer for the hope we have.

We're instructed to be prepared to defend our faith. This is Alex McFarland for the Life Answers Teams, students we train at North Greenville University, a leading Christian college in South Carolina. The Life Answers Teams are made up of students who will inspire and equip your congregation. These apologetics teams we train speak in churches to youth groups and train Christians of all ages to address key issues of our times from a biblical perspective. Like is there a God?

Is the Bible true? What about gender and moral issues? Call me at 864-977-2008 and we will arrange for the Life Answers Team to come to your church and give a presentation that will benefit your people for years to come.

864-977-2008 and always be ready. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex McFarland is a voice you can trust to speak the timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. You're listening to Truth for a New Generation Radio. Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland here.

We're talking about deadly types of ignorance. And I do want to encourage you again, please come to Cincinnati, Ohio November 15-16. Truth for a New Generation. It's going to be amazing. Josh McDowell, Erwin Lutzer, Abe Hamilton.

About 10 amazing speakers. It will change your life. It's for all ages. And by the way, as 2020 and 2021 are even discussed, you can follow my speaking schedule where I'm speaking or debating or presenting the Truth for a New Generation events. Go to my website which is alexmcfarland.com and we put out a regular newsletter if you want to keep up with what we're doing.

Give us your email and you can reach us alex at alexmcfarland.com. Yes, it will come to me and we will do our best to respond and if you have a Bible question or you want to know about the ministry or when we're coming to your region, reach out to us alexmcfarland.com or the email alex at alexmcfarland.com. Well before the break, we were talking about historical ignorance, biblical ignorance, eschatological ignorance, and now ignorance of salvation, soteriological ignorance. There's a book I've been reading by a man named John Carroll called The Wreck of Western Culture Humanism Revisited. And it's talking about the fact that there will never be a man-made heaven on earth. A lot of people think there will be and a lot of socialists and progressives today.

You know everybody else has failed at socialism but it would work for us. And do you know there are a lot of people that really hate capitalism and frankly what America is and I think whether they know it or not, they don't like America because America was based on Christianity. But let me read from The Wreck of Western Culture by John Carroll. He says, quote, Humanism desired to create a city of light but today it is culture's metropolis that is in ruins. The wreck of humanist culture is in stark contrast to the physical edifice that humanism desired to create. Now listen, what he's saying is there was this drive to create this utopia on earth and humans felt like they could do it.

Now listen to this. Carroll says this drive was quote channeled into science and technology. The material comfort enjoyed by Western societies in the last century represents a giant advance in the human experience and we are duty-bound to acknowledge that. Okay now the good news of all of our accomplishments were things like medicine and improvements in agriculture and technology. But do you know that what really science and industry was birthed out of a Christian worldview on two fronts?

Now follow me here. For one thing science came out of the church because they believed it's an orderly world, the product of an orderly God Creator. God the Creator is orderly therefore creation is orderly, observable and intelligible.

In other words we can make sense of it. Well there were scientific discoveries, there was technological advances, industry. And do you know it was really out of the 17th and 18th century Europe that was under the Wesley led revival that people began to work and morality took a greater hold in the lives of people and there was prosperity, capitalism and also not only in Europe but over here in the colonies with William Bradford the idea that we should have personal property ownership rights. If you work hard by the sweat of your brow till the ground and grow things you ought to be able to keep it.

So listen to this. Socialism today and earth worship and the climate change activists and the anti-capitalists they want to undo the good things that came out of the Industrial Revolution and Western culture and capitalism. Now I'm going to continue to quote John Carroll from the book The Wreck of Western Culture which is not a Christian book per se although the conclusions dovetail nicely with Christian thought. Carroll asked this question. Who in their right mind would give up clean water, sanitation and sewers, antibiotics, reliable supplies of food, civic police, the jumbo jet, computers and skyscrapers in exchange for what had come before, the filth contagion and stench of medieval Europe. Well who would give up all that? Progressives. Those that hate God and hate our accomplishments. People that want to take America and Americans backward into the times of medieval Europe. Liberals, secular educators, anti-vaxxers, climate change activists and frankly and having been to more than 200 universities to speak, delusional pampered Western left-wingers. Look as the culture teeters on disorder. Some that are enamored with the hyper structure of fundamental Islam. Some want to incorporate Muslim ways further and further into America and that would really be a journey backward into the culture of 6th century desert indigence of Muslim life. And folks there is a social and cultural and historical and spiritual ignorance present in so many lives.

Now we were talking about if you are in inclement weather you need chains on the wheels if you are going to make it. I want to say there is not only a spiritual blindness and moral ignorance, relational ignorance, practical ignorance. There is just an arrogance to think that we can live without God.

You know Yale University Press just recently put out a book on hubris and they said this, each generation seems to believe that the truths learned in the past are now irrelevant and the paradigm has changed or that there are now better techniques to avoid past mistakes. Listen we can't fool ourselves. Without God we can't do it. Without truth we are not going to make it. We need to humble ourselves before God.

The Chinese say that the fuller a stalk of rice the more it bends down. The fact that we are standing up shaking our fist in the face of God shows that we are not full, we are empty. Because in the spirit of humility if we were full of God's truth we would be bowing humbly, repentantly before God. And Ephesians 4 verse 20 says you have not learned so of Christ. If it so be that you have heard Him and have been taught by Him as the truth which is in Jesus, put off the former conversation or the former lifestyle of the old man which is corrupt according to deceitful lust and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. We need our lives renewed, we need our behaviors renewed, we need our mind restored and renewed and we need our soul made alive and that comes my dear friend through Jesus. Call on Him today. He is as close by as a prayer and as lives are changed our nation will be changed.

So follow Christ, live by His truth and please take it upon yourself to pray for the United States of America. TNG radio is made possible by the friends of Alex McFarland Ministries, P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro North Carolina 27404.

That's P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro North Carolina 27404. Call us at 877-YES-GOD-1. That's 877-YES-GOD and the number 1 or give online at AlexMcFarland.com. While you're there listen to program archives, read Alex's blog, invite Alex to speak at your event or contact Alex with a question or comment. AlexMcFarland.com. Thanks for listening today and join us again next time as we bring you more truth for a new generation on TNG radio.