The Alex McFarland Show-82-There is Hope in this Seemingly Hopeless World

The spiritual condition of America, politics, culture, and current events, analyzed through the lens of Scripture. Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. Do you know your identity and purpose in life? If you don't know your identity, you don't have a secure handle on who you are and why you're here, where would you begin to look?

Hi, Alex McFarland here. On this part of the program we're going to talk about finding your identity and purpose, and we're going to read 1 Peter 2 verse 9 and really talk about what God's Word says about the true identity of one who's a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. I also want to share some statistics that sociologists and psychologists are saying about the emotional and really psychological crises that people find themselves in in this day and age.

You know, in the aftermath of the COVID era and the quarantines, so many people have been having to go to school remotely, work remotely, and there's a real isolation, and there really was kind of an isolation of people from each other even before COVID began. But the quarantines have only intensified this, and now we've got the war in the Middle East, and the economy is imploding, and there's violence, and there are mass shootings, and there are so many things that make people believe that this world is just hopeless. And really, apart from Jesus Christ, it really would be hopeless, and is hopeless, except in the salvation that is offered by Jesus Christ, and in the absolute new life that Christ offers all people, there is hope. And of course, the Bible says that the blessed hope is the return of Christ, but I want to read from 1 Peter 2, 9 about the church, believers, and the Bible says this of Christians, quote, but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Now look at this verse, if you would, with me. You, the believer, you're a chosen people. In other words, Almighty God desired to have a relationship with you.

Isn't that something? I mean, that alone should give life significance. A royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession. Now right there, we have our identity, a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation set apart, God's special possession. So what is our purpose?

And we'll come back to this, but to declare the praises of him, that's Jesus, who called us out of darkness and into his wonderful light. Now I know there's a lot there, but let's talk a little bit about why this is so important to really get our mind around. You know, across America, two out of three adults describe themselves as Christian, but groups like the Barna Research Group, the Pew Forum, and those that measure the spiritual, moral, and social cultural trends of our nation, they acknowledge that really just about 6% of adults and just 9% of citizens who call themselves Christian possess a biblically informed worldview. Now what is a worldview? A worldview is the way that you see reality. Your view of life, in other words, the lens that you look at the world through, shapes what you believe is important, what you believe is really true and real, what you believe is good, how you really even understand history, much less the future and the present.

Your worldview, as we've shared many times, is a set of assumptions about the world. Now our nation was built on a biblical worldview. The Speaker of the House that's just been elected, Mike Johnson, has said on record that he holds to a biblical worldview. And the media and people in Washington are just having a meltdown that somebody would actually believe the Bible and believe that the Bible is relevant to this world.

And yet, the best and the brightest minds of history, the most influential, venerated leaders had a biblical worldview and certainly those that built America had a biblical worldview. Now among American adults who claim to have a biblical worldview, there are massive inconsistencies between what they say they believe and what the Bible teaches. For example, just a few months ago, those that claim to have a biblical worldview say that 33% of people have a sin nature and must be saved through Jesus Christ. So get this, those that claim to have a biblical worldview, 67% are saying people don't have a sin nature and don't need to be saved through Jesus Christ. 47% of people claiming to have a biblical worldview believe that when they die they will go to heaven because they have confessed their sins and turned to Jesus in faith. So 53% believe you can go to heaven without Jesus.

Isn't that something? Now of those who claim to have a biblical worldview, less than half say that they would look to the scripture, the Bible, as their source material for moral guidance in the situations of life. And I think about this, of those that claim to have a biblical worldview, 49% accept reincarnation as a possibility after they die.

So we've got a real problem because your worldview, what you believe about life, and again if you're a born again Christian, you should look to the word of God, not the word of man, as your source for truth about the important things of life. Now what areas of life are shaped by worldview? Well, family life, entertainment and news choices, politics, government, business, how one lives and conducts himself in the public square, the marketplace. What about personal and religious life, behavior, education, what is really true?

What about personal relationships? You know, I think about creation. I just had the privilege a few weeks ago of speaking in Cincinnati at the ARC, Answers in Genesis, incredible ministry. And very often it's been my privilege to speak with Ken Ham about how so many people have deviated from what the Bible says about creation. And really what you believe about our origins definitely informs what you believe about the present day and the future. And science is ever-changing. And one group of scientists that come along will set forth ideas and theorems that refute previous scientists. Science is all of the map. In my book, Stand, Core Truths You Must Know for an Unshakable Faith, I talk about the fact that in Paris, France, there's a library of antiquated science books.

Twelve miles of shelving of books once thought to be absolutely unquestionably true and later refuted. And yet the Word of God, the Bible says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And so what the Bible says about origin, purpose, the problems of the world, ultimately the solution, which is Jesus Christ. I mean, we really need to take the unchanging Word of God above the ever-changing Word of man. Well, when we come back, we're going to elaborate on our purpose and our identity in Christ and why it provides a firm foundation for life, for emotional stability, priorities, character.

In other words, our future, because of what we believe. Hebrews 11, 6, regarding trusting God's Word. Hebrews 11, 6 says, without faith, it is impossible to please God. For the one who comes to God must believe that he is.

In other words, you've got to believe that God exists and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Stay tuned. We're going to come back and talk about identity, purpose, stability, and joy on this edition of the program with Alex McFarland. Stay tuned. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert.

Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. In recent years, our nation has suffered greatly, and we seem to be on a rapid moral decline. We've rejected God, morality, and we've almost completely lost our sense of patriotism.

It's no wonder that many are asking the question, is this the end of America? Hi, Alex McFarland here, and I want to make you aware of my book, The Assault on America. How to defend our nation before it's too late.

You know, our nation has seen politicians that are corrupted by greed, and they've got a vested interest in power, and many of our elected officials seem to care little about the country that they've been appointed to serve. Read my book, The Assault on America. We can stand up for our great nation and defend America before it's too late.

It's available everywhere. You can learn more on my own website, which is alexmcfarland.com. Read the book, The Assault on America. How to defend our nation before it's too late.

He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to The Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to the program.

Alex McFarland here. We're talking about our identity, purpose, joy, stability in life, which we solidly find in Jesus Christ. And we started with the verse from 1 Peter 2, 9 that says, You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood.

I mean, think about that. If you're a believer, that's your true identity. Even if people reject you, you feel like you don't fit in, you don't belong. The good things in life go to somebody else. No, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood.

1 Peter 2, 9 says, God's special possession. And I think about the crises that we're in. We've talked about this several times over recent weeks. Because of our abandonment of truth, our abandonment of the authority of God's word related to not only creation, but present moral and spiritual boundaries, our future, but our basic identity. We are in three crises of truth, authority, and identity, which leads to that fourth crisis of a crisis about our future.

Where are my decisions taking me? And nowhere is the crisis of human identity more pronounced. And more vividly laid out than in the crisis over transgenderism. And so many people, and I've talked with some of these people, they don't know if they're a male or a female, or they think they're transgender, transhuman, gender fluidity, even ontological fluidity.

They might think they're some other species. You know, Fox News reported not long ago, Dr. Christian Nusslein-Volhard, a German medical researcher who earned the Nobel Prize in Physiology, said in a magazine in Europe that, quote, transgenderism is nonsense. The magazine Emma, E-M-M-A, a German feminist magazine, Nusslein-Volhard, the Nobel Prize winning physiologist, said, quote, transgenderism is nonsense.

It's wishful thinking. People retain their gender for life. And someone was commenting on this esteemed scholar. Jennifer Roback-Morse, Ph.D. of the Ruth Institute, affirmed not only Nusslein-Volhard's credentials, but also conclusion, saying, quote, she's a professional. She knows what she's talking about. She's a biologist and a physiologist and she believes in the hard sciences, which have a hard connection to reality.

And yet we've got people all around us believing that gender is fluid and really you can't know not only who you are or what truth is, you can't really know anything. Now, let me throw out in trying to delineate the crisis of identity and authority and the crisis of truth, a couple of names. Now, some of you that are world viewish will know these names. Jacques Derrida, who lived 1930 to 2004. And it looks like Michael Foucault, but it's really pronounced Michel Foucault, who both of these guys were French philosophers and they both rejected truth. They both rejected God. I cannot overstate.

I cannot overstate how influential these people are. Jacques Derrida said this, and he really is known as the father of deconstruction. Now, deconstruction says that words don't really mean things. And even you hearing my words right now, I might say there are fish in the lake. But to a deconstructionist who believes and teaches nonsense, you know, I say there are fish in the lake, but they don't just take the words for what they mean.

They might say, well, you know, who is Alex McFarland? He's a white conservative male. He's got some agenda.

He's trying to leverage people. He certainly doesn't mean what he says, and those words don't even have meanings until I project my meaning into them. The deconstructionist philosophy basically eliminates the possibility of truth being conveyed and knowledge, certain knowledge about reality being possible. Now, here's what Derrida said. Now, listen to this. Any author's intent means little at all, and meaning is impossible to determine.

Why? Because the author's culture, setting, and situation differ from that of his readers. Now, just think about this, and this is what kids are being taught in college and very often even in literature classes in high school. Let's talk about the U.S. Constitution.

Well, the Declaration, Bill of Rights, Constitution, those documents, those governing documents that have made our nation so great, but nowadays kids are being taught wokeness and the idea that, well, the founder's culture, setting, and situation is different than ours. Therefore, whatever they might have meant, now keep in mind we can't know what they meant, but whatever it meant, it's wrong, it's not our situation, and we reject it. Doesn't matter, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Thomas Jefferson, you know, all of the great thinkers throughout history. First of all, they must have been bad, would say the woke revisionist deconstructionist because they were males, they were European.

We've got to throw them out. But Derrida, his philosophy is so hugely influential, it's terrible. And in critical theory, critical theory says that invariably the author has this position of authority, and all that matters is identifying who is the oppressed and who is the oppressor. Now you think about this, how self-defeating and unlivable this is. You know, imagine you're in a burning building and somebody runs through the door and says, everybody get out, you're in danger, the building's on fire. Well, for the deconstructionist and the woke person, before you could take their words to heart and say, oh my goodness, the building's on fire, we better escape. They would say, now wait a minute, is that a male speaking, because if it's a male, they obviously are part of the patriarchy and they are trying to exploit us, so let's disregard what they say.

In other words, it's crazy. The question is not who said this or that, the question is what was said and is it true. Now let me explain how Derrida's philosophy of language and truth fails its own test. Okay, Derrida, who, and again, these French philosophers, they were atheists, they were lost. They were unsaved, they didn't know God, they didn't know truth, and yet their pernicious evil ideas live beyond their own lives, but here's how it fails its own test. He says, any author's intent is impossible to determine.

Why? Because I, the listener or the reader, I don't know his setting, his situation, my setting, my culture, my situation is different, but see, by that test, I don't even know what that guy was saying. If an author's meaning is impossible to determine, then we could rightly say to Derrida, well, we don't know what you're talking about.

You might as well be saying that, you know, kitty cats eat Hershey bars for breakfast. Let me tell you about another influential atheist that really has played into the woke philosophy and the worldviews in which we find ourselves today, Michel Foucault. He was speaking in a 1977 college lecture.

He died in 1984. Now this guy, Foucault, did not believe in God, certainly didn't believe in moral boundaries, didn't believe in sin or the need for salvation, but he really showed his cards because he said, quote, let us sin to infinity. One must respond to every law established in the world by violating it, and in effect, overthrowing the one who created the world. Do you see that? It's not so much that these guys were searching for truth or wanting to help people know what is real.

They didn't believe in moral boundaries and they attacked God and they didn't believe in sin or salvation, but Foucault and his disciples say, sin to infinity and overthrow the creator of the world by violating every law in the world. Well, this has left us with a crisis of identity. But when we come back, we're going to talk about meaning, purpose and fulfillment in coming back to the solid, unshakable rock of truth, which is the revelation of God and the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Stay tuned.

We're back after this. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this.

to find out the truth for themselves. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex is a sound voice who speaks timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. With 18 published books to his name, it's no surprise that CNN, Fox, The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets have described Alex as a religion and culture expert. To learn more about Alex and to book him as a speaker at your next event, visit alexmcfarland.com or you can contact us directly by emailing booking at alexmcfarland.com.

He's been called trusted, truthful and timely. Welcome back to The Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to the program.

We're talking about our identity, our purpose, our authority which is God's word and really our future being rooted in God and his revelation which is truth. By the way, I want to remind people of some exciting things coming up as we record this program. We just had a two-day meeting with staff and partners around the country about our summer camps for next summer. The summer of 2024 we're going to be doing at least six and maybe more youth camps. Last summer we had a phenomenal year of training more than a thousand teenagers in biblical worldview.

More than 300 prayed to accept Christ. And so stay tuned to the website equipretreat.org for information about our summer camps. And then also I'm going to be at The Cove, the Billy Graham Training Center in western North Carolina July 12th through 14th next year. I'll be teaching 1st John and much like the content of this program we'll be talking about the believer's identity and authority in Christ. And a trip to The Cove is unforgettable.

The food, the accommodations, just the incredible breathtaking Appalachian Mountains and then of course the presence of the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord is at The Cove I assure you and you'll join with people from all over the world and we'll have a great time in the Word of God. We'll pray together, we'll fellowship.

Go to the website thecove.org T-H-E-C-O-V-E thecove.org Put my name in the space bar. And Angie and I would love to see you next summer July 12th through 14th at The Cove. And then of course on my website alexmcfarland.com our travel schedule, events around the country, my teaching at Caris Bible College, so many things. The brand new book, 100 Bible Questions and Answers for Families which is available everywhere.

I'm doing book signings at Christian bookstores, Barnes and Noble. And finally I want to say as we're already in November of 23 and this year is going to a close I want to thank everybody who financially supports and enables us every week to proclaim the Gospel to millions of listeners to teach the Word of God. And as the year wraps up if you would consider us in your giving we truly do need your help. We are grateful.

We use it, in my opinion, incredibly fruitfully. And so you can give securely online at alexmcfarland.com or you can mail a tax deductible contribution if you would make your checks to T-N-G as in truth for a new generation. And you can mail those to P.O.

Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27408. And please know that we're deeply grateful. But as we wrap up, as time fleets away let's remember our identity and purpose.

Our identity. We're God's special possession in 1 Peter 2.9. And that really hearkens back to the language of Micah when it says, When the Son of Man returns with healing in his wings and he will take up his jewels and when we see Jesus and we're with him in heaven we will leap like calves released from the stall.

I've seen little cows and livestock do the joy dance around the barnyard when they're let out of the barn for joy. You're going to be set free. And in fact if you're a Christian you already are free. Our purpose to declare his praise. Jesus who has set us free called us out of darkness into the light.

Now let me unpack these a little bit. The four statements about our true identity. A chosen people. That means the called out race. A royal priesthood. That means we are God's empowered representatives. A holy nation.

Now what's interesting is the word in the Greek, holy nation, is ethnos. You know we hear so much about racism nowadays. Look, your true ethnicity is that you're part of God's family. There's no black or white.

There's no racism. But we are a ginos, a race of people that will never be extinguished. Matthew 24. The church will never be eliminated. We will be here till Christ returns.

That's also Matthew 16, 18. And our true ethnicity. We're a holy nation. God's special possession. That means united with our owner. Isn't that something? If you're a believer you're in the palms of God's hands.

Really. And then our purpose to declare the praises. That means in the original language, quote, to publicly announce his excellence. The praises of him. It means of the one.

Which one? The only one, God himself. The second member of the Trinity, God the Son.

Now this is so beautiful, folks. Jesus, 1 Peter 2, 9, who called us out of darkness. And the wording there means summoned you out of sin and its results. So you've been summoned. The king has called your name, my friend. You've been summoned out of sin and delivered from the results of sin. And it says where declare his praises to this world. The praises of Jesus who called us out of darkness and into his wonderful light.

That means the awe evoking light that he is. Isn't that something? So we have this. This is our true identity. Salvation, a daily walk and a witness.

Let's unpack this a bit. Salvation. That means we are to intricately understand our true identity in Christ. Our daily walk, intimately experience each day with the one who is the basis of our identity. And witness, intentionally pursue deeper levels of obedience and fruitfulness.

So intricate, intimate, intentional. Intricately know Jesus and experience every day with him. And intentionally pursue our walk and our witness. That really reminds me of 2 Corinthians 5.20 where the Apostle Paul writes this. He says we are therefore Christ's ambassadors. As though God were making his appeal through us.

We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. Do you know the word ambassador there really means a mature spokesperson. This is what's so amazing about the Christian life.

I mean there can be a child who's 7 or 8 years old. But if they know the Lord and they've got Bible in their brain, they are a mature ambassador, a spokesperson. I've known young people that were very deep with Christ.

And I've known older people that were very superficial. But we are the mature spokespersons. We are Christ's ambassadors. And 2 Corinthians 5.20 as though God were making his appeal through us.

In other words, if Jesus himself were here, he would say exactly what I'm telling you. Be saved, be born again, turn to Christ, be reconciled to God. So what do we know?

What do we conclude from all of this? In a world lost and groping in the dark for truth, here are the things. Listen, God invites you to be truly free and to truly feel accepted as his child. Think about this. If you're a believer, you've put your faith in Christ.

Okay, know this. Please take it to heart. Because of Jesus, I am accepted, I'm chosen, I'm loved, I'm God's creation, I'm precious in his sight. You think about these things.

Appropriate these things to you because this is your true reality. Listen, you are precious in his sight. You are forgiven. You have been redeemed. You will never be lost or forsaken.

You do have an eternal inheritance and nothing can separate you from the love of God. You know, they say that in the course of a year, the average person will speak nine million words in a year. And one third, one half of those words are I, me and mine. No wonder we're depressed. We're entitled, we're narcissistic.

We think the world owes us something and we think it's all about us. When really, friend, the freedom, the liberty, the joy that you seek is when you forget about you and put everything in him, Jesus, who invites you to be a part of his royal priesthood. And that reality can be yours today because Jesus is as close by as a prayer. Alex McFarland Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you. For over 20 years this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth. Learn more and donate securely online at AlexMcFarland.com. You may also reach us at Alex McFarland, P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. Or by calling 1-877-Yes-God-1.

That's 1-877-Y-E-S-G-O-D-1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of the Alex McFarland Show. Go to AlexMcFarland.com and look for the section that says Ask Alex Online.