Satan's Design for Humanity: Paganism - Session 4

Paganism as Satan’s Anti-Design

Thank you for praying for my voice. A number of you have told me you are. I appreciate that God's strength is magnified in our weakness. It's not that we're not called to be strong in God, but it is that our strength is Powered by God through our own weakness and that is very much True of me and by the way again, I will sign any book you want me to sign.

I may sit at that table right there and put a chair behind it and just sign books. If you want your book signed you may not want your book signed. It will decrease the value of the book. It's like driving the car off the lot at the car dealership.

The minute you drive it off the lot it goes down like seven thousand dollars or something like that. Unless you have a Miata like squirrel in which case Miata's never die, but I will sign anything you want me to sign at lunchtime.

Romans 1 and the Nature of Paganism

In this session, we're going to transition a little bit and now we're going to think about Satan's Anti design so we have been talking about God's design. Thank you for your attention. By the way I'm throwing a lot at you this morning, and this is not lo-fi content.

My wife tells me I'm fire hosie. That's a term you can use. I'm kind of fire hosie. So I appreciate you Bearing up under all this material. We're going to talk now in this session about paganism and this reminds us that we're not just up against the sexual revolution.

We're up against something much bigger than just the American sexual revolution, which is a massive cultural force. What we're up against is much more ancient than the sexual revolution as it's often called.

It's it's it's a system. I call paganism. And we're going to define this as we go. What I want to do with you is Just a few things. We're going to look first at Romans 1 18 to 32. Because I believe it's in Romans 1 that Paul gives us a biblical Unpacking of paganism of living basically living according to your flesh.

That's what paganism is in a really succinct form. If someone's a pagan they don't walk in the ways of God. They walk according to the flesh now if someone's a Christian they've been freed from the power of the flesh.

They're no longer a slave to sin. Right Romans 6 the sounding familiar if you are in Christ if you're born again. You're no longer a slave to sin not because of your own effort or your own will or your own Concentrative powers because of the work of God because of the work of the warrior Savior Jesus Christ who by his blood has overcome the power of sin on your behalf and now that has Come to fruition in you as the Spirit has regenerated you and given you a new heart.

And now you've trusted Christ by faith and you you've repented of your sin. Not as a work that you and I do not as a merit based reality. But because that's what people regenerated by the Spirit do. If if you give a plant life if you plant it in the ground and water it it lives.

That is not because the plant has performed good works that is that have made it live. That is because that is the nature of a plant in the same way. It is the nature of a Christian. It is the nature of somebody born again through the Spirit to live to trust Christ and to repent of sin and That then means that you have not just a calling to to walk in a godly way.

You want to walk in a godly way? People who are truly born again don't have to be Harangued or harassed into godly living. We all have our ups and downs as we've talked about but fundamentally born again.

People want to follow Jesus because of the Spirit's work in our heart. That is the really the fundamental marker of a Christian that you want first John really the whole the whole letter. You want to follow Jesus?

Because God has given you a love for Jesus but a pagan has no such instincts. A Pagan has no regeneration that has happened. A Pagan does not have the Holy Spirit and so what a pagan wants to do is walk according to the flesh live out The desires and passions of their sinful heart and that's not the people out there.

That's all of us in our natural state. We're all Naturally a pagan. This is what Romans 1 18 to 32 maps. Let's turn there and consider.

Now.

Paganism.

Romans 1 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible Attributes namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse. For although they the Gentiles knew God They did not honor him as God or give thanks to him but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened claiming to be wise they became fools and Exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another men committing shameless acts with men and Receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God God gave them up to a debased mind to do what not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness evil Covetousness malice. They are full of envy murder strife deceit maliciousness.

They are gossips slanderers haters of God insolent haughty boastful inventors of evil disobedient to parents foolish faithless heartless ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.

They not only do them But give approval to those who practice them. Let's pray father as we turn to this portion of your word and to the topic of paganism I pray that you would help us to understand and apply your truth for our good and your glory in Jesus name.

Amen, I.

Will not attempt a full-scale exegesis of these verses. What I will do simply as we begin here is Walk through and grab several key realities of this Passage in order that we would understand the condition of sinful man with first reference to the group called Gentiles.

But in reality what we will see is that even as the Jews have fallen away from God. Tragically, we all live in pagan ways. Naturally, and so this passage I believe applies to lost people. Writ large. Lostness as a condition is expressed in verse 18 by suppressing the truth.

Suppressing the truth. It turns out according to the Apostle Paul that no one is an honest atheist. Lots of people say they are. Lots of people think they are but in reality verse 19 for every human person.

What can be known about God Paul says is not obscure. He says it is plain to them. It is plain to them and he goes on to say The things of God the existence of God is plain to all people. Why? Because God has shown it to them.

God has made it very clear that he exists and That he is not the creature. We are all a creature. He is the creator. God has made that clear. Verse 20 goes on to unfold that further his invisible attributes.

Namely his eternal power and divine nature have been Distorted in the world, right? Is that what he says? No have been clearly perceived. For all time ever since the creation of the world Paul writes in the things that have been made in the created order.

So they are without excuse. This tells us yes that there are people who fall into a trap of atheism. There absolutely are don't misunderstand me. But there's nobody who is actually justified in atheism.

People are not lacking.

Proof about God.

People are not lacking evidence about God. They say they are and they think they are but they aren't because God has Clearly displayed his eternal power and his divine nature. You can see it in the creation in in simplified form here living in this natural beauty.

Even as an unbeliever, you know at some level that you are not God and you know that there has to be a God. To make this and sustain this that in simplified form is what Paul is saying. This is part of why in seminary training and in the theological teaching I do I try to help people understand That our greatest burden with the unbeliever is not to convince them through proofs that God exists.

That's what Aquinas and others in the Catholic tradition argued and there have been a number of Evangelicals who have embraced that idea and they spend a lot of energy and time trying to convince people of these proofs That God exists.

The proofs themselves the five proofs by the way, philosophically are not necessarily bad. I'm happy to talk about them with an unbeliever. But the fact that there is cause and effect in the world, for example.

It is not what Paul identifies as what is needed to convince an unbeliever of the truth of the gospel. The unbeliever knows that there's cause and effect. They they know in some deep buried sense in their heart that there can only be Something because there has been a cause and they know according to these words trust Paul not me.

That they have seen proof in the creation that God Exists. So my duty what I'm trying to say is this and your duty as a Christian witness Isn't to get really Philosophically smart as if you have to do that and then handle all these philosophical matters.

Our duty is to point people to these truths and say These things may be obscured in your own heart and your sight. But God is real. God made you God exists. God is the ruler of everything in this world and actually Fellow sinner who is made in the image of God.

You know this, you know that God exists and you are actively right now Suppressing the truth. That's what verse 18 says. Says the unbelievers look at the end of the verse by their unrighteousness Suppress the truth.

It's not that they don't know the truth. I don't mean the gospel, but they don't know the Creator exists. They do know the Creator exists we all do every person does. It's not that we have an information problem and We need a lot of philosophy podcasts To get us up to theistic levels.

It's that we have a suppression problem. We suppress what we know to be true as a result of all of this. We have become fools. Verse 22 mankind would rather live as a fool than as a follower of God and not only that.

Verse 23 indicates that we all are worshippers. Our hearts are made for worship. Your heart is not a little bitty Thomas the train steam engine. Your heart is a Japanese bullet train in terms of its power.

It really is. That's the worship capacity you have in your heart every person in this room including these precious little babies they have Developing. Of course, they have a capacity for worship that if you could somehow assess it it would knock your socks off.

We have a speeding bullet train of worship in our heart. We are worshipful beings and the question is not whether we will worship as numerous theologians have pointed out. The question is what we will worship.

Everybody's worshiping something. A common target of our worship is Ourselves. That's probably the most common expression of worship in this sinful world. But it's not the only one. We will worship just about anything.

Won't we you see it's not that atheists worship nothing. It's that in our sinful condition, we'll all will worship Something and we can even end up worshiping everything which means you worship nothing.

But atheists don't have their worship capacity like the little switch right here. This is the worship switch just so you know click their worship switch is not off and ours as conservative Christians is on click it's on no.

It's that everybody's worship switch click you get the sound effects for free. Everybody's everybody's worship switch is on. It's on at all times. It's just a matter of what you'll worship. You worship self you worship The person you find beautiful you worship images resembling mortal man's worship birds creeping things.

Nature rock bands. Deprivation chambers military heroes. Celebrities athletes.

Novelists parents.

Children and on it goes. Everybody is worshiping something. We have very.

Powerful.

Worship capacities in us and To turn this around to positive news for just a second before we dive back into the darkness here. This helps us understand what happens when we are regenerated. When we are regenerated the bullet train is redirected.

It's redirected away from hell and the realm of darkness and it is shot into the stratosphere To worship God and Jesus Christ. You're a way bigger Worshipper than you think you are. Your capacity to worship God is way bigger than you know It to be and that is what your soul is made for.

Your soul isn't made for lesser things. C .s. Lewis is really with Edwards the best figure in the Christian tradition at expressing this. I just agree with him about a few things, but nonetheless C .s. Lewis understood in a powerful way Just how full-throttle the human heart is in its capacity for worship.

We don't have 42 horsepower in this heart. With apologies to those who love cars and car culture. This is like this is like a I shouldn't say the word Hellcat. I was gonna say this is a Hellcat engine, but that's not a good.

That's not good. I'm gonna say this That's not good. That's self-editing on the fly in public here. This is a Dodge Ram, you know max horsepower.

800.

Horsepower engine in us for worship. So Christian you weren't made for lesser things. You weren't made to worship Humanity, you weren't made to worship an interest group. You weren't made to worship a sport.

You weren't made to worship the creation. You were made to worship God. You were made to worship an infinite being and that's where you will find joy. Not when you worship yourself or this world, but when you worship God, that's where all the joy is.

In worshiping God worship isn't just when there's there's singing up here. That's great. That's a part of worship. That's a key part of worship the Bible teaches. But worship is all of life and and our growth as a Christian is is.

Bit by bit.

Day by day realizing that more and more and more wait. My whole life is worship. It's not that I worship when I go to church alone, that's corporate worship that matters to God, it's very valuable. It's that all of life is worship.

You see all of life is worship for the pagans. Do you understand that? That's what we're in. We're not just in a culture that has featured different stages of the sexual revolution were in a war of worship and The question before us is are the pagans going to out worship us or are we going to out worship them?

Said differently and slightly less contentiously. Are we going to show the pagans that our God is worth giving up their worship? For the true worship of the Living God and the answer is to give you the answer key at the beginning of the test.

Yes. This this is the only reality worth worshiping God in Christ and this world is not worth it at all, but they are. Worshiping to the smartest atheist with degrees from Oxford and Cambridge is a worshiper.

The celebrity who's living out the perfect blend of work-life balance and is doing all the juice cleanses. Imaginable and has the perfect, you know airbrushed home and the kids sitting on the couch smiling that Celebrity on Instagram is worshiping.

We're all a worshiper. We're all a worshiper. It's just a matter of what we are worshiping the positive form of that to understand. Is that when you are born again now again? All of life is worship and that doesn't just mean the easy parts of your life.

That's how Christians tend to think quick word here and we go back to paganism. We tend to think when I'm happy when my life is good as I was saying some in the last session. Then I'm fitted for worship.

Then I'm I'm I'm able to worship.

No.

No, that's the wrong way to think. Honestly, we all think it it's the wrong way to think. Do you know? Some of the best opportunities for worship of the Living God, you know when they come. Suffering pagans worship in large part Because they are getting to do what they want.

Their worship is dependent on their circumstances. Christians worship in good seasons and Definitely worship God in good seasons give thanks for all the good in your life. But Christians also worship God in bad seasons.

Christians don't just worship when it's the happy wedding day for their child or You know their their kid is doing well and has become a missionary and moved overseas something happy like this. Christians worship God.

When a child is sick and is not quickly healed. Christians worship God. Worship God when a child.

Dies.

That's how far Christian worship goes. Christian worship unlike pagan worship Isn't dependent or driven by your circumstances and that Along with the end of worship God. That is the difference and That is a huge part of the witness.

We are supposed to provide to the world. It's not just Billy Graham renting out stadiums, you know 80 years ago and witnessing to people. There was some good in that not not all but there was some good in that.

But actually the normal form of witness we're supposed to provide as believers isn't anything fancy. Most of us aren't going to be a globe-traveling evangelist. The worship the world needs to see from us is worship that is expressed in good seasons medium seasons and bad seasons and Don't underestimate how powerful that worship will end up being.

Some of you have seen this on social media just a quick word here, but there's a family I believe their last names are the Morgan family. They live in New Jersey. The husband is in Christian ministry strong strong ministry that he has Reformed guy and went to Southern like I did and they were just on a Sabbatical pastoral sabbatical, you know, like four months off or something first sabbatical of his pastoral career.

Pastors don't often get a lot of that. Do they Jim a lot of hard work in the pastor? Pastors need sabbaticals by the way, but I think they should have them. Anyway, they go to Maine to my home state just happened to go there.

I don't know this family or have any connection to them. But they go to Maine and they have just begun their sabbatical and the kids are playing. And they're by the lake and everything is good. This is days ago.

This is all true. This is days ago like a week ago. And the kids are playing badminton or something like this in the backyard and there's some kind of terrible freak. Accident and a piece of the racket splinters and goes into the skull of a little girl named Lucy.

Lucy this is pastor's daughter and so. Immediately the family swings into action and they they go to Maine Medical Hospital I know Maine Med in Portland, Maine and over the next three days. They they storm heaven with their prayers and and this pastor.

Last name of Morgan asks for people to pray on social media and writes several blogs. He wrote them days ago hours ago and long story short. Just a couple days ago Lucy died. So this pastor and his wife are finally getting a break.

Finally getting a sabbatical they go to a beautiful place to rest and relax and not have hardship happen, right? That's the whole point. It's still like.

Ah.

Pastors don't just need sabbaticals in a sunk. In some sense Christian families all need them to some degree so good for us. That's what they were doing. But little Lucy in a freak accident that no one could have prevented as I understand it Has part of a racket go into her skull and she dies and they have Returned home from their vacation with one less child in the back seat.

That's their sabbatical and they are crushed as as you would be and I would pee. But here's the point in everything this pastor has communicated he's expressed trust and faith in God and So the worst possible moment in their life has become you understand the point it has become an opportunity.

For worship of the Living God it has become in a way They never would have planned for never would have asked for an opportunity to worship God to show that God is greater than anything in this life and to show that even when Circumstances truly are at zero of a hundred in terms of goodness.

Yet God is good. Isn't that the message of the book of Job? Job loses everything including his children his precious children. He's a good father. He offers sacrifices for them in a old covenantal form of worship if they have done something and he doesn't know about it.

He's such a godly plugged-in father, but even all that godly fatherhood does nothing to save his kids. They're their physical lives. They're all killed. Satan attacks Job. Satan attacks Job's family in order that Job would curse God and die and that's exactly what Job's wife sadly says to him.

She says in her own absolute despair Curse God and die and we all can understand hitting that low. Paul himself says in 2nd Corinthians 1 8 that he despaired of life itself at points in his ministry. Paul knew.

Going into the abyss and looking down it and almost walking off the cliff. Paul knew that. It's it's not it's not nihilistic to acknowledge That that you can get to that place even as a believer. Paul did he despaired of life itself.

That's dark. That's low. He was right beside Job. He was right beside Daniel in the lion's den. Shoulder-to-shoulder. Have you gone there? Are you there? As someone, you know been in that pit. Some of us may be called in days ahead to go To that pit and stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

With those men and many women we could name. But the Christian by the grace of God does one thing different from the pagan. The Christian worships God. The Lord Gives and the Lord takes away. Job says Blessed be the name of the Lord.

That's Worship God. God work in us. God work in us. That we would offer that kind of testimony in that kind of darkness and some of you may have. Some of you may have done this praise God if you have.

We are all worshipers. The pagans verse 25 have exchanged the truth about God for a lie. And they worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. The stakes are very high here and Then following the God giving them up in verse 24 God has given up the pagans in the lusts of their hearts to impurity.

Verse 26 has a second giving up. There's three in this passage for this reason verse 26 God gave them up to dishonorable passions and what follows there is all sorts of sexual aberration. Initially in a heterosexual form and then in a homosexual Form in verse 27 and because of that verse 28 They did not acknowledge God.

God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done and now follows a Pandora's horrible box of every evil imaginable that floods the world and all of this is because They did not see fit to acknowledge God and that points us to just how high the stakes are with Acknowledging God and giving thanks to God and seeing the fourteen thousand nine hundred ninety-nine instead of focusing on the one in our lives if In gratitude is allowed to seep into our life bit by bit by bit like a tide.

Coming in as the day goes on. Imperceptibly quietly if bitterness and anxiety is allowed to creep into our heart bit by bit by bit. Quietly, what will end up happening is that we will not acknowledge God.

We will not give thanks to God and we will not worship God. The stakes are are high as I am at pains to say. And all of this will mean that we have a debased mind and That is what paganism.

Is.

Militated to creating it wants to create a debased mind because behind Paganism is not God, but is the anti God. The devil behind these developments in American society that we've been talking about and will continue to talk about is Not God in terms of one who wants these things to happen.

I mean God is sovereign over at all but the one who is who is wanting this wickedness to increase is the devil and. So as the old biography of Martin Luther captured we are caught between God and the devil.

Every human person is and it's a matter of whether we will worship and follow the devil or whether we will worship and follow.

God.

Satan’s Design Versus God’s Design

So This is where we are. We are amidst the worship of Mankind we are amidst worshipers of the flesh. It's not just that people are confused about their their gender. The body of ideology That is targeting our children and our college students is demonic Ideology it is trying to get us to live out an alternate design of God's design.

We've talked about God's design for manhood and womanhood. We've talked about God's design for sex and sexuality already. Satan's design is the opposite of all that. Satan doesn't teach one man one woman marriage for life.

Satan teaches marriage can be anything you want it to be not just with one person. But with any amount of people whoever they may be man or woman that you would prefer. So God creates and Satan perverts.

God creates and Satan twists. Satan is fundamentally the twister. He is the one who doesn't necessarily Undo creation. He is the one who comes into creation and warps it and he wants to warp the minds and the hearts of our young people today.

The Bible teaches biblical manhood. Satan teaches warped manhood where men are either Too weak or too strong. The Bible teaches biblical womanhood a woman as a nurturer and a helper. But Satan teaches what we call today Feminism, which is not the biblical ideal of the woman.

The Bible teaches That that sex is for marriage. But Satan teaches that you can enjoy sex with whomever you would like at any time. The Bible teaches that there is one man one woman that there are two sexes.

That's it in the creation and you can't change your God-given sex. But Satan says you can change your sex. Has God actually said there's just man and woman. No, there's there's this thing called transgender and there's many different Gender identities and so however, you perceive yourself to be that is who you are.

The Bible teaches what we call heterosexuality as a design. But Satan teaches that Homosexuality is good to the degree that verse 32 back to Romans 1. They know God's righteous decree. They know God's righteous decree.

Paul says That those who practice such things deserve to die. The pagan knows that what they're doing deserves death.

They know it.

As they're celebrating Pride Month right now. Don't be confused. They know at some level that this is wrong and that it's the way of death. But they not only do them But give approval to those Who practice them?

What we are seeing with Pride Month, it's the flowering of this isn't it. Take pride in your flesh take pride in homosexuality. Take pride in transgenderism. Take pride in Polysexuality. Take pride in in having sex with whoever you want to have sex with.

Excuse the direct language but that is the flowering of Paganism and this is the system of worship of paganism. This is how you worship According to Satan that Satan's book worship according to the flesh.

That's what he wants us all to practice. This is nothing less than an ideology. That culminates in basically a worldview. It's a worldview. It's how people are being deceived to live all of this Alternate worldview that I just mapped with all those differences those distinctions.

All of that is trying to get you. To deny the goodness of God's design where the gospel Calls you to honor the goodness of God's design. The gospel calls you to want to be a man to God's glory. The gospel calls you to want to be a woman to God's glory.

The gospel doesn't just call adults to this. The gospel calls ten-year-olds and Thirteen-year-olds and seven-year-olds and eighteen-year-olds and twenty five-year-olds to live for the glory of God.

The gospel makes us a worshiper of Jesus Christ. That's what the gospel does and in making us a worshiper of Jesus Christ. God overcomes the power of the flesh that Paul has mapped out in Romans 1. You and I still have pagan instincts to different degrees.

Everyone in here. Let's get real for a sec. Everyone in here has a certain wildness in the heart. The heart is not a neat and tame reality. The heart is not a hallmark heart, okay little heart on a card.

I can't now men do this in public like soccer players. I like soccer and start like European soccer players will do this to the camera after they score a goal and I'm like I said To my kids the other day.

I try to be balanced and nuanced and I said men should not do the little heart in public.

I'm sorry.

I I apologize for being a legalist, but I don't. I don't think that men should do a little heart in public. You can do it to your daughter or something like okay. Anyway, let's let's not let's move. Let's move off of them.

God's glory is in us living in these ways. But Satan has this alternate ideology and this alternate worldview that he wants us.

To live. What?

Should we do in this kind of context? I'm gonna conclude this session earlier than I have a few of the others. So I'm gonna just rip through five ways. We respond to paganism. Five ways we respond to paganism as you're as you're prepping that.

Here hear that last thought. Let me just say a quick word about that last thought. It's not just that the pagans have these instincts. It's that we have these instincts. This is why you hear the reports about some pastor who has had a seemingly very sound ministry.

I don't mean in far-off circles I mean like in our circles and all of a sudden his marriage blows up and he leaves his wife and children after 20 to 30 to 40 years in the Christian ministry and you're like, how could that happen?

It can happen because he has a certain wildness in his heart that we have in our heart. The power of sin is overcome by the cross of Christ. That's good news, but We have to live.

Carefully, don't we.

Isn't that what Paul says to Timothy? Watch your life and doctrine. Closely, this is a young man trained by an apostle. If anyone has good pre-loaded software, it's Timothy, right? The Apostle Paul has mentored him.

It's a pretty good CV reference for the church to call when you're interviewing for a pastorate. Who are your references? Well Jim from the next town over. This weird guy Owen and then the Apostle Paul.

Okay. Okay. All right. We'll call your references. Also Paul's a good reference. It's to Timothy Paul says watch yourself.

Careful.

That's not because you know, we're we are we are pagans as Christians. That is because we still are battling the flesh. Still battling. We all are battling it all of us lot of sin to battle Until we die and we have to watch ourselves carefully.

We all have the seeds within us of our own destruction man and woman alike. And that applies not just when we're young but all throughout life. So what do we do? What do we do? What do we do first? First.

Help people understand lies. Help people understand they're living not under one lie. They're living under many lies today. There are lots of lies that are being sold to us in America in the West in 2024 and Here is a major part of Christian witness to calmly temperately.

Steadily.

Unpack those lies for people. I Don't mean in a shouting match at work. I'm or your neighborhood I mean as you get to know each other and you build a relationship as a Christian witness. You you're talking things through and they say well I just think it's it's wonderful now that we've moved into a more inclusive society and you say what do you mean by that?