Depraved Minds and Counterfeit Faith

Introduction

Our founder, William Booth, once said, “The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, fogiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and Heaven without hell”.

Friends, I don’t know about you, but I pay attention to the things around me. My heart grieves for the state of the church in today’s world. If you watch a televised sermon, or even recall sermons that you’ve likely sat through over the past few years, like me, you’ll probably notice that hell is rarely mentioned. Many churches have even changed their positions on today’s hard topics to be more aligned with social movements and cultural shifts.

The arguments that folks make in their attempts to negotiate holiness can even sound pretty convincing at times, making it sound that their pursuits are good as they consider others in some ways. Yet, when viewed within the lens of biblical order they are often found to be in opposition to it.

So, I think that William Booth made a profoundly accurate prophecy in his previous quote and the chief danger that he saw has become a emergin crisis for Christianity. Booth’s foresight was also addressed by Paul to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3 which is what we are going to look at this morning. But first, let’s go together before The Lord!

Scriptural Context

It is important to review the context of scripture when viewing it, so let’s dive into the historical context of what is happening as Paul wrote these words all those years ago. It is believed that Paul wrote this epistle to Timothy during his second imprisonment in Rome following a fourth missionary journey. Expecting that his promotion to glory was quickly approaching, Paul wrote the epistle to encourage Timothy to stand firm in his faith and invited him to come for a final visit.

Paul loved Timothy and considered him to be his protege. Timothy’s ministry was beginning to blossom, the mantle of Christian leadership was being handed over to the next generation, and Christianity was suffering opposition in each direction even though it was gaining ground in the lives of others. Paul wanted Timothy to understand that suffering for the gospel of Christ Jesus was a thing of honor; not shame. He wanted to prepare him for hard times, and encourage him to “stand firm” in his faith because people of faithlessness would challenge him. Authoritative bodies would challenge him. Prevailing cultures would challenge him.

Friends, his letter may have been to Timothy, but it can speak into our Christian pursuits as well. Let’s unpack this scripture a bit and jump into some modern day interpretative gleanings.

Exegeting The Text

So Paul doesn’t hold anything back here. In the last days, times are going to be hard, and people will be anything but holy! They will boastful and filled with self-pride, will scoff at God, oppose their parents in disrespectful ways, and will have no regard for sacred things. They’ll be quick to slander, reckless and out of control, pursuing pleasure rather than God. More than that, some will appear to be religious but will pursue their own fame and comforts rather than pursue The Lord’s will.

I don’t know about you, but I see the prevailing world around me in Paul’s early remarks here, and it shouldn’t catch any of us by surprise. Let me offer some statistical support:

The Pew Research Center offers statistics that show as recently as the 1990’s, about 90% of US adults identified as Christian. Today, that number has fallen to about 65%. Remember, that’s just the number of people who identify as Christian. Of those people, many are unchurched, but like the label.

The same center offers that as of 2022, only about 30% of those US adults attend a religious service once or more per monthk; 18% attend weekly. Or we could say it this way: 82% of the US has disregarded Hebrews 10:25 deciding that thed assembly is not as important as the New Testament cautions.

A few other comparable statistics to consider are that although the church has lost significant focus other establishments are booming: 51% of Americans aged 21-26 visit a bar at least once per week, 1 of 4 US adults watch more than 5 hours of live sports weekly, and 83% of Americans visit a shopping center once per week. I guess that is where everyone has gone, to the mall!

That’s a lot of statistics that I’ve thrown at you, but I promise that I’m going somewhere with this. The church is losing ground in numbers, but worse yet, it is losing ground with authenticity. Being a curious mind, I always want to udnerstand things on profound and deep levels. So, join me in unpacking this issue by reviewing a little theology about the restless soul.

The first thing that we need to understand is that God created us to be with Him. We always talk about how He relentlessly pursues us. We even see it in scripture such as The Parable of the Lost Sheep (Matthew 18:10-14) where the shephard leaves the 99 to go after the 1. But I want to suggest that we were created to pursue Him as well? Psalm 42:1 reads that “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God”. Of course, sin has messed that up a little bit. It kind of acts like a computer virus that has infected a file and replicates until it overwhelms the system, so although we are naturally inclined to pursue God, it does not happen the way it was meant to. Let me try and explain.

There once lived a French philosopher named Rene Descartes. Descartes is mostly known for the latin phrase “Cogito, ergo sum” which translates “I think, therefore I am”. This statement became a slogan used in educational institutions as the main takeaway from Descarte’s philosophy suggests that at the center of who we are, what sets us apart from all the rest of creation, is our ability to think.

We would all agree that thinking is a large part of being human, However, years later in theological circles of educational institutions emerged a slightly altered statement of “I love, therefore I am”. These theologians, in their studies, said that our capacity to love is what sets us apart from the rest of creation, and like we theologians often do, they explained it with theological reasoning. This is what they said...

The kings english offers one word to explain a plethora of emotion: Love. We would say that we love our spouse. We would also say that we love our children. We would also say that we love our friends. We probably even say that we love fried chicken. The point here is that one word is used to express multiple different feelings. At least I hope that you do not love fried chicken in the same way that you love your children, or your friends the way you love your spouse.

Greek deals with love a little differently. Rather than having to interpret a word based on its association, they have 6 words of love, each meaning something a little different. They have Agape, Eros, Philia, Storge, Philautia, Xenia.

Agape is a kind of unconditional love, and we as Christians associate it to the type of love that God has for us. The other love that I want us to review is Eros. Eros is often associated with sexual love, but that’s really a bit of a misinterpretation. Eros should more accurately be understood as desire because it relentlessly searches until it is satisfied. When it pursues something that brings it to a temporary satisfaction, it will over time grow insatiable because it was not satisfied. The hunger of desire will resurface and continue its pursuit looking to be satisfied.

These theologians that came after Descartes say that this is the type of love that God has encoded humanity with. He gave us an insatiable desire that can only find lasting fulfillment in Him. The only problem with this, as I said, is that sin has really disrupted the coding that God placed upon us. The desire remains strong, but we go after the wrong things. Let’s place a pin in that for a moment. I promise that we’ll come back to it.

The other thing that is closely associated with this thought is that we humans are liturgical creatures. You’re likely familiar with the term “liturgy” because many mainstream churches focus on a liturgical approach to worship. It contains certain principles always found in a group setting. These theologians suggest that liturgy is not simply a formulary approach to worship, but that we are actually inclined to it. We are drawn to express worship in certain ways as a group of people.

With baseball playoffs going on, let’s consider a scenario that includes baseball. It’s Thursday evening and you’re already drained of time, energy and patience from work. It has been a rough week! So you decide that this weekend, you are going to go to a baseball game to, so to speak, rejuvenate your batteries. Saturday, you get in a car and drive to a stadium. You buy your ticket and get a program. The program offers some nice artwork, tells about the players, their stats, and probably the schedule. Then you walk around and see lots of people as you navigate toward your seat. You sit down and usually look through the program. An announcer comes on and says some things about the hometeam and ways that you can more deeply connect with them. He gets you excited because there is usually music and high energy associated with it. The game starts and a few innings go by. Along the way, things happen that get people excited, cheering together. The seventh inning stretch comes so everyone stands up, an organ plays take me out to the ballgame, and eveyone sings along with it. Someone comes around offering foods and beverages, you buy something and enjoy it, and then settle in to watch the rest of the game hoping that a team win invigorates you, restoring the energy and hope that work drained from your body the previous week.

Alright, let’s review this a bit:

Initially, this person was tired and needed rejuvenated. That is the same reason that God wants us to go to church.

Then the person got into a car and drove to a place where people were gathering. Kind of sounds like what happened today for us a little over an hour ago, right.

When they came into the ballpark, they received a program. Did you get a bulletin when you arrived this morning to church?

The person then bumped into folks smiling and nodding as they went to their seat. When they sat down, they looked over the program. I don’t know about you, but when I arrived I looked over the bulletin.

As the pregame got underway, an announcer shared some things and got the crowd excited. That sounds familiar to Sunday mornings.

Along the way, some music was played, people stood up and sung along with the rest of the crowd. They sat beck down intently hoping to be inspired and refreshed. Then they went home, back to another week that will attempt to drain them.

The Wrap Up

If the ballpark isn’t akin to a church, I don’t know what is. You see, there is a desire to seek after gratification; fulfillment. This person sought it out by going to a ballpark and playing out all of the same liturgical properties that we have in church.

Friends, we are naturally inclined to find satisfaction through liturgical approaches, and the design is flawless. But what these theologians were saying is that until our desire brings us to that which offers lasting satsifaction, we will only be momentarily gratified without finding sustained satisfaction. In other words, until our desire brings us into the presence of our Creator to experience worship with all that we have, our souls will be restless, never finding true staisfaction. They might be momentarily gratified, but never fully satisfied.

So a very wise Paul urges Timothy to “remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you. You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus”. Paul is bascially telling Timothy to be relentless in his pursuit of Christ, for any other focal point will not satisfy. But Jesus says of himself that “anyone who drinks the water that [He] gives will never thirst again”.

Challenge

Friends, as Paul did with Timothy, can I urge you today to be focused in your Christian walk. Don’t be swayed by what the world offers. Pursue Christ and find pure unadulterated satisfaction in Him. Reject the ways of the world and stand firm in your faith. Make the first thing first in your life. Don’t take your eyes off of Jesus. That is just what the devil wants you to do! He is here to steal, kill and destroy, and he comes looking as if he can offer what you need. He’s a liar. Remember the words found in Galatians 6:9

Galatians 6:9 NLT

So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.