Many nowadays would tell you that CHURCHES are a thing of the past; and that they are OBSOLETE; that they have outlived their purpose. Let us read from Hebrews before we go any further.
Hebrews 10:19-25
A REFRESHED CHURCH has a REFRESHED PERSPECTIVE. What do I mean by that? Some of the traditional things done in the first half of the twentieth century no longer appeal to the current generation.
I heard Dr. Jeremiah speak a month or so ago about how it makes little or no sense talking to teens and millennials about Jesus when they can’t even come to terms with God.
They ask questions like “if your God is a loving God, why does He let bad things happen to good people” and “if he is a loving God, why is He sending people to Hell?’
We have to have answers for them. Let us take the last one first. God is NOT a LOVING GOD. GOD is LOVE. There is a difference. It means that He does not possess love as we do but instead he is the very definition of love.
Since people in that age group tend to think of themselves much smarter than we older folks who couldn't have possibly lived through the same teen or millennial period where we, like them now, questioned everything, thinking that we knew more than our parents or the older generation specifically.
There is a saying, “the older I get, the smarter my parents seem to be!”
Ask the person asking the question if he or she has heard of the law of non-contradiction. If they haven’t, have them look it up on their i Phone or PC at home or school. It is a natural law that states something cannot be both true and false at the same time. Could their car be out of gas and full of gas simultaneously?
So, if God is love, he cannot be at the same time UNLOVING. John, who walked with God personified in Jesus Christ had first-hand knowledge of His Great Love. So, let us all agree that we must ask the question in another way that does NOT start with a contradiction.
Why would God, who is Love, send someone to hell. Another false premise surfaces and that is the pretense that God SENDS anyone, anywhere. God, because He is love, warns His creation that if they remain sinners that they deserve the ultimate penalty of Hell.
If we, in our great knowledge and wisdom, condemn God for condemning someone to Hell, are we not declaring that we are a higher authority than He?
We must read Romans 1
Romans 1:18-20
Sinners and unbelievers challenge God and feel they can escape punishment but have they not had fair warning. They refuse to admit that in everything they see, the hand of God is responsible for its creation. They would far rather believe that they are descendants of apes.
Perhaps, after you discuss the human eye, you might have them address that with an ape at the zoo.
Where was this individual when God created the universe with one Word? Pose a question to this young person.
How would you design the human eye? Where would you start? What materials would you use? How would you make it so that the eye would transfer light to some material in the back of the eye socket and then in turn convert the light to electrical impulses, then delivering those to the brain. And how would you establish the program to convert those thousands of pulses into the ice cream cone you just ate?
Explain to them that there has never been one man, who ever lived, save one, that understood how the human eye works—and He was its designer.
Let us pretend for a moment that this person did not intend to say that he or she was more intelligent than the Creator of the Universe and examine the word “send.” If the young person was warned of a large hole that had opened at the end of their street and were told by the police, “do not get near the hole, for it is extremely dangerous, would they disobey?”
And, if they did, and fell, and lost their life, who would be at fault? Would it be God because He allowed the hole to form?
Or could it possibly be the responsibility of he, or she, who recklessly disobeyed the policemen because he, or she knew better, never studying holes in college and having no degree in any subject even close to understand the force required to re-institute the cave-in that was only being held in place by the friction coefficient of the dirt, and yes, what mass would be required to start an avalanche in the substrate?
Now, how about those good people who had bad things happen to them. First, we must pretend again that we know more than the Creator of the Universe else we are assuming that which is good and that which is bad.
For example, how do we know whether the man who died at too early of an age had not smoked for twenty straight years, totally disregarding that he had been warned that cigarettes kill?
How do we know that the woman who died at 21, at much too young of an age, that she hadn't done “METH” for four years starting in High School?
Then this person might change the question to be a baby that has died shortly after birth. Why would the God , who is love, (NOTICE how they are more careful about how they describe God), why would God take a young baby that hadn't yet lived their full life.
We could then explain to the young person that an evil person who goes by the name Satan is to blame for that.
If we slowed down the seconds before the death of this child, and was able to see the angels and demons in the third realm, it might look like this. Satan gives the order to make the baby sick—so sick that she will die.
Just as the heart begins to slow down and fail, this caused by Satan, two angels arrive on the scene in enough time to comfort the child and hand-carry her to Heaven.
God receives the child. He does not murder the child, for that is evil and remember that non-contradiction rule (being taught for years in our schools of higher learning), God cannot be good and evil at that same time. He is one or the other.
I know this example was a bit lengthy, but I thought it important, because as a REFRESHED CHURCH, we must teach this generation that God is GOOD. God is LOVE.
Then we can talk about His Son Jesus Christ; but only after they understand God.
Dr. Jeremiah calls it Acts 2 vs Acts 17. When the Apostles approached the Jews about Jesus, they were already aware of God. They had learned about God since they were small children. The Apostles needed only to help the Jew realize that Jesus was He.
Yes, that is a big step for a Jew, only because their eyes have been closed as are their ears, but that is another sermon.
But in Acts 17, the Apostle Paul is to take the Gospel to the pagans (Gentile) world. They knew nothing about God, so it would be quite a stretch to convince them that this man Jesus was the Son of God, a God they knew nothing about.
They would have to start in Genesis and be taught to realize that there is One God who created all things.
They did have one advantage though. Once they got beyond God as the Creator, their eyes were not closed, their ears could hear and their hearts were open. Many were saved.
In CLOSING, we as a CHURCH must be REFRESHED in His Spirit and TRUTH and be able to defend His Word.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
...thoroughly equipped for every good work.
And every good question, I might add. As a Church, let us REFRESH ourselves with the TRUTHS of God such that the Church is ready.
Ready to respond to today's young people and then to welcome them into God's family. Amen.
