MTD and the One True God #1

The words of Christ show this worldview cannot possibly be true.

It cannot possibly be right. He himself is the reputation of this man-made man centered and glorifying religion. To know Christ is to reject moralistic therapeutic ideas. There's the one true God. And then there's all those little GE gods that people in their willful ignorance and rejection of the Bible create out of their imaginations, and on this edition of the truth. Pulpit pastor Don Greene will contrast as he takes us further into our series titled deception close to home with part one of a message titled moralistic therapeutic deism, the one true God.

I'm Bill Wright and Don if moralistic therapeutic deism were only a problem outside the church. It would be bad enough, my friend. I believe that this is one of the most urgent and important series we've ever broadcast on the truth pulpit. This philosophy known as moralistic therapeutic deism is something that permeates the teaching of churches and people aren't even aware of it. It is a silent assassin of many souls and want to help you defend yourself and your loved ones from it. Jesus said, many will be sent away on the day of judgment. We don't want you to be in that mix. Stay with us and learn from God's word today.

Thanks Don and Fred.

Let's join Pastor Don Greene right now as he continues teaching God's people. God's word in the truthful, what we said last time going to read them by way of review. These five principles of moralistic therapeutic deism number one that God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth number two God wants people to be good and nice and fair to each other as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. The Bible is just kinda saying the same thing that other religions are.

In other words, number three, the central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself. Hard to argue with that. Who doesn't want to be happy and feel good.

Why would you want that. How could a man stand in the pulpit and argue against that. I will find out that's what I wanted to number four.

God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life, except when he is needed to resolve a problem and so you pray when something comes up that you can't handle or something unexpected happens. God help me in this difficulty and then you know things go back to normal and you can forget about God until another need comes up. Finally, fifth and finally, good people go to heaven when they die. And so that's just by way of review to get disoriented before I start talking at length here today as we start to enter into this, we must remember beloved. What the precious words of our precious Lord. In Matthew seven, when he said that it is a narrow path to heaven and there are few who find it and the road to destruction is brought in the gate is brought in many people enter through broad gate that simply leads them to destruction. And so the fact that this is a prevalent dominant worldview in culture at large and even within the professing church, broadly speaking, were going to say that no this is not biblical Christianity at all as stark as that may sound as bold a claim as that may seem to be beloved. It is consistent with the most basic things that our Lord taught about the entrance into the kingdom of heaven. A road that is brought in the easy is the road that leads to destruction.

It is not the true path to Christ to reconciliation to God to eternal life. That's not the true path by definition if it's broad and easy, you should immediately say wait a minute, something's wrong here. I don't know exactly what it is.

But if it's this broad and it's this easy. Christ himself warned me in Matthew seven not to be sucked into something like that if you start to feel that the suction of the vacuum hose pulling you into a mindset that says it's really broad and easy and and there's no difficulty here. You need to realize that you need to disconnect from that and come back to Scripture and rethink everything about life. This is what most of professing Christianity needs to do. They need to rethink everything that they think is true about life because these predominant presuppositions are leading people to destruction, and therefore it is crucial for us to bring Scripture to bear on it so that we can understand Al Mohler said this about moralistic therapeutic deism, and I quote he said that it appears to reflect the culture as a whole. Clearly this generalized conception of a belief system is what appears to characterize the beliefs of vast millions of Americans both young and old.

These individuals, whatever their age believe that religion should be centered on being nice, a posture that many believe is directly violated by assertions of strong theological conviction not continuing the quote stay with me.

I'm still quoting you.

Mohler here. He says in the end this study referring to the book soul-searching in the end, this study indicates that American teenagers are heavily influenced by the ideology of individualism that has so profoundly shape the larger culture. This bleeds over into a reflexive, nonjudgmental-ism, and a reluctance to suggest that anyone might actually be wrong in matters of faith and belief" and so according to their mindset would automatically show the what were doing is wrong because were saying that someone is actually wrong and what they believe and so it's very slippery, but the that the very nature and what I would say is that one of the very subtle satanic aspects of this is is its very nature, is that it insulates itself from critique because by a prior statement a prior presupposition it says judge mentalism or anything that declares anything to be wrong is automatically itself long then it's insulated itself from any kind of critique and it's free to go about its own business.

Well what Scripture says to test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Scripture commended the meridians in acts 1711 who were examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so not supposed to just drink and what somebody tells you and just drink and what the culture says were to go to God's word and to evaluate it. Here's a truth claim. Okay let me take Scripture to bear and apply it to that truth claim and see if it withhold scrutiny or not. That's what were going to do with MTD.

Now we ask this question last time this book as I mentioned, was directed toward the beliefs of teenagers in American culture. But here's the question. No one escapes the indictment of what follows here who is teaching these teenagers what they believe except their churches and their parents and adult figures who have some kind of influence over them. They didn't they didn't just come up with this on their own. This is what they have heard and imbibed from the authority figures around them and what that means is, is that although the study was geared toward the belief systems of teenagers. What you actually find is is that by implication it is showing what they have been taught by those who went before them, and therefore what this does is it just brings a heaping helping of condemnation upon the entire culture of religion in Western society. What we want to do here is to blend our meager voice to rise up against it into stand opposed to these things, and most importantly to help you understand why that this mindset cannot possibly be true.

And so what we want to do is to look at these five points of moralistic therapeutic deism individually and evaluate them by Scripture with a look at him, two of them today if I get that far and then will look at the other three and soap, subsequent weeks to follow.

So here's what I want to do. Number one the first principle of moralistic therapeutic deism number one that God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth. That's the first tenant of this, the first rule. The first principle. The first presupposition that God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth. Now, beloved, I understand, and you understand that that statement standing alone by itself is not problematic because of what it says there is a sense in which we would agree with that. We believe that there is a God who exists right. We believe that God created the world. He watches over human life on earth, we would agree with that and so that the statement itself is not what's problematic here.

What what the problem here is where the devastating deception in it as is so often the case. The problem is not what it says. The problem is, what it does not say this statement leads people to think that there is no difference between the God of the Bible, the God of Islam, the God of Mormonism are the so-called gods of Mormonism. For those that really understand what Mormonism is saying any statement like this about God to let you think that everybody saying pretty much the same thing about God should immediately clue you in that something is wrong. Something is missing and that is certainly the case here with the God of M and T. D. The problem is is that they leave this God largely undefined.

They don't go into detail to say will.

Who is this God and so their content with the idea that some higher power created the universe. He has some kind of order that governs his creation. He more or less passively watches over everything that happens the beloved for says biblical Christians. For those of us who hunger to know the truth. For those of us who've been born again by the Spirit of God that kind of pablum that kind of baby food is not sufficient. We realize that there are other questions that need to be asked and answered and clarified. We have to be specific, we have to ask the question, who is the true God, who is he, really, as he really is. I don't care. In one sense this is going to be easily misunderstood. There is a sense in which I don't care what anyone believes God to be I don't I don't care what the man on the street thinks God is a much more interested in who God really is. Who is he really that's the question that matters, not your opinion, who is God, if you had never been born.

Who is God who is God before you were born, who is God, after you're gone, see when you view the question that way. Then all of a sudden we realize our opinions really are important because there is a transcendent element. There is an internal permanent aspect of this, it has to be answered. It can't rise and fall on the opinions of the man on the street who is the true God with that question in mind with this principle of MTD in mind, I invite you now to turn to the gospel of John chapter 17, the gospel of John chapter 17 and as I said last time is returning there the entire stumbling block to the worldview that we have applied the label moralistic therapeutic deism to the entire stumbling block to MTD is our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the problem with this worldview and actually what which is another way of saying the words of Christ show that this worldview could not possibly be true. It cannot possibly be right. He himself is the reputation of this man-made man centered man glorifying religion and to know Christ is to reject moralistic therapeutic deism.

In John chapter 17 verse three he says he's praying to his heavenly father. On the eve of his crucifixion and he says this he says that verse three. This is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent the only true God. There's only one now beloved that mean something to us here in this room that mean something to us the truth community church it mean something to every true Bible believing Christian in every Bible teaching true church based on that prayer in John 17 verse three we immediately see that not just any God small G will do. It's not enough to simply talk about a vague God, according to the opinions of men.

The true God is the God of the Bible and the God of the Bible is a particular God. There is a defined essence to him. There is a reality about him that excludes any claim to anything else being a God small G. C.

Beloved what you and I have to remember as we are interacting with the worldview of those around us is that the God of the Bible is this. He is the triune God father son and Holy Spirit who was revealed in human flesh in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. We can't we can't talk about God in vague terms. We have to using John 17 three is a bit of a springboard we have to say, okay, we've we've we've introduced God into the conversation here.

Who is this God who is the true God because there is only one.

And if your God is someone different than the God that I am proclaiming then one of us has to be wrong because they keep contradictory views of God cannot both be true. I realize in our postmodern culture like ours, you know, this idea of absolute truth is even that's you know at a discount, but you and I here in this room we have to think beyond the mindset of the world and think, according to what God is revealed.

There's only one true God. What is this godlike look at Matthew chapter 28 Matthew 28 at the end. In verse 18. Just before his ascension after his resurrection, Jesus came up to his disciples in verse 18 and he said this all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name singular name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And low I am with you always, even to the end of the age now embedded in what Christ said central to his teaching commission that he gave to his apostles in which we inherit as as the true people of God based on believing in the words of the apostle for eternal life. Central to what Christ said is you go out and you proclaim the name singular. The one name of the one true God and that God is revealed in three persons, father, son and Holy Spirit. If you are not somehow in the in the core of what you're teaching, proclaiming that that the that the true God is a God who is a Trinity who is who is a God of one essence and yet existing in three persons, father, son and Holy Spirit. You're not proclaiming the true God. Your preaching something that is no God at all your preaching, the God there was a figment of your imagination.

Again we see that Christ himself becomes the stumbling block over which MTD trips and splatters its face on the concrete in front of it can't be true because Christ said when you go out and teach about God. Here's what you go and proclaim, you proclaim his name, father, son and Holy Spirit, and any preaching of a so-called God doesn't somewhere make large room for that manifestation in those declarations of the truth of God is not the real is not the one true God to whom Christ prayed. The only God, the one true God. Look at John chapter 14. Who is this God John 14 verse seven.

Again we come back to the words of Christ, and we see what he said 2000 years ago standing the test of time and declaring and manifesting judgment against the spirit of our age because his words endure his words will never pass away his character. His name is person will never pass away. So we bring everything back to Christ and see what he has to say about it all. In John chapter 14 verse seven Christ tells his disciples, if you had known me, you would have known my father also. From now on you know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the father and it is enough for us and Jesus said to him, have I been so long with you and yet you have not come to know me, Philip. He who has seen me has seen the father. How can you say show us the father.

In other words, he saying you want to know the father, look at me. I am the perfect representation of who he is.

I share his essence, we are identical. In essence, when you see me you see what God is like, and so in this mindset we always bring it back to Christ and and we tell people you must answer the question, who is Jesus Christ. You must answer that question before we have any idea for talking about the true God or not, and you bring it back to Christ because he himself is the dividing line go back a couple of chapters 9 to be precise, to John chapter 5 verse 23 John chapter 5 verse 23 will start at verse 22, I guess, for not even the father judges anyone this is Christ speaking but is given all judgment to the son so that all will honor the son even as they honor the father he who does not honor the son does not honor the Father who sent him. Jesus says you must give equal honor to the son, you must give equal honor to Christ as you do. The father and if you do not honor the son like that you're not honoring God at all your your worship is false. It is idolatry. It does not matter. No matter what other spiritual platitude you might voice. If you are not giving supreme highest honor to the Lord Jesus Christ.

You are not worshiping the one true God. John chapter 8 verse 19, the Jews asked Christ said where is your father. Jesus answered, you know neither me nor my father if you knew me you would know my father. Also, you would automatically know the father if you knew me, but the fact that you reject me. You do not honor me, you do not worship me.

Jesus says is an indication that you don't know God at all and so beloved. This is why when we talk about this first principle of moralistic therapeutic deism that God exists, who created the world were not impressed with that statement, to the extent that it stops there, and people want to leave it there and when you bring the conversation to that round. You are turning your back on the round of moralistic therapeutic deism and entering into the round of what is true, as revealed in the Bible as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. John 14 six Jesus said on the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but through me. First John chapter 5 verse 11. The testimony is this that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son. He who has the son has the life. He who does not have the son of God does not have the life deseeded again and again and again Scripture points us to Christ. The only source of eternal life, the one who alone reveals the true and living God. If a man does not know, and bow before the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not know God at all.

If Christ is not the exclusive object of his trust in his hope for eternal life.

If Christ is not his Lord and his master those things are true. Doesn't matter what other kind of God talk you doing that's done green founding pastor of truth Community Church in Cincinnati Ohio with part one of his message moralistic therapeutic deism at the one true God. Part 2 Comes Your Way.

Next time you're in the truth. Pulpit supply now to join us. Right now though Don's back here in studio with a few closing words will as we close today's broadcast. I just want to express my gratitude for the many friends whose generosity make this program possible.

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Pulpit.com Pineville right thanks for listening. Will see you next time on the truth pulpit has done green continues teaching God's people. God's word