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Let's pray together. Father in
heaven, it is our prayer that your church would arise, that
our lives would be built on the truth of your word, that we would
be jealous and desirous, and even, Lord, may we say, greedy
for your glory to fill your earth, that your will would be done
here on earth as it is in heaven, by the angels who worship and
serve you. May that same fervor and zeal be found in us, belong
to Christ, and may we spread it across this land. In Christ's
name we pray, amen. Satan loves lazy Christians,
especially men, especially fathers. Consider Eli. and his two sons. Look at the culture that was
produced by his laziness as a father, his refusal to discipline his
sons, and the corruption that spread throughout the whole nation
of Israel because of one man's failure. Satan loves energetic,
misplaced priority Christians. You find this all over the place.
Women wanting to be pastors, but especially also in fathers. Again, we see in scripture. Consider
Samuel the prophet, right after Eli. He was going all over the
place, doing the Lord's work, and he neglected his family.
And look at his sons. His sons were like Eli's sons. And so what happened? The people
said, we don't want this over us. We want a king. When God wants to judge a nation,
he gives them wicked rulers and wicked leaders are the result
of sinful citizens. Lest we think we're out of this. We're not. We're not in the free
and clear. The people fail to live uprightly
before God, either by sins of blatant commission, doing what
God forbids, or by sins of omission, not being or doing what God requires. Or, oftentimes, it's a combination
of both. And then when leaders are wicked,
it's harder for the nation as a whole to repent. But repentance
is still required. If that nation doesn't repent,
We've seen what's happened throughout history and we see what happens
in scripture. Its women will be raped. Its children will be
slaughtered. Its men will be enslaved. Look
at what happened over in Israel recently. All of this will happen by a
foreign nation. How does God judge one nation?
When their time is up? By bringing another nation against
them. with a different religion, a different God, a different
morality, different wicked theology. And we're not immune from this.
Last week, we learned that the mantra, religion has nothing
to do with politics, is not biblical, but is demonic. It's not American. It's socialist. Every person
and every nation, because it's comprised of people, has a religion. And the least tolerant religion
is the one that we live under now, secular humanism. And as you recall, responsible
for the death of over 750 million people just in the last 150 years. But religion has nothing to do
with politics. This is why politics is so important.
And it's not so much that it's important as it is unavoidable. It's unavoidable. Remember, politics
is the science and exercise of civil rights and civil duties. So, its importance is grounded
in the fact that unless you live 100% off the grid, all by yourself,
in the middle of nowhere, which you don't because you're here,
you will live in the civil sphere. And you will be living a certain
way in that sphere. So the question becomes, who
do you represent when you are in the civil sphere? Who do you
represent when you're in public? I'm not asking who we are supposed
to represent. Functionally, who is actually
being glorified by us in this civil sphere in which we live?
And the answer to that question is going to depend on a few different
factors. The object of the individual's
worship, the practical religion of the individual, not the expressed
verbal religion, and the morals that that individual holds. Remember,
all men are worshipers. God created us to worship, and
everybody worships. Who do they worship? What do
they worship? Who are they called to worship? And remember, all
of us, as humans, are moral agents. And so what system of ethics
and morality does our practical religion promote? These are questions that we need
to examine ourselves in light of, and we need to look at the
culture around us so that we can know how best to reach this
culture. Our obligation as creatures is
to serve Yahweh, who created man according to his own rightful
authority and for his own glory. This extends to every single
person across the face of the earth, and this also extends
to every single relationship. And to understand this better,
we need to go back to the beginning, to creation. So turn with me
to Genesis chapter 1. You'll find that over the weeks,
we'll be spending a good deal of time grounding ourselves back
in the creation account, highlighting different aspects.
But for now, let's just look at 1 and 2. In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth. It begins with God's sovereignty
over all. He made it, it belongs to Him.
And the earth was formless, and void, and darkness was over the
surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over
the surface of the waters. Look at verse 3, then God said,
let there be light, and there was light. This shows the ease
and intelligibility of God in creation. Verse 4, God saw that
the light was Good. This shows us the benevolence,
the goodness of God in creation. He's saying this is good. Verse
5, God called the light day and the darkness he called night. This shows the authority of God.
He gets to call reality what it is. It comes from him. Just
like Adam had authority and he names the animals. God is naming
day and night. And then when you look at from
6 all the way down, then God said, and it was so. Then God
said, and it was so. Then God said, it was so. Speaking everything into existence. But I want us to look at verse
16. So God made the two great lights, the greater light to
rule the day. and the lesser light to rule
the night and also the stars. This is interesting because rule
is a peculiarly political term, especially when you use this
kind of language with inanimate objects, to rule for the sun
and the moon. And if we study this passage
a little more carefully, we will find out that God created not
only realms, but rulers in those realms. Day one, what was the
realm? Light and darkness. And that
corresponds with day four, who are the rulers? We just saw them,
the sun and the moon. Day two, God creates a realm,
the waters and the sky. Day five, Who are the rulers? The fish and the birds. Day three,
the realm, dry land. Day six, who are the rulers?
The living creatures. And the capstone over all of
this is man. So, in six literal 24-hour days,
God has established a structured domain, a kingdom, with realms
and a hierarchy for ruling in these realms. There's a governmental
structure, from the beginning, over all creation. God is the
absolute sovereign over all, and then man, under God, is God's
vice-regent. And this helps us understand
the framework for what we're going to be studying today and
in the weeks to come. It goes by different names. One
is called creation mandate, or dominion mandate, or cultural
mandate. And all of them are basically
seeking to get at the same thing. Let's look at verse 26 of Genesis
1. Then God said, Let us make man
in our image, according to our likeness, so that they will have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the
sky, and over the cattle, over all the earth, over every creeping
thing that creeps on the earth. Why was man made in the image
of God? It tells us in this passage,
so that they will have dominion in this kingdom. The purpose
of being made in God's image is to represent God and to represent
His authority materially and spiritually in creation for His
glory and for the good of His creation. Now, while we could
spend a lot of weeks just studying the doctrine of the image of
God, this doctrine includes God's communicable attributes. And
if you were with us last Wednesday night, we went over those and
transformed by truth, so the timing couldn't have been better.
It's the Lord's providence. But it includes intellect, if
we were just to give some up main level categories. Intellect,
affections, morality. But it also extends by good and
necessary consequence, our relationship with God as a son to a father. Because we find very similar
language to what we just read in Genesis 5.3, when Adam lived
130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness
according to his own image and named him Seth. So it's not equal,
but there is a correlation there. So what we're seeing as we're
building this picture from the Bible, from the beginning, is
that man, being as a son to God, having the image of God, having
a right relationship with God, is now furnished to represent
God in creation. And this just made me think of
Matthew 22. Turn with me really quickly.
We'll go back to Genesis. Matthew 22. Fifteen, a very,
very familiar passage. The Pharisees went and took counsel
together about how they might trap Jesus and what he said.
They sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians,
saying, Teacher, we know that you're truthful and teach the
way of God and truth and defer to no one, for you are not partial
to any. Matthew 22, 17. Therefore, tell
us, what do you think? Is it lawful to give tax to Caesar
or not? But Jesus, knowing their wickedness,
said, Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? He's always making
friends. Show me the coin used for the
tax. And they brought him a denarius. And he said to them, whose likeness
and inscription is on this? They said to him, Caesar's. Then
he said to them, therefore, render to Caesar the things that are
Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. We can go back
to Genesis. What's Jesus getting at there?
In whose likeness and in whose image are you made? That coin
was made by Caesar with his image on it, so give it to him. You
were made by God with his image on you, so give yourself to him. Genesis 1, 28. We'll do 27 and
28, but we're gonna focus on 28. And God created man in His own
image. In the image of God, He created
him. Male and female, He created them. God blessed them, and God said
to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue
it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
birds of the sky, and over every living thing that creeps on the
earth. After a blessing, there is a
five-fold command here that is given to man. Do you see it in
the text? These are all commands. Be fruitful.
Multiply, rule over the earth, subdue the earth, have dominion
over the whole kingdom. And it is interesting that this
fivefold mandate is the first communication we have recorded
between God and man. Notice also the link between
Genesis 1 verse 2 and verse 28. The earth was formless
and void. Formless and void. It was formless.
It was a wasteland. But man is to rule over it. He's
to create. Not ex nihilo, not from nothing
like God did. but with all the elements that
God has supplied. So we would say, to shape and
to fashion, to mix together. What does this plant do? What
happens if I mix this with that? What happens if I add heat to
this? What happens if I cool this down? The earth was formless. It was
also void. It was empty. But man is to fill it with his
seed, to cover the surface of the earth with families. If we look over at Genesis 2.15,
it says, then Yahweh took the man and set him in the Garden
of Eden to cultivate it. Cultivate, that's where we get
our word culture from. If you notice, different cultures
are tied to the land in which they live. different colored
clothing from what's natural around them, different smells
that people will have, different foods, different spices. From
the ground up comes culture. God takes man here from the world
and places him in this garden to cultivate it, to keep it,
So the garden is a prototype, a pattern of what God had in
mind. And note also, work is pre-fall.
Work isn't part of the fall. Work is a good thing. In the
new heavens and the new earth, we will be working. And he's supposed to expand it,
right? Because it's supposed to be over the earth. And he
even tells him in 224, he says, therefore, a man shall leave
his father and his mother and cleave to his wife, and they
shall become one flesh. So they're in the garden, they've
got this mandate, so you're starting out in the garden and you're
supposed to have a family and a family and a family, which
means you're going to need what? More space. So as you're cultivating
within this garden, expand the borders of the garden knowing
that you're going to have more of your seed, more generations,
more offspring coming from you, and they're going to also need
space, and then those families are also going to need space.
So the goal is, within the garden, in this right relationship with
God, where God is present, spread. Spread. Spread. Well, we know
what happens next. The serpent comes, tempts Eve. You will be like God, knowing
good and evil. How does God know good and evil?
He determines it. He determines it. And what happens? We, our moral relativists, we
determine what is good and evil, like God does. but we're not
God. They fail, and they eat, and
they're cursed. Look at verse 14 of chapter three,
the curse to the serpent. Yahweh God said to the serpent,
because you've done this, cursed are you more than any of the
cattle, more than every beast of the field. On your belly you will
go, dust you will eat all the days of your life, and I will
put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and
her seed. So now we've got, okay, there's
going to be two different groups of people. He shall bruise you on the head,
and you shall bruise him on the heel. Now we have redemption. There's going to be a redeeming
aspect here. There's one to come. This is
what theologians call the Proto-Ewangelion, the gospel beforehand. And then to the woman, verse
16, I will greatly multiply your pain and conception. In pain
you will bear children, and your desire will be for your husband. That's not a good thing. but
he will rule over you. So there's going to be pain and
there's going to be conflict in this sphere that the woman
is to operate. Okay, verse 17, then to Adam
he said, because you've listened to the voice of your wife, not
to me, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded
you saying you shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground
because of you. In pain you will eat of it all
the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall
grow for you. And you will eat the plants of
the field by the sweat of your face. You will eat bread till
you return to the ground because from it you were taken. For you
are dust and to dust you shall return. So again, for the man
in his sphere, pain and conflict. And then for both of them, ultimately,
death. And we know from this and from
other passages like Romans 5 that explain this, Adam plunges the
whole human race into iniquity. And do we ever stop to think
about the generational effects of our own sin? Or do we follow
Adam in that too? I'm just gonna do this sin because
I want to. Not thinking about all the people
around me that will be affected and the people that I don't even
know. Maybe my children now, but their
children. How far is this effect going
to be? Look at verse 23. Therefore,
Yahweh God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to cultivate
the ground from which he was taken." So the fall does not
alleviate mankind of the cultural mandate. It makes it harder. It makes
it harder. Sin never alleviates us of responsibilities. It just makes them harder to
fulfill. Have you noticed that? It's not like, well, I sin, now
I don't have to do this. Now it's harder. But what about these two seeds?
And that's what we start to see in these next chapters. Chapter
4, verse 1. Now the man knew his wife Eve,
and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, I've gotten
a man with the help of Yahweh. Cain means acquired. God said
there's going to be a seed that's going to crush the serpent. It's
going to be the seed of the woman. She's putting two and two together.
And so she names her son, acquired, got him. I've got him. God's given him to me. Adam,
grab your stuff. We're going back to the garden.
But we know that doesn't happen, does it? Cain shows which side he's on.
when he kills his brother. And 1 John 3 tells us that he's
wicked and Abel is righteous. And so even from just that one
family, the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, it's
already working out. Look at verse 19. As we're tracing
through this line of Cain, one of his descendants is called
Lamech. Lamech took for himself two wives,
and we remember that It's not the same language when it's a
man and a woman where Adam knew Eve, where there's that intimacy.
The name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other Zillah.
And Ada gave birth to Jabal. He was the father of those who
live in tents and have livestock, and his brother's name was Jubal.
He was the father of all those who play the lyre and the pipe. As for Zillah, she also gave
birth to Tubal-Kain, the forger of all implements of bronze and
iron, and the sister of Tubal-Kain was Naama." So why are we going
over this? Because the serpent seed is fulfilling
the cultural mandate with respect to the physical aspect of it.
They're going out, they're ruling over the earth, they're subduing
it, and they're advancing culture. This is one of the, just as a
side note, I do find it interesting because there's some Christian
rap that is really good when it's giving you doctrine. And
people go, you can't take that, that music is evil and you can't
take it and redeem it and use it. You can't do that at all
as a Christian. If you're gonna be consistent
in that, you can't use music at all. Because it comes from the seed
of the serpent. And depending on how you understand what Ezekiel
says, Satan could have been the one leading music in heaven before
he fell. So music, all of it, if you're
gonna be consistent, would be off limits for you. And this,
just as a precursor to Weeks to Come, does give us a little
bit of insight into redeeming aspects of the culture around
us. We'll get into some more particulars of that. Look at
verse 25 and 26 of Genesis 4. Then Adam knew his wife again, and
she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, for she said, God has
set for me another seed in the place of Abel, for Cain killed
him. And Seth to him also was born a son, and he called his
name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of Yahweh."
So the serpent seed is pursuing physical cultural mandate. The
seed of the woman is pursuing spiritual cultural mandate. Isn't that interesting? They're
separated. And we find these same kinds
of things going on today in the day that we live. But where does it go from here?
You know what comes next. Genesis chapter 6, verse 5. Then Yahweh saw that the evil
of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Look at verse
11. Now the earth was corrupt before
God and the earth was filled with violence. This is the first
time we see that word fill since the creation account, the cultural
mandate. Fill the earth. And Cain's line is doing a great
job at filling the earth. But what are they filling it
with? Violence. We see it in 13 again. So they're actually doing part
of what they're supposed to be doing. But something crucial and fundamental
is lacking. Again, man was to be a vice-regent, a representative of God. God is his king. And we see functionally,
the seat of the serpent did do this, but not all the way. John 8, 44, you are of your father,
the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He
was a murderer from the beginning, and he does not stand in the
truth because there's no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a
lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father
of lies. The problem, was that man had
the wrong God. Physically, cultural mandate,
going, spreading, multiplying, ruling, subduing, yes, yes, yes,
yes, yes. But wrong God. David is very helpful in this.
If we look at Psalm 8. Psalm 8. Have you ever wondered in Psalm
8, verse 2, what he's talking about? Psalm 8, for the choir director,
according to the Giddeth, a Psalm of David. O Yahweh our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth, who displays your
splendor above the heavens. From the mouth of infants and
nursing babies, you have established strength. And we go, okay, maybe
he's talking about like 1 Corinthians 1, the weak and the strong and
the wise and the foolish. You have established strength
because of your adversaries to make the enemy and the revengeful
cease. But he's talking about the cultural
mandate being fruitful and multiplying. And then he'll get into the rest
of the cultural mandate in these next verses. When I see your
heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which
you've established, what is man that you remember him and the
son of man that you care for him? Correcting Job, as you recall. Yet you have made him a little
lower than the angels, and you crown him with glory and majesty.
You make him to rule over the works of your hands. You put
all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, also the animals
of the field, the birds of the heavens, the fish of the sea,
whatever passes through the paths of the seas. O Yahweh our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth. Do you see how
much distinct language is being used to catapult our mind back
to Genesis 1 here? He's talking about the cultural
mandate. Notice what's permeating and
interwoven in all of this that David tells us. Worship. The glory of Yahweh. Seeking
and beholding his majesty. You see, the cultural mandate
is the means by which God has ordained to accomplish his ultimate
goal. What is His goal? If you were
with us when we studied the Old Testament, it's all over the
place. For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh as waters cover the
sea. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God Almighty. Let the whole earth, or the whole
earth will be filled with His glory. That's the goal. That's the goal. We see this
refrain throughout the scriptures. And the Apostle Paul sums up
the history very well in Romans chapter one. Romans 1.18, how is man doing
at this cultural mandate? For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Why? Because that which is known
about God is evident within them. You mean they know God? Well,
who told them? For God made it evident to them. For since the
creation of the world, His invisible attributes, both His eternal
power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being also
understood through what has been made so that they are without
excuse. And now we're starting to get
to the problem here. For even though they knew God, they did
not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile
in their thoughts. It starts inside, and their foolish
heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became
fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for
an image in the likeness of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed
animals, and crawling creatures. It's interesting that it starts
with man. That's where their idolatry starts with. Yeah, they
branch out, different religions will have different kinds of
animals and then a mixture of them. And so God gave them over
in the lusts of their heart to impurity so that their bodies
would be dishonored among them. Why? Verse 25, for they exchanged
the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature
rather than the creator who was blessed forever. And then from
there it goes into all kinds of immorality and sexual deviancy.
But what Paul tells us is that scripture is clear. Although
it may look like there are many different roads and many different
paths, there's only two paths, two directions of culture. Worshipping God or worshipping
the creature. Glorifying God or glorifying
creation. There's no neutrality. This is binary. So even though
men may advance many aspects of physical culture as Cain's
descendants did, and there's some areas that we can be thankful
for in some regards, this is not an adequate expression of
obedience before God, since those men's goal is not ultimately
the glory of Yahweh. So it all amounts to idolatry. And this kind of idolatry always
promotes moral decay in a culture, Cultural decline is a result
of that moral decay, and then it consummates with national
destruction. Every time. So, with what we've gathered,
we can start to systematize and formulize some things. We can
derive a necessary distinction with regard to the cultural mandate.
We can distinguish between, one, the genre, or the form, or the
structure of this aspect of cultural mandate. Is it agricultural? Is it natural science? Is it
music? Is it homemaking? Is it plumbing? Is it carpentry? Is it driving? The genre, form, or structure
of the cultural mandate, and then the orientation. or the
goal, the aim, the direction of this cultural mandate as expressed
in the heart of the individual. And this is binary again. It's
either for God in Christ, or it's against Him. Those are the
only two options. For example, two musical composers
seek to advance culture in their field. And we can take a famous
one. One does it like Bach. And at
the bottom of all of his music signs what? Soli Deo Gloria. To God alone be the glory. Because
my desire in the field that I labor in is for God to be glorified
throughout the whole earth. And so I'm going to advance the
field of my vocation for the glory of God. The other doesn't. He may do it for a whole swath
of different reasons. Emotional expression, whatever
it might be, but it's idolatry. And that's all it ends up being. So how do we bring this closer
to home? What about the culture where
you and I live? Well, what's the religion of
our nation? And what's the culture? Secular humanism. And just by
way of recap, essentially, secular humanism is man is. There's no God, no divinity,
no supernatural. Man is the measure of man. Man is the apex, material things. That's it. only what's material. And this really gets propagated
a lot by Darwinian evolution. And the interesting thing is
a lot of people propagating Darwinian evolution have not read Darwin's
works. Because if you read Darwin's
works, you know what you'll find? The apex of man is the white
man. And the darker your skin, the
less of a person you are. Now, they let that slide because
it's in line with what they believe and what they want and what they're
pushing. But if somebody against them said that, they would call
it what it is, racism. But they keep pushing it. Material
things, that's all that there is. And the irony is that self-refuting. Because that statement isn't
even a material thing. There are things that are immaterial.
And what was the church's response throughout these past centuries?
Adopting a pietistic form of platonic dualism. I know that's
a mouthful or an earful. It's a mouthful too. But you
remember we talked about pietism, this privatized Christianity,
just in my heart and in my devotions, just me. It's different than
being pious. Being pious is a good thing.
Being godly is a good thing. Pietism and pietistic tendencies
are not. What is platonic dualism? Very
simply, dualism, so two, platonic from Plato, material things are
good, or material things are bad, spiritual things are good. So anything material is bad,
because Plato would teach, oh, okay, trying to make sense of
natural revelation. For every physical thing that
we see, there is a spiritual counterpart to it. So if you
see a horse, there is somewhere a spiritual horse to correspond
with that physical horse. And it's the perfect horse for
that horse. The spiritual is good, the material
is bad. So you see what's going to happen. When you have a religion that's
saying all there is is material, so then material by default is
going to be good, because there's nothing else that we have. Coming
in contact with a religion that says, no, all material stuff
is bad, it's only the spiritual things that are good. You've
just left a whole category wide open to be raped. There's no engaging with the
cultural mandate, at least not on a widespread scale. It's very
limited within the church. And there was a mass retreating
from the public square. And so how do we respond to this? How do we fight Greek philosophy
within the church? Well, the first thing we have
to do is let's see if you've been corrupted by this villainous
disease. Because if you've been corrupted by it, you're in no
position to help anyone. Let me ask you some questions.
Is it more important to be a Christian pastor or a Christian politician? Which one's more important? Is it more important to be a
Christian business owner or a Christian missionary? Which one is it? Essentially, what we're asking
is, what's more important, subduing the earth or evangelism? What's more important, the cultural
mandate or the Great Commission mandate, the evangelistic mandate? You have been infected. Because
when you hear politician and then pastor, you say pastor. It's pietism, platonic dualism
that has infected your thinking. There's a reciprocal relationship
between the cultural mandate and the evangelistic or Great
Commission mandate. And there's a priority to each
mandate. There's a priority to the cultural
mandate in that God wanted his kingdom to come to a proper expression
before he even spoke of redemption. There was the cultural mandate,
given historically and chronologically priority. And note this also, that the
redemption aspect of the evangelistic mandate is to take place through
the cultural mandate. Remember Genesis 3.15? There's
going to be two different seeds. There's going to be a seed that's
going to come from the woman. How's that seed going to come
from the woman that's going to bring redemption? Through the
cultural mandate. Because if people are not being
fruitful and multiplying, there will be no seed. The Abrahamic
covenant. Seed and land. The Davidic covenant. Seed, land, and a throne. Christ born of a woman. He is the seed of the woman and
he's given land. And a throne and authority over
heaven and earth. And Christians are the seed of
Abraham. And all things are ours in Christ. Now, there's also
a priority to the evangelistic or Great Commission mandate.
So the cultural mandate can't properly take place in a sinful
world without redeemed people. Otherwise, you're just going
to be like Cain and his descendants. The evangelistic mandate, therefore,
is a necessary means to the ultimate goal of the cultural mandate,
that the earth will be filled with the glory of Yahweh. So
there's an urgency in this evangelistic mandate. Because we can't start
building cultures unless we have the right materials. And the
right materials has to be those that are redeemed. But note this very carefully.
These mandates cannot, as they have been for decades and centuries
in our land, these mandates cannot be separated. But they must be distinguished.
I trust you know the difference between distinguishing and separating. There's no separation between
them. So you can't pit them against each other, which is what we
see on Christian Q&A stages and from sermons and everything.
Why do that? What's more important? You have
a wrong framework. You've been infected if you're
thinking that way. The urgency is redemption of
persons. The goal is redemption of cultures. The purpose is so that Christ
is recognized as king over not just every single individual,
but every single sphere. Family. Civil. Church. Every vocation. Christ is king. Every recreational
activity. Every relationship. Because the
ultimate purpose is that God's glory would fill the earth as
the water does the seas. So this is not an either-or decision.
Every single one of us is commanded to be involved in both. Whether
you're a homemaker, white collar, blue collar, no collar. And granted,
it's going to look different in different degrees. If you're
a homemaker, the expectation is not that you come out to Esther
Short Park and do street preaching. It's going to look different.
This isn't cookie cutter. It's not everybody has to do
everything equally. The politician that's a Christian
isn't going to use his political platform to try and push evangelism. Because evangelism is a ministry
of the church. But the political Christian We'll
be evangelistic because he is a Christian. And so you see, there's a lot
to this that we need to think through, wade through, and start
getting to practical levels because we're drowning here. It doesn't matter if you're single
or you're married, if you're young or you're old. Here's what I don't want you
to do. and pitting these things against each other. Don't be
heartless and just focus on the cultural mandate and have no
regard for the souls of men. But at the same time, do not
be blind and fail to see that the goal of the evangelistic
mandate is for the glory of God to fill the earth, which is the
cultural mandate. And unfortunately, this is the
posture that the church in America has taken for decades. Summed
up, heartless and blind. They say, oh, it's just about
preaching the gospel. It's just about preaching, and you don't
even preach the gospel. We've got to get culture. We've got
to get culture. No, we shouldn't go after culture. And pitting
them against each other as if they're separate. Now, you can
place the wrong emphasis on things, but you cannot Separate these
as they have been. We don't have that authority
to separate them. And I would say the problem in
our culture goes back to pastors. And you've heard me say this
before. Pastors failing to be pastors, failing to represent
God from their pulpits and to teach scripture. concerned far
too much about what people think, and how many people are going
to come to their church, and what's this going to be, and
what's that, or if I say this, people will be upset, or I'll
drive people away, or this or that. All of that is irrelevant.
The pastor is to stand in the pulpit and proclaim the Word
of God. That's what he's supposed to do. Churches have not stood on scripture
with regard to Christian living in every sphere, in the family.
How many churches have you been to that emphasize loving male
servant leadership in the home? Or family worship in the home
led by the father and by the mother? Discipling your children. in the home, educating your children
in the home, training your children in the home, disciplining your
children with the rod in the home. Not many. Why is that? Are these things
not commanded in Scripture? Is this just part of some statement
of faith for some denomination? No. Aren't these unavoidable
ways that Scripture says we are to love our family? And are these
not the means by which God has said, this is how I am glorified?
So why is it not being taught? Colossians 2, see to it that
no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception
according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary
principles of the world and not according to Christ. That's why
they've been taken captive. Churches have not stood on scripture
with regard to the civil sphere. Voting, not voting, whatever.
And as we saw last week, that's unbiblical, and that's sinful,
and will all be held to account for the authority that we've
been given. Not seeing This is one thing
I want to help you guys understand. We've talked about it before
when we've talked about the Christian's vocation. Not seeing your job
as a ministry, as a God-ordained means for the cultural and evangelistic
mandate. Well, I'm not a pastor and I'm
not a missionary. You're not Roman Catholic either.
That's where that comes from. Clergy laity. Maybe one day,
When you grow up and you want to get serious about God, then
you'll be a leader in the church like me. That's not in the Bible. What's in the Bible is to fill,
to spread every vocation, all vocations. The vocation that
you're in is the one that God has ordained for you to be in.
And what you are supposed to do there is to work hardly as
unto the Lord in that vocation for the glory of Christ, looking
for opportunities to evangelize and to show your Christian work
ethic, Not just for men, but primarily because your father
is looking down and he's pleased seeing you work. When you're
going and you're going to somebody's house on a call to fix a sink,
your father is pleased with you when you do it well. When you're in the home, As a
wife and a mother laboring with the kids, and you're battling
all these different sinful tendencies, and instructing them, giving
them a good example, and fighting the good fight in the home, your
father is pleased with you. You don't have to become a pastor.
That's not found in the Bible. You need to see your job as a
God-ordained means for the cultural and evangelical mandate that
God has given to every one of his children. And then in third,
the church, we've forgotten we're at war. For some reason, we've gotten
lazy. We have a captain, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are the
church militant, militant, And we haven't been what we're called
to be, which is the pillar and support of the truth. And so
the truth has not been going out. So when you think about this,
brothers and sisters, we have failed in every sphere of life. Not just our personal lives with
our personal sins. But we failed in the church,
we failed in the family, and we failed in the public sphere. And we, like Adam, have sinned.
We've abrogated God's commands. And like Adam, now we have an
uphill battle. Because our responsibilities, the mandates that we've been
given, are still there. But now it's going to be harder.
Yes, some of this is from our forefathers. You can sit and whine about that
all day long, and it's not going to help. Or you can look at where
you failed, repent, seek the Lord's face, and say, okay, Lord,
help me. I want to move forward in faith
and I want to be honoring and glorifying to you. Because here's the thing,
how has the serpent's seed fared in our land during this time
while we've been asleep at the wheel? I'm going to give you
some of their goals from the 19th and 20th century. Goal number 11, promote the United
Nations as the only hope for mankind. Demand that it be set
up as a one world government with its own independent armed
forces. Goal number 15, capture one or both of the political
parties in the United States. Goal number 16, use technical
decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by
claiming their activities violate civil rights. This was written
decades ago. Goal 17, get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts
for socialism and current communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of the teachers'
associations. Put the current political ideas
and policies of communism in the children's textbooks. Goal
19, use student riots to foment public protests against programs
or organizations which are under communist attack. Goal 20, infiltrate
the press. Get control of book review assignments,
editorial writing, and policy-making positions. Goal 21, gain control
of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures. 22, continue
discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic
expression. Replace them with shapeless,
meaningless forms. You wonder why that art you see
all around that doesn't look like art is out there? There's
a purpose behind it. There's a culture behind it. 24. Eliminate all laws governing
obscenity by calling them censorship and a violation of free speech
and free press. Goal number 25, break down cultural
standards of morality by promoting pornography in books, magazines,
motion pictures, and TV. So I hope you men hear this.
If you do look at pornography, realize that you're taking sides
with the enemy, not just against Christ, but against God's glory
and against your brothers and sisters in the church. Goal number 26, present homosexuality,
degeneracy, and promiscuity as normal, natural, and healthy. Goal number 27, infiltrate the
churches and replace revealed religion with social religion.
Discredit the Bible. Goal number 28, eliminate prayer
in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle
of separation in church and state. Goal number 29, discredit the
American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned,
out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between
nations on a worldwide scale. Goal number 33, eliminate all
laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the communist
apparatus. Goal number 38, transfer some
of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies.
Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders, which
no one but psychiatrists can understand or treat. Goal number
39, dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health
laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose
communist goals. Goal number 40, discredit the
family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy
divorce. Goal number 41, emphasize the
need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents.
Attribute prejudices, mental blocks, and retarding of children
to suppressive influence of parents. Goal number 42, create the impression
that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the
American tradition, that students and special interest groups should
rise up and use united force to solve economic, political,
or social problems. This is from a book called The
Naked Communist. It was written in the 50s, summarizing communist
agendas. Some of these have already been
accomplished. And it was out there. But religion has nothing to do
with politics. So I don't care what happens
to our culture and to our nation. Do you like going to work, being
able to work at your job? Pick a job that you'd like to
do within reason and come home knowing that your wife and kids
will be there and will be safe Or do you want to be forced into
a job you have no control over, leave going to work knowing that
when you're gone, they will be raped, and that's what you'll
come home to? This is where things have been
and are heading. I don't know where the precipice
is, but I think it's really close. but religion has nothing to do
with politics. Listen to this quote. This is a dedication of
Saul Alinsky's book. If you know who Saul Alinsky
is, you should know. He's the mentor of the Clintons
and the Obamas and others. Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder
acknowledgment to the very first radical, from all our legends,
mythology and history, And who is to know where mythology leaves
off and history begins, or which is which? The first radical known
to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively
that he at least won his own kingdom, to Lucifer. Religion
has nothing to do with politics. This is just what the communists
are doing. This is the ideology that President
Obama cut his teeth on and taught this. as a community organizer
and agitator for four years, motivating troops. But religion has nothing to do
with politics. Now, ultimately, unless you get
your foolish, childish thinking again, We know that human government
will always fail us, so we're not going to place our hope and
our faith in politics, since it has humans in it, and humans
will sin and will fail you. We've seen this from the garden
onward. Adam and Eve commanded to rule over the earth, yet without
considering anyone but themselves, they used their authority to
usurp God's authority and to plague the generations of their
children, of which we are. They did not consider the impact
that this would have on their own children. We, on the other
hand, have an opportunity not to fail in the same ways Adam
failed in. We need to love our children and our grandchildren,
and we need to think generationally about great-grandchildren and
others. Yeah, we might, some of us in this room might, be
dead before the gulag comes, but what about our children? Are we so selfish that we don't
even care? Just as long as we make our life
for them to deal with. More importantly, we're breaking
the Lord's command and we're teaching them to break the third
commandment. You shall not take the name of
the Lord in vain. Isn't it interesting that most
of you have that reductionistic view of, well, that means saying,
God damn. That's not what it means. It
means calling yourself a Christian and not living in every sphere
of your life like a Christian. You're taking up the name of
God and you're living it out empty. That's what it means. Imagine if somebody was publicly
engaging, if you're a business owner, and somebody's publicly
engaging in a crime with his work uniform on of your company,
and he's out there in society dressed up with company clothes
on of your company, and he's committing crimes. How would
you feel about that? How would you handle that? Do
you think God has a lesser standard than you do? For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh as the waters cover
the sea. Yeah, but Joey, it's all gonna
burn anyway, so why does it even matter? When I hear that, I just
think, give me your wallet, you hypocrite. It's just gonna burn
anyway. Why does it even matter? Why
do you live in a home, you hypocrite? It's just gonna burn anyway.
Why do you have a car, hypocrite? Give me your car, give me all
that stuff. Since it doesn't matter, it's all just gonna burn
anyway. You don't live like that. What's the difference? What you
love. And it ties into taking the Lord's
name in vain. I want the benefits of being called a Christian,
but none of the responsibilities. We can't bring about the kingdom,
though. Well, think about this. We're commanded to pursue sanctification,
to be holy as God is holy. 1 Peter 1. Can we as humans,
even as redeemed humans, be holy like God, the infinitely majestic,
thrice holy God is holy, who dwells in unapproachable light?
Can we be holy like that? No! So why even try? We are commanded to pursue this
cultural mandate so that God's will is done on earth as it is
in heaven, so that his glory will fill the earth as the waters
cover the sea. Now, can we as humans, even redeemed
humans, bring about this kingdom of God over the face of the earth?
No. We can't. So why even try? Because the love of Christ controls
us. That's why. Because our Master
and our Savior and our Lord, who loved us and gave Himself
up for us, has told us what to do. Because our heartbeat comes
from His heart. His love motivates us. And we
desire His glory on this earth. Because we know Him and we've
seen Him. And He is beautiful and He is precious. And he's
true, and he's right, he's good. And that is the life that we
want everybody to have. Now notice that both of these
arguments, these ridiculous objections, are logically the same. And if
you hold them, I want to challenge you right now, you need to repent
of the sin of antinomianism. And it is running rampant through
your mind and through your affections. You've got to find out what affections
are tied to that, that you're hiding out. Antinomianism is
a dangerous and wicked doctrine that, under the guise of advancing
free grace and Christian liberty, it rejects God's moral law as
the rule of life for believers. Antinomianism falsely claims
that because Christians are justified by faith and under grace, we're
no longer obligated to obey God's law. This heresy separates the
law of God from the gospel of God, leading believers away from
holiness, away from conformity to Christ, and ultimately turns
grace into a license for conscience-searing, sinful living. Look at Romans
5. Chapter 20, verse 20, Romans
5 20. Now, the law came in so that
the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace
abounded all the more so that as sin reigned in death, even
so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. What shall we say then? Are we
to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be. There's no stronger way to put
that in Greek. This is as strong as it gets. May it never be. He's exploding here. How shall
we who died to sin still live in it? How could your mind even
go in that direction? Or do you not know that all of
us who were immersed into Christ were immersed into his death?
Therefore, we were buried with Him through immersion into death,
so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory
of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life, that our
life would be different. For if we have become united
with Him in the likeness of His death, Certainly, we shall also
be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, our old man was
crucified with him, in order that our body of sin might be
done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. Look at the call, the command
he gives to us in verse 11. Consider yourselves dead to sin,
but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign
in your mortal bodies, so that you obey its lusts. Notice the
church militant language in this next verse. And do not go on
presenting your members to sin as weapons of unrighteousness,
but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead
and your members as weapons of righteousness to God. Look over at 2 Corinthians 4,
or 5, 14. For the love of Christ controls
us, having concluded this, one died for all, therefore all died.
And he died for all, why? So that they who live would no
longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again
on their behalf. Therefore, from now on, we recognize
no one according to the flesh, even though we've known Christ
according to the flesh, yet we know him in this way no longer.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things
have passed away. Behold, new things have come.
All these things are from God who reconciled us to himself
through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Namely,
that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting
their transgressions against them. And he has committed to
us this word of reconciliation. So then, we are ambassadors for
Christ. ambassadors. That means we go
places and we represent him. The church is not a hospital.
I think that's one of the dumbest illustrations ever. That's so
passive. We just stay here and somebody
needs us. Here we are. We are ambassadors. For Christ, as God is pleading
through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him, who knew no sin,
to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness
of God in Him. And if you're here today and
you have not yet surrendered to Christ and cast your burden
of your sin upon Him, Why? What are you waiting for? You
can't do any of the cultural mandate. You can't do anything
that we've been talking about. You are not yet on the team.
You have not yet surrendered your life to Christ. You're not
one of his ambassadors. It's his ambassadors. The ones
that are going about the cultural command and going to seek God's
glory in every single thing. But if you can't desire God's
glory here and now in your own life. What are you playing at? You need to repent. Christ is
coming back. He's going to separate the sheep
and the goats. He's going to reign and rule
over all. And for those of us that love
him, this will be the happiest, most joyful time ever. We will
be so thankful. But for his enemies, they will
begrudgingly bow the knee and say, what? Jesus Christ is Lord. To the
glory of God the Father. So Christians, where do we go
from here? Well, think about some parallels. Adam and Eve
were brought from the world to a place of beauty where God dwells
in the garden. And we as Christians were brought
out of the world to a place of beauty where God dwells, the
church. Adam and Eve were to be fruitful and multiply, extending
the garden outward, knowing that they would have children and
a man is to leave his father and his mother and there's going
to be these new families. So there must be something cultivated,
there must be something prepared for those people. The garden
was to be a military garrison for the kingdom, a fortified
stronghold in enemy territory to take over everything else
that was formless and void. Similarly, look at Titus chapter
1. The church is a garrison. The church is a garrison. When
Paul writes to Titus, in verse 5 of chapter 1, he says, This
is the reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what
remains and appoint elders in every city. He's not saying,
go plant one church. He's saying, appoint elders in
every city as I directed you. Then he explains what the elders
should look like. Why does an elder have to be like this? Why
do we need these elders in every city? Look at verse 12. One of them, a prophet of their
own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. That's
culture. That's culture. For this reason, reprove them
severely so that they may be sound in the faith. Look at chapter
2. The pastor should speak things
which are proper for sound doctrine, and there's a goal in that doctrine,
and it's zealous for good works. Older men are to be temperate,
dignified, sensible, sound in the faith, in love, and in perseverance.
Older women, now this is not something I have ever seen in
any church before. It's not even in our church.
Every church I've been to, I've seen that they have Titus 2 ministries,
but I've never seen a biblical Titus 2 ministry being lived
out. Not one time. Older women likewise are to be
reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved
to much wine, teaching what is good. Why? So that they may instruct
the young women in sensibility, to love their husbands, to love
their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind,
being subject to their own husbands so that the word of God will
not be blasphemed. I have yet to see a church where
the older women take it upon themselves to disciple the younger
women and to help them through that stage of life. Likewise, urge the younger men
to be sensible. In all things, show yourself
a model of good works with purity and doctrine, dignified, sound
in word, which is irreproachable, so that the opponent will be
put to shame having nothing bad to say about us. Slaves, be subject
to their own masters in everything, to be pleasing, not contradicting,
not pilfering, but demonstrating all good faith, so that they
will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in everything, in
all of life, all of life to the glory of God, civil sphere, vocations,
everything. Why? For the grace of God has
appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us that,
denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live sensibly,
righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the
blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and
Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might
redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a people
for his own possession, zealous for good works. Look at 3.8.
He says, this is a trustworthy saying concerning these things.
I want you to speak confidently so that those who have believed
God will be intent to lead in good works. Intent to lead against
who? Lead against whom? The world,
those that do not believe in God. You see, this isn't just
about planting a church so that the church can stay in its lane.
This is about planting a church so that individual Christians
will go out, pursuing the cultural mandate, and by their word and
their life, they will be transforming the cultures in which they live.
Yes, the gospel just requires repentance and faith. But all
these other things come after. as fruit of the gospel. He even says at the end in verse
14, our people must also learn to lead in good works to meet
pressing needs so that they will not be unfruitful. And this all
starts in our personal life, in our families, and in our churches. If we're not going to be faithful
there, then we're not going to be faithful when we go out pressing
the right culture outward into the civil sphere. That's not
going to happen. But we will be doing this. We
will be creating a culture around us, no matter what. Just like
every one of you men who has children, you are a leader in
your home. The question is not whether or
not you are a leader. The question is, what kind of
leader are you? And for all of us, the question
is not, are you or aren't you influencing the culture as a
Christian? It is, how are you influencing the culture as a
Christian? What are you teaching people
about who Christ is, and what redemption looks like, and the
authority of God by the way that you already live? Christ has to be preeminent.
In all of our lives, in every area of our lives, both in the
cultural mandate and the evangelistic mandate. Because remember, Christ
is King of kings and Lord of lords. Is he not worthy? Shall he not
have the full reward? Not just in the souls of men.
But with their lives and the way they live their lives, the
testimony of their life. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that your
word has much to say, and we ask your forgiveness, Lord, for
we have failed you in so many ways. Through our ignorance and
through our weak mindedness, we have been deceived. But Lord,
you have shown the light, this glorious doctrine into our minds
and into our hearts, and we ask, Lord, that you would cause us
to examine ourselves, to search and to see the areas that we
must repent before you, and that you would forgive us and that
you would grant grace so that we might be faithful and put
your glory on display. Help us, we pray, Father, for
your glory, that your glory would fill the earth as the water covers
the seas. In Christ's name, amen.
For His Glory: Fulfilling the Cultural Mandate in a Communist World
Series Faith & Politics
| Sermon ID | 81124221198062 |
| Duration | 1:17:44 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
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