Faith and Unbelief
October 21, 2024
This weekend was our Cleansing Stream retreat. As always, it was a great time of healing and deliverance. I also learned some new things about faith and unbelief.
In the church, we study faith and learn how to strengthen our faith in God. But what was brought out in the teaching this week, is that the world actively teaches unbelief. Our educational system, especially the universities, teaches philosophies that are ant ethical to faith. One of these philosophies stems from the teachings of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834). His theory of population growth, in simple terms, was that food production increases linearly and population increases exponentially, so at some point, the population will exceed the food supply and there will be mass starvation. Malthus was primarily concerned about the welfare of the “population”, but succeeding philosophers emphasized the “control” part of “population control”. Others, such as Charles Darwin (1809-1882) strove to invent a theory of biology that eliminated the need for a creator god. And of course, Karl Marx (1818-1883) brought these theories into the economic realm, popularizing theories of socialism and communism that postulated a means of organizing the economy of a population, without needing religion or god. Marx called religion the “opiate of the people”.
In the 20th century these ideas were brought into the educational system by many, including John Dewey (1859–1952) who was a leading proponent of progressive education. Progressive ideas of population control were popularized in the 70’s by Paul Erlich’s book, “The Population Bomb”, 1968. These progressive ideas were extended into the environmental area by Rachel Carson in her book “Silent Spring”, 1962. And of course, we must not leave out Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) who founded Planned Parenthood and inspired such noble population control advocates as Adolph HItler, who’s Final Solution killed millions of people, and the Chinese Communist Parties One Child Policy that decimated Chinese society for several decades.
The underlying thought in all of these progressive movements was to teach that there is no benevolent god to provide for your. Resources are limited and scarce, and so you need to sacrifice control to an all-wise elite leadership to provide for you. Also, any optimism or hope should be abandoned lest we destroy the earth with our greed and selfishness. The result is that unbelief was actively taught. And are we surprised that we are seeing such widespread drug use, suicide, homosexuality and transgenderism!
First, prayer and Bible reading were removed from the schools, and then the progressives began to teach these theories of population control, environmentalism and socialism. Faith in a god who could provide abundantly for you was mocked and was taught to be unrealistic. To them, the reality was a world of overcrowding, lack and despondency. But of course the all-wise progressive leaders would be there to provide for you instead. As Marx put it, “From each according to his ability. To each according to his need.” This results in an equality of suffering.
Our task, as the modern church, is to combat this active unbelief and give people hope in a loving God who cares for and provides abundantly for them, and teach them to have faith and belief. But first, we need to come against the spirit of unbelief that in instilled into our young people from an early age. Some of these ideas have even crept into the church and these unbiblical, progressive ideas need to be cast out. How can we hope to do this? Only by having faith in God ourselves and praying for His wisdom and strength to combat the forces of evil in the world. It’s not a new battle, but the fighting is intensifying in this current age.
The battle plan is laid out in Ephesians 6 where we are taught that our battle is not against flesh and blood , but against spiritual forces of wickedness. We are to put on the full armor of God and enter the battle.
Ephesians 6:10-20 (NASB)
The Armor of God
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 14 Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, 15 and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; 16 in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, 19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
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