Betrayal of the Ages
This is from a an awesome video, which I will link to at the bottom. The preacher speaks of a great betrayal of the ages, and it’s called humanism. I have been deceived too on this matter. It’s probably not a stretch to say that quite a few Christians are deceived as well. Please, I urge you brothers and sisters to evaluate this and examine yourself because you very well may be deceived as well. This is very important…
Would I be out of line in order to talk to you for a little while about utilitarian religion? An expedient Christianity?
The question that you are going to ask yourself is: “Is God an end or is He a means?” You have to decide very early in your Christian life whether you are viewing God as an end or a means.
The philosophy of the day became humanism and you can define humanism this way: Humanism is a philosophical statement that declares the end of all being is the happiness of man. The reason for existence is man’s happiness. Now, according to humanism, salvation is simply a matter of getting all the happiness you can out of life.
This group of my people, the fundamentalists say: “We believe in the inspiration of the Bible! We believe in the deity of Jesus Christ! We believe in hell! We believe in heaven! We believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ!” – Remember, the atmosphere is that of humanism. Humanism says the chief end of being is the happiness of man.
So, it wasn’t long until we had this. The fundamentalists knew each other because they said, “We believe these things.” They were men, for the most part that had met God. But you see, it wasn’t long until having said, “These are the things that establish us as fundamentalists”, the 2nd generation said, “This is how we become a fundamentalist: Believe in the inspiration of the Bible! Believe in the deity of Christ! Believe in His death, burial, and resurrection!” – and thereby, become a fundamentalist.
It wasn’t long until it got to our generation where the whole plan of salvation was to give intellectual assent to a few statements of doctrine. A person was considered a Christian because he could say “Uh huh” at four or five places that he was asked to, and if he knew where to say “Uh huh”, someone would pat him on the back, shake his hand, smile broadly and say, “Brother, you’re saved.”
So it had gotten down to the place where salvation was nothing more than an assent to a scheme or a formula. The end of this salvation was the happiness of man because humanism had penetrated. So if you were to analyze the fundamentalism in contrast to liberalism of a hundred years ago, as it developed, it would be like this: The liberal says the end of religion is to make man happy while he’s alive. The fundamentalist says the end of religion is to make man happy when he dies.
Until we find it something like this: “Accept Jesus so you can go to Heaven, you don’t want to go to that old, filthy, nasty, burning hell when there’s a beautiful Heaven up there. Now come to Jesus so that you can go to Heaven.” The appeal could be as much selfishness as a couple of men sitting in a coffee shop deciding they are going to rob a bank to get something for nothing.
It becomes so subtle, it goes everywhere. What is it? In essence, it is this: That this philosophical postulate ‘at the end of all being is the happiness of man’, has been sort of covered over with evangelical terms and Biblical doctrine until God reigns in Heaven for the happiness of man, Jesus Christ was incarnate for the happiness of man, all the angels exist… Everything is for the happiness of man! And I submit to you that this is un-Christian!
Christianity says, “The end of all being is the glory of God.”
Humanism says, “The end of all being is the happiness of man.”
This is the betrayal of the ages. It’s the betrayal in which we live and I don’t see how God can revive it until we come back to Christianity. Isn’t man happy and doesn’t God intend to make us happy? – As a byproduct, and not a prime product.“
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The preacher than flows into a powerful testimony of what happened to him in Africa –
“But it was there in Africa that God began to tear through the overlay of this humanism.”
He continues on the above-mentioned at the 18:20 mark of the below video. I’d recommend a full watch of the video. It talks about a revival that happened some place overseas. The preachers are oldies, preaching how they use to. The way they enunciate was odd, the background music annoying for me at times, but the messages are very good. Also, there is an oddly placed song in there.. from the 12min mark to 13:42. Enjoy..
I found the preacher on above-mentioned: Paris Reidhead. Here is the sermon. I think every Christian needs to hear this – Ten Shekels and a Shirt by Paris Reidhead
