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POSTMODERNISM

Series: Uncovering Religion

2Peter 3:3-13

+Our Modern Culture We are living in a day, among a people within a culture that

fulfills many prophecies in the Bible which describe the kind of world which is to exist during the last days.

2Timothy 3:1-5 “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God — having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.”

Ravi Zacharias commented, “Our generation has nothing to look forward to but oblivion. The entailments of this are terrifying: cloning, drugs, AIDS, suicide, child pornography, terrorism, and a host of other problems that are heartbreaking.”

+A Brief History In a sermon by Pastor Neil Ryan called ‘Hope in a

Postmodern World’ Neil gives us an overview of history:

PRE-MODERN WORLD 500-1500 Religion was the source of authority The common person did not have access to the divine accept

through intermediaries who often held positions of power Tradition was unshakable and sacred

MODERN WORLD 1500-2000 Knowledge and Science become the source of truth and reality God recedes into the background Opens the way for enlightenment, industrial revolution,

Darwinian evolution theory. It’s the birth of a world where man believes he can master the

universe Leads to colonialism and great explorers like Columbus, Cook

and Mawson as well as modern Christian Missions.

+The Post-Modern World Then we have the 20th Century.

With the advent of World War 1 (The war to end all wars) closely followed by World War 2 and the Holocaust.

The terrible genocides and democides (murder of people by a government) of Stalin and other communist dictators.

The total of communistic democides are estimated to be 110,000,000 between 1900-1987 which pales the total battle dead which is estimated at 38,000,000.

The 20th Century (the most murderous century in history) came along, and modernism and its optimism was ruined by the age old problem of evil.

+Postmodernism Pastor Neil Ryan defines Postmodernism for us.

No single defining source for truth or reality beyond the individual. The optimism of the modern world was replaced by skepticism, relativism and mysticism – an incapacity to know anything with certainty!

Traditional views of God are said to be like a silly old dream. But because religion abhors a vacuum, we have had the rise of spirituality in the form of neo-pantheism and neo-Gnosticism. [The New Age, rise in cults etc.]

Everyone wants spirituality but they don’t want God.

Postmodernists are suspicious of truth claims because there is no absolute truth.

[So Spirituality for a post-modernist is whatever works for you. Craft your own faith, a bit of Buddhism + Reiki combined with some scientology and maintain a bit of Catholicism.]

+Hope in a Postmodern World So where do you find hope in a postmodern world, when

truth claims are viciously attacked and rejected?

When the overwhelmingly dominant mindset of the modern culture is atheism and humanism?

Ravi Zacharias stated: “The questions about death demand answers, but atheism has none because there is no heaven to be gained and no hell to be shunned. Life finishes with the last heartbeat: all relationships are severed, all endeavors are ended, the arms of justice is cut short, eternity in the heart has been swallowed up by the finality of experience. There is nothing to fear or to hope for, no God to meet, and no hope to anticipate – all is truly and ultimately ended... The athiest is left with no reason for being, no morality to espouse, no meaning to life and no hope beyond the grave. The absence of a future hope has an amazing capacity to reach into the present and eat away at the structure of life, as termites would a giant wooden foundation.

+Implications to our Culture Truth is not what is important to this postmodern culture

we live in, only happiness and pleasure and getting everything that you want.

So what we have in this post-modern culture is the attitude, “If it feels good do it. Do what you want and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t. If you want it, take it.”

If we have no defining source of reality, if God is just some fairy tale for grown ups, if faith in an afterlife is no more a reality than a dream, then what is left to live for?

If life is just about the now, and we are all just cosmic accidents destined for annihilation, then of course the only thing left to live for is pleasure in the now and doing whatever comes into the mind to achieve that pleasure.

+What Will You Believe? But can we trust the philosophies of this postmodern

culture?

The question I ask continually when men try to sway me to their mindsets of hopelessness and despair is, “Which belief system will I trust: The belief system created in the minds of men (for atheism and humanism and many other isms do not claim to be created in the minds of a divine Creator, they will tell you it is a man invented philosophy) or do I trust the words of a book which claims to be divinely inspired and when read and studied can liberate the soul from hopelessness and release within it abundant life.

John 5:24 "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”

+What Promises How could someone reject or walk away from such a

glorious hope as Heaven in Christ, and turn to the sinful concepts and philosophies of men based on fulfilling every desire for pleasure and gain?

2Peter 1:3-4 “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

We are called to participate in the divine nature and by so doing escape being corrupted by the world.

I have to confess it is so easy to be corrupted by the world.

+Our Hope is Above Romans 8:24 “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that

is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?”

We have a hope in an unseen God who can be seen in what has been made.

Also we hope in a God who sent His one and only Son to die for men and women so that they can be saved in His name.

We hope in Jesus Christ who came (Secular History cannot deny His appearing) lived a life of sinlessness and laid His life down on a cross for us.

Romans 3:24-25 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”

+IS HE KING? Read John 18:33-38

Neil Ryan comments upon this Scripture:

Don’t miss this! We have Pilate – seat of power. Kingdom of Rome, We have Jews – God’s people appealing to that power. In the middle is Jesus.

Pilate has no idea what is happening – but he asks two telling questions. v33... are you the King of the Jews?

What a question? Is He King? I’m going to let that question hang. It’s haunted humanity for 2000 years. It begs to be answered by every generation. It needs to be answered today. It’s the one question that stands in the way of our postmodern push for secularization. IS HE KING?

+What is Truth? Pastor Neil Ryan continues: Then comes Pilates second

great question – v38... What is truth?

The only truth Pilate knows is Caesar’s truth! The only truth he knows is the truth of scourging and nails and crosses. The only truth he knows is that to oppose the Kingdom of Rome is to perish!

Pastor Neil wisely asserts that “the search for hope in a postmodern world is a search for a King!!! But there is a twist – the King has come to reveal TRUTH! That’s the great sticking point for the modern culture.”

[When we search for truth in this postmodern culture we will always and without fail come face to face with the cross of Christ.]

+THE CROSS OF CHRIST Neil Ryan reveals that “The cross in the Roman Empire stood as the

ultimate reminder of ultimate power... The power of life and death.”

John Stott wrote: “Crucifixion is probably the most cruel method of execution ever practiced, for it deliberately delayed death until the maximum torture had been inflicted.”

The cross represented to the people of that day, everything that is abominable, repulsive, offensive, detestable and shameful.

Neil Ryan said, “Can you see the genius of God, that He took that same symbol and literally turned it upside down and made it an everlasting symbol of His unwavering and unconditional love.”

Now, when someone wears a cross, it represents hope.

Each and everyone of us must make a decision, and that decision is with regard to what are we going to do with the Cross?

Paul made a decision that changed him forever, he said: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20