Error's heyday

"Stoicism may be having a renaissance. For centuries, the ancient philosophy that originated in Greece and spread across the Roman Empire was more or less treated as extinct – with the word 'stoic' hanging on as shorthand for someone unemotional. But today, with the help of the internet, it’s gaining ground."--MSN newswire this week.

*****

"I've said this for years, if truth isn't at the table, error will answer the problems. The problems are going to get answered, because people can't live in chaos and anarchy. If truth isn't there, though, the only thing to answer it is error.

"So how did we get where we are? Well, just look at how the Gentile world thinks and you'll see it," says Richard Jordan.

"In Acts 14, Paul's talking to some pagans; they called him Mercury and Jupiter and tried to make sacrifices to him: [15] And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein:

[16] Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.

"Vanities--these empty, worthless ideas. You remember how Ecclesiastes starts? [1] The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

[2] Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

 "Solomon said, 'You come, you live, you die, you come, you live, you die, and it just turns out to be nothing.'

"Notice it says 'who in times past.' There was a time in history back there when the nations said, 'We don't want God,' so God said, 'I will let you go in your own way; dream up your own thinking, and I'll make me a nation (Israel). I'll show you what it would be like if you had me as your God.'

"In time past, there was a point where God allowed the nations to walk in their own ways; develop their own thinking processes.

Acts 17: [22] Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.

[23] For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

"Paul's at Mars' Hill, talking to the Athenians, the intelligentsia, the elitists of his day. He says in verse 30, [30] And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

"Pauls' saying, 'Now, things are different than they were back there. Where you guys were back there is you were ignorant.' I love when he says that, because it's just such a funny thing. You've got the intelligentsia of the educated world. 

"When I was in college back in the 1960s, the head of the English department thought the Greeks were the greatest thinkers: 'The greatest minds, the greatest scholars.' The American education system was based on Greek thinking.

"Plato, Aristotle, Diogenes, all these guys . . . they were the greatest bunch of plagiarists who ever lived.

"These Greek philosophers got their stuff out of the wisdom literature in the Old Testament; they plagiarized from it. It was on the table hundreds of years before they ever said anything. Every philosophy of every Greek philosopher that you can list, you can find his philosophy in the Book of Ecclesiastes, but who studies Ecclesiastes? 

" 'Oh, I thought that was Israel's program.' Yeah, it is, but, boy, you can learn a whole lot by studying that.'

"Paul says, 'You elitists, you philosophers, you Epicureans, you Stoics . . . ' The Stoics followed Zeno, the Epicureans followed Epicurus. All these great Greek philosophers still being taught today, read today. Paul said, 'You're just a bunch of superstitious numbskulls, ignoramuses.'

"When you compare the thinking of this crowd down here to the way God thinks, that's what they are. You see how they got that way in Romans 1.

"How is it that they would reject what God's doing so thoroughly that He would separate a new nation away from them? Romans 1:18: [18] For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

" 'Who hold the truth in unrighteousness.' That's the crux of it. They didn't hold it correctly. How would you hold it correctly? You'd believe it. 

"By the way, have you seen God's wrath lately? Have you seen fire fall from heaven? Notice how God's wrath works in this chapter. He doesn't break a sweat, He doesn't lightning-bolt anybody. 

[21] Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
[22] Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

"You don't need to try to prove to people that God exists. It's moral corruption that tells their mind He doesn't exist.

"Here's their thinking: 'They glorified Him not as God.' They weren't willing to let Him be God and they became indifferent to His godhead. 'Neither were thankful.' When you can't bow your head and say 'thank you' for the food and the raiment He gave you . . . 

Acts 14: [17] Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.

"That ingratitude-- 'but became vain in their imaginations.' Your imaginations is you dream up things and your thinking is worthless. It's vain, it's empty, it's purposeless, it never solves the problem.

'Their foolish heart was darkened.' There's the ignorance. Because they didn't want the light of God's Word, they just walked around groping in darkness.

" 'Professing themselves to be wise.' They don't recognize their own failures. They became fools. They took the revelation of God and rejected it. They didn't want it, so then they began to develop their own, empty, vain, useless ideas to get rid of God. And they developed their own 'wise' plan, 'smart' plan to get rid of God and put themselves in His place. That's how the world solves its problems: 'Not God, our thinking.'

And then Romans 1:23 says they 'changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.' They went and got religious and started worshipping nature. Well, whose nature? 

Verse 25: [25] Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

" 'Get rid of God and we'll be our own God.' Now, historically that happened in Genesis 9-11, and Paul's reaching back to that historical event to explain why God set the Gentiles aside and called out the nation Israel.

But notice verse 24: [24] Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

"There's the wrath of God. He didn't have to whack them. He just let them have their own way because 'the wages of sin is death,' and 'the way of the transgressor is hard.' And sin is his own payday. Choose sin, choose suffering. He said, 'If that's what you want, have at it.'

Verse 26: [26] For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

'You don't want me, go in your own way.'

Verse 28: [28] And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

"That's even worse than being given up. If I give up on you, I just say, 'Okay.' If I give you over to it, I say, 'Okay, here, you're committed to it . . .' and what God literally did, you read in Deuteronomy, is when He gave these Gentiles leave to go their own way and do their own thing, He literally gave them up to the gods of this world.

"The god of this world is the Adversary and all those different gods, instead of having Jehovah as their God, they had all these false gods; the satanic influence.

"He gave them up to a reprobate mind; worthless, useless thinking. The way the heathen got to be heathen is, 'We don't want what God said; we want to do it on our own,' and from then until now, until right over to when Christ comes back, that's going to be the way they think. That's the way the world thinks."