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Albert Mohler
It's Friday, December 13, 2024. I'm Albert Mohler and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, do we live in an increasingly secularized society or not? Is the world moving in a more secular direction or not? Well, I asked the question because even as the answer appears to be obvious, yes, we're living in a more secularized age, the world appears to be moving in a more secular direction. The reality is we have to talk about it as Christians with a bit more insight than that. First of all, when you look at the world's population, most of the population of the world is resolutely not secular, Absolutely not secular, totally not secularized. When it comes to, say, abandoning their religious beliefs and their religious habits and traditions, you go to much of the world, much of the world outside the Christian world is an Islamic world. And that Islamic world is inherently not a secular world. That's not to say there aren't secularized people in it. People have a more secular worldview. It is to say that the overarching culture is overwhelmingly marked by Islam, not only as a theistic religion, but also as a way of life, a Quranic rule. It is very much an Islamic civilization or a collection of Islamic civilizations. Then you have other parts of the world where there are different religious systems that also are, to a greater and lesser extent combating or confronting secularism. There are other worldviews that are more compatible with secularism, especially non theistic forms of religion. So as you look at Confucianism, you look at certainly variants of Hinduism and Buddhism more compatible in one sense with secularism and with a society that can be at the one time Buddhist or Hindu to some degree and secular to another degree, especially when it comes to Confucianism and Buddhism. It is also true that when you look at, say, Hinduism and Islam, the headlines there would have to be, well, say, look at much of the world and certainly in the Indian subcontinent and the surrounding area where the main conflict is not just say India versus Pakistan or India versus Bangladesh, it is instead Hinduism versus Islam and Islam versus Hinduism in terms of the allegiance of the people. So theology is not gone from the headlines. In most of the world, theology is the headline. But if you do talk about living in a more secular world, well, you might be talking about living in much of Europe or in North America or in civilizations produced by Europe and North America, such as what you have in Australia and New Zealand, for example. But in the Anglosphere and in the larger European context, yes, the elites have been secularized now for a very long time and the elites are by definition more influential. And thus you look at many sectors of American society, you look at higher education, you look at the professions, you look at, say, the metropolitan areas and all the rest, increasingly secular, genuinely secular. But it's also true that from time to time the secular press has to deal with decidedly non secular issues sometimes. That's very interesting to observe. An example just in the last few days comes from the New York Times coverage of a calamity, a tragedy there in Haiti. The headline is this Haitian Gang leader orders massacre. Nearly 200 left dead in capital, that is the capital of Haiti, Port au Prince. And the headline here, which is a big headline, multi column article, tells us about a massacre that was ordered by a gang leader who is one of those gang leaders largely in control insofar as there is any control there in Haiti. Now, just to take a step backwards, Haiti is of course a Caribbean nation and it is one that has been falling into greater and greater deeper and deeper chaos for a long time. We have observed, you see here, the breakdown of civilization. Frankly, the civilization there was fragile to begin with, but now it is mob order. You have the abandonment in the main of the authority of government. You have civilizational breakdown. It is sort of like the Lord of the Flies becomes a horrifying national picture. And it is gang leaders who are now increasingly in control. And so you have criminal gang versus criminal gang. And you also have atrocities such as this order of mass murder of 200 people there in Haiti. But I said the big issue here is the fact that the headline is decidedly not secular. Now you wouldn't know that from the headline, but let's look at the story. Here's how it More than 180 people were killed in a massacre over the weekend in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Haiti's capital. The United nations human rights chief said on Monday. Monday of this week, a leading Haitian human rights group described the killings as the personal vendetta of a gang boss who had been told that witchcraft caused his son's fatal illness. So remember the date. We're talking here about an article that was published on December 10th of the year 2024. And we are told that this horrifying atrocity, this mass murder that took place in the Western hemisphere, after all in Haiti took place because this gang leader had become convinced they'd been told that witchcraft had caused the fatal illness of his son. The story continues. Quote, the slaughter began on Friday in a section of A sprawling slum in port au prince. According to the national human rights defense network, a civil rights group based in the capital, quote, older people who practiced voodoo appeared to have been targeted. According to the group. That assessment was backed by another rights organization and a resident. So now we have witchcraft being mentioned and voodoo. Well, you know, if the new york times is going to mention voodoo, it just might feel that it has to define it. Later in the article, and I mean much later in the article, the new york times tells us, quote, voodoo, which originated in west africa, is one of haiti's official religions. Its practitioners believe that all living things have spirits, including animals and plants. Brought to haiti by enslaved people, voodoo coexists with christianity as one of several recognized faiths. It is largely misunderstood in western popular culture. I just want to argue that it is not so much the case that voodoo is misunderstood in western culture. It is that a secularized section of western culture doesn't know what to do when it's dealing with something so inherently theological. Indeed, in this case, pagan and superstitious, tied to witchcraft as voodoo, because after all, they just reported, quote, its practitioners believe that all living things have spirits, including animals and plants, end quote. They don't go on to talk about what is involved in the practice of voodoo, but they do explain that this one gang leader there in haiti came to be convinced that voodoo was responsible for the death of his son, and he ordered a massacre of the adherents of voodoo who had been, at least he believed or alleged, involved in the situation. I just want to come back to this. If you don't worship the true and living God, you're going to worship something. The religious impulse, which is a part of the imago dei, is going to work its way out one way or the other. And there is only one God, but there are endless misapprehensions of him. There are endless forms of idolatry. And idolatry and its derivatives will inevitably turn into darker and yet darker variants. And here you see just a hint of how dark it can go. So do we live in an increasingly secular age? Yes, on america's college and university campuses, just to take one example, it's a much more secular age. But then ask the question again, are we living in a secular age? Not when you pick up a secular newspaper like the new york times and find yourself in a story so filled, horrifyingly enough, in this case, with this kind of theology, in a headline about a massacre, it does matter. And every once in a while, you have a very horrible picture of why it Matters. All right, next we're going to turn to questions. And I will admit right up front, I privilege questions coming from young listeners to the briefing. I want to tell you I privilege them for two reasons. Number one, I'm just incredibly honored that young people listen to the briefing. And secondly, I want to tell you they often ask the best questions. And coming from a young voice, the questions take on an even deeper urgency. Okay, so listen to this. 13 year old boy asked this question. Number one, why do most of your podcasts and some other podcasts related to yours talk more about the bad things that happen in the world? And why don't you normally talk about the good things that happen? And another question I have, is the Bible the only proof that God exists? And if that's the only evidence, then why does he not give us more? Okay, you got to love the way the mind works here. Number one, why on your podcast do you talk about so many bad things rather than normally talk about the good things that happen? Okay, so I'm not going to use the young man's name. I'm simply going to say I want to speak to you personally and say I feel the urgency of this question. I feel the importance of this question. And so I want to say what I do in the briefing is different than what I do when I am preaching in a church, doing biblical exposition. It's different than what I do when I teach in the classroom, teaching Christian theology and Christian doctrine or apologetics. It's different because what I am intending to do in this particular part of my ministry is to help Christians think through the issues that the world is throwing at us. And you know, I want to say to this 13 year old young man, most of the issues the world is throwing at us in terms of recent developments, they turn out to be headlines that are mostly about something that, well, just to categorize them here, more bad things than good things. In other words, no one writes an article about two cars that passed each other safely on the highway. They write an article about an accident and who caused the accident. What's the meaning of the accident? No one writes an article about the fact. Yes, today an update. Peace still prevailed on the border between Canada and the United States. Instead, they write about civil war in Syria. And so I want to say that in the main, no apology for the fact that most of what we have to talk about is in some sense evidence of sin in the world and a conflict of worldviews and a confusion of truth. But you know, it is just such a Good thing to be asked a question like this, because I want to say not only to this young listener, but to all listeners. The most important thing is that what doesn't make the headlines is the fact that a husband and a wife are faithful to one another, that parents are raising their children in the nurtured admonition of the Lord. It doesn't make headlines when a mom sets a child on the counter and lovingly puts on a bandaid on a scraped knee. None of that makes headlines. None of it makes headlines when a person just goes to work and does his or her job and does it well and does it to the glory of God and comes home and has dinner. That's not headline news. And you know, I love this question because it affords me the opportunity to say, in the grand scheme of the cosmos, it is the things that don't make the headlines that matter the most. But it's also important that Christians have to understand how to speak to and think about the issues that are pressing on us by the world in the headlines, in the decisions being made around us, in the work of courts and governments and all the rest, even in the rising and falling of nations, there are big issues that are being presented to us. And in this context, that's what we generally talk about. But you ask a very good question. I want to thank you for the honesty in asking it. And it does give me the opportunity to say just one Christian doing the right thing thing to the glory of God is more important in the cosmic scheme than the things we have to talk about in the headlines. But there are things in the headlines we have to talk about and think about. And so thanks for your question. But you are also sneaky because you didn't really ask a question. You asked two without a break, which is also great. All's fair. You ask. If the Bible is the only proof that God exists, then why does he not give us more? I'll simply say the Bible never says. The Bible is the only evidence that God exists. As a matter of fact, the Psalms tell us the heavens are telling the glory of God. Creation itself is crying out the existence of the Creator. And as human beings made in God's image, we have evidence for the existence of God in the structure of our own thinking. Because we can't not think without reference to God precisely because he made us in his image and he made us to know Him. So even if we don't know the truth about him, our minds know that we should. So sneaky in asking two questions. But I'LL just tell you again, the Bible is not the only evidence that God exists. But I will tell you, the Bible is the authority for our understanding of who God is. And it's because he speaks to us. We didn't find him out, we didn't discover Him. He revealed Himself to us. And the Scripture is that authoritative revelation. It is his word to us and we're thankful for it. Okay. I also love the fact that young people come up with such smart questions. This is another 13 year old boy he asks. He says, by the way, I love listening to the briefing in the car with my three siblings. Well, how encouraging is that? Thank you for that encouragement. But he says, lately there's been a question on my mind concerning Matthew 24:36. Okay, you just gotta love the fact that there's a 13 year old out there with a question. Opie Taylor on the Andy Griffith show used to say, it's praying on my mind, Pa. There are questions that prey on our mind. And for this young man, the question has to do with Matthew 24:36. He quotes it, but concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. And again, remember, this is a 13 year old asking the question, would this mean A, Jesus is lying to the disciples and is omniscient, which would mean he can't be trusted, or B, Jesus is not omniscient. Could that mean he's not qualified to be God? I would love to hear your thoughts about this. Thank you. Well, I thank you for the question and I want to change the question up just a little bit, just in terms of say, let's get the category straight. That's one of the first issues of right thinking is to get the category straight. So let's just look at the text first. Matthew 24:36. Again, we are told that no one knows the hour that is the hour of Christ's coming, that is in glory. Not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son speaking of himself, but the Father only. And then you give two alternatives. The problem is we're not limited to these two alternatives. The first alternative you say is A, is that Jesus is lying to his disciples and really does know the date and the hour. Okay, let me just tell you that's incompatible with what we know of Jesus as revealed in Scripture. Jesus doesn't lie. He can't lie. God can't lie. Okay, we save time by going to be jesus is not omniscient. Could that mean that he's not qualified to be God. You know, here again, let me just state that we have to tie everything we believe to the Scriptures. And so you're asking a big question in trinitarian theology. I'm not going to get into the weeds here. I'm simply going to say that when you look at the scripture, we are told that Jesus is God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Jesus is God. God the Father is omniscient. The Son shares in that omniscience. But the Scripture tells us Philippians 2 helps us a lot here, that Jesus the Son humbled himself in obedience to the Father. But there were certain dimensions of the fact that Jesus is truly God that were not so visible or operational during the time of his earthly ministry. We're told in Philippians 2 that Jesus humbled himself during this period. We're also told at the end of that passage in Philippians 2. Therefore, because of his obedience, God has highly exalted him and given them the name that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So is this a mystery? I want to say to this 13 year old who is a budding theologian, I just want to say yes, it is a mystery. We have to affirm everything the Scripture teaches, we have to deny everything that contradicts scriptural teaching and we have to deny ourselves too much imagination about filling in the gaps of this knowledge. We're not to speculate, we are to believe, we are to obey and we are to preach. So a great question, and I have to tell you, I love one of the aspects of a question from a 13 year old and that is that there are no extra words and he gets right to the point. I just have to say that it's a question from a 14 year old boy who asked about what he's going to do with his life. Now there's a context here and I might save this question for another time, except he puts a timestamp on it because he's about to see relatives Christmas and these relatives are going to ask him, what do you want to do? What job do you want to have? Or in the old way I was asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? And then on top of that, this question from a 14 year old encourages me because he says that for a theology class he has to write a paper on how he will make my decision, like choosing college, career, ministry or Friends and how the Holy Spirit will affect that decision. He says, I want to have a better answer than just saying I'll pray about it. Well, okay, I understand this. But number one, I'm just incredibly encouraged by the fact that you got a 14 year old in a theology class. That's just got to make me happy. I trust in a very orthodox and biblical context, that just makes me happy. But then, you know, you got relatives on the holidays that are about to ask this 14 year old, what are you going to do with your life? And now he's got a paper to write too. So he's like getting it from every direction. And he says he wants to say something more than I'll pray about it. And, you know, that's where I want to say to this young man, okay, don't worry about this. Don't sweat this question. The best answer I think you can give is this. I am eager to see how God is going to reveal to me what I should do with my life in terms of a job, where I should go, in terms of a school. Right now I'm just trying to be faithful at 14. And faithfulness at 14 means I want to prepare myself to be absolutely faithful, ready for deployment wherever God shall point me. I want to tell you, here's the good news. God's going to reveal this to you. And I will also tell you that what I thought God would have me to do when I was 14 is not what I thought God would have me to do at 17, which is not what I ended up doing. I hope and trust for the glory of God. Now I will tell you there's a connection between all those things. And I think the Lord walked me through all of those different things in order to find out what his will for me was. And I don't regret going through that process. I thank the Lord for how he brought me through that process. And you know what? I was really, really interested in all of these different dimensions. And I could have seen myself spending the rest of my life, you know, deeply, deeply involved in being a doctor or a lawyer, going into, say, a political career or other things. But I was even more interested and felt my heart even more drawn to the teaching and preaching of the Word of God. And eventually I came to the conclusion as a teenager, an older teenager, that the Lord was calling me into the ministry. And then I didn't just go on my own impression. I talked to the people who knew me best, beginning with my parents. I talked with the pastor of the church and with other Leaders in the church, elders in the church, and they were incredibly affirming. And in fact, the pastor said to me, I really have believed this for a long time, but I didn't want it to be my suggestion. That turned out to be a very, very kind statement that the Lord used to give me a lot of confidence even in thinking about this. And you know what? At no stage in your life, I just want to assure you as a 14 year old, at no stage in your life can you say, I am absolutely convinced of what God will lead me to do five years from now. But you don't have to worry about that now. God's going to reveal this in his time, in his way, and he is sovereign and he loves you and he will exercise his providence in your life in such a way that he will draw you to an interest, he will draw you to a profession, he will draw you to an area of academic interest. He will draw you into a way that using your own mind and in conversation with your parents and others, you're going to come to a realization. I think this is where I need to go to college. I think this is what I'm going to major, and I think this is what I'm going to do also. Let me just speak as a college president and tell you, five years after graduation, only about half of college graduates are doing what is suggested by their major. In other words, God's going to have a purpose for you that even when you graduate from college, you may think you know, but I can assure you, you may not fully know God's calling you to faithfulness. Grow up as a young man in Christ. Study the Scriptures, hold fast to Christ, live out faithfulness in the context of your relationship with your mom and dad and in every dimension of life and brothers and sisters, and just live to the glory of God and all of the rest will be made clear. One last thought for this 14 year old, and frankly, for all of us. The Holy Spirit uses all these things as a dimension of the Father's love for us in such a way that we are drawn to him and drawn into faithfulness. It is good that we don't have to figure all these things out alone. There are people around us who love us and love Christ who could help us think through these things as well. But as the final question for today, I want to go to a husband and father who by the way, is also a youth and college pastor, and he's a seminary student. And boy, does that encourage me. He says, quote, my role as a husband And Father is my greatest joy. It is an honor to serve a healthy church with growing gospel centered ministries. He says his seminary studies are making me a better husband, father and pastor altogether. He says, I feel like I'm living out what I was created for. End quote. And here comes the question. He finds himself sometimes tired, stressed, or in his words, on empty. He says at times he's just not able to even evaluate how he's being faithful. The degree to which he's faithful in all these various responsibilities, he said, it sometimes leads to anxiety. He says, I don't want to give my family the leftovers of a long day at work or study, nor do I want to cut corners as a pastor. What advice, he says, can you offer a young pastor about tackling a full schedule to the glory of God while also finding times to rest in Christ? Okay, young pastor, young seminary student, young husband and father. I'm encouraged by your question, and I just want to say there's no magic answer. There's no magic formula. I just think it comes down to the fact that it's good that we understand that there are certain times in life where just because of the circumstances of life, we find ourselves at times feeling like we are never everything we want to be in any single dimension of that life. And I just want to give you some good news and bad news. The good news is that is a particularly acute experience among young men. I just want to give some bad news. You don't get over it when you're older, but I will tell you, it's not so particularly intense. And I want to tell you, here is one of the most interesting things. God gives children to young couples for a good reason. And I see that every time I have the glorious experience of being with my grandchildren, I realize that I am not in the same position of energy or the same position of responsibility as I was with children when I was a young father with very young children, and where with my wife we were a young father and a young mother, a young husband and a young wife with not only one baby, then two babies, and then everything just happens because the job, the vocation, the calling just gets broader and more intense at the very same time. And the responsibilities of doing everything from changing diapers and cutting the grass to fulfilling the ministry and growing in the Word and continuing your studies and making sure the kids are in bed, that's all to the glory of God. I just want to honor you, telling you that even though at times you wonder if you're faithful in all these different dimensions. Here's the bad news. In no given day will you be absolutely faithful. Here's the good news. Over time, you're more faithful than day by day, you can be more faithful in a week than you are in a day. You can be more faithful in a month than you were in a week. And you can do the math. I'll just go on. I think at times we just have to recalibrate and make certain that we're doing what God's called us to do, and we're trying to be faithful in every dimension of our lives. And you, in partnership with your wife, can figure out a lot of these things better than you can alone. And you, as a member of a church, even as a pastoral team, you can help each other to figure these things out with your own life and ministry. I just mean to encourage you. I will tell you that I don't think there is a young pastor without the same trials. And frankly, it's not just young pastors. It's especially young people who are engaged in work. As young Christians, as fathers and as mothers, it can be very difficult to know just how faithful you are in any one dimension. And in any given day, we may feel acutely that we've come up short in something like two out of three. But that's why we come again the next day and try to live it to the glory of God, fulfilling all these responsibilities and frankly finding joy in these responsibilities. You also may at times just have to recalibrate. You may also have to tell people, you know, right now there's an urgency at home, and at times you have to stay at home. There's an urgency on the field. And here's one final humbling understanding. Moses, King David, the Apostle, Paul, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Peter, James, and John. Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, Just go down the list and you and I have the same 24 hours in a day. I think that's part of how God humbles us. He gives us only a certain amount of minutes, only a certain 24 hours in a day. We're responsible for that. But then we have to go to sleep and then wake up and live another day to the glory of God. And so it goes until the Lord calls us home. All right, thanks so much for your questions, and we'll turn to more next week. But in the meantime, thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website@albertmuller.com you can follow me on Twitter or X by going to twitter.com AlbertMoler for information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com I'll meet you again on Monday for the briefing.