Arrogance and Rebellion,
Part 1

Acts 17:24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 `For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring.' (NIV)

Psalms 68:6 God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land. (NIV)

One of the advantages of communicating messages in our cyber-church is that a message does not have to have a special format. Today and next week, if you will permit me, I am going to ramble about man’s need for God, man’s arrogance, and our rebellion against God.

The first Christian churches and the need for God.
How important is theology when your mother, or father, or sister, or brother, or uncle, or cousin has just been taken away and thrown to the lions in front of thousands of people? How important is theology when thousands of people will laugh and have a good time while watching your loved one be attacked and torn apart by wild animals? These early Christians needed God in ways we do not understand today. What is so amazing is that they hung onto the faith and the promises of Christ during this time. If you look at the attitude of the mass of people in the world about their need for God, there is no way to compare where people are today in their need for God and where the early church members were in their need for Him.

If, as a church, we had to meet in secret, in a cave, so we could survive persecution, how important is theology? If Baptists, Catholics, Churches of Christ, Church of God, Episcopalians, and Seventh Day Adventists all were huddled together in a cave fearing for their lives then how important is theology to any of them? Answer: It would not be important. The only thing that would be important would be their bond in Christian love. What a revolution that would be!

Meeting in caves and in secret for fear of persecution is the oldest form of the Christian church. Those early cave churches were "theology free" compared to today’s segmented and divided Christian church world. In two thousand years, we have indeed grown in size but little in real impact and influence. We have grown in size and diversity. In our diversity of opinions, beliefs, interpretations, and theologies we have grown weaker not stronger. Today, it is customary to pay lip service to Christian beliefs but to live a life of sin after the talk has stopped. We have, today, a lot of great talk, but little humble walk. The diversity of Christian beliefs has reached millions with a message but do the millions reached now reach out in Christian love and humility to each other?

Above theological ideas…
Ideas are fine when our bellies are full. However, when our bellies are empty and we are hungry we could care less about ideas. Do any of us really believe our different ideas about God, our theologies, our customs, our practices, or our systems of belief are as important to God as just simply being close to Him? For God, the first objective in your spiritual life is that you be close to Him. God wants you to experience Him or His love within your heart, and that you fully and truly accept Christ. As Christians, we are not making a major impact upon the world as a faith because we have put our ideas out in front of our spirituality. As different denominations, movements, and groups of Christians we have essentially put ourselves, through our ideas, before God. This is wrong. This is arrogance. This is rebellion against the idea of humble service for our Savior.

Access to God
These Genesis people wanted access to God. They were protesting the idea of being scattered over the whole earth. They refused to do what God asked of them and at the same time actively sought God out as a power source. They would be very comfortable in today’s Christian worship world where we take such pride in building our mega-worship machines, take pride in what we are doing, praise ourselves for what we will do, and enthrall ourselves with ourselves. These Genesis people would be especially captivated by our claims of getting great power from God. They would be comfortable in our worship services where we talk about all our great achievements.

Needing God
Do you need food?
Do you need water?
What would happen if you couldn’t get food or water?
Do you need God in the same way you need food and water?

Most of the world believes they don’t need God. Most of the world believes they don’t need to think about Him, talk to Him, and least of all worship Him. After all, who needs God when we have ourselves? I have never written anything I thought was more ridiculous but which had such a ring of truth. Most of the world is consumed by spiritual hunger but the world refuses to eat at the Lord’s table.

Do you need God?
If you do need God, in what way do you need Him?
How do you need Him?
When do you need Him?
Where do you need Him?
If you do need God, on whose terms do you need Him?

What we can do ourselves.
We can get along pretty well ourselves.
We can eat.
We can work.
We can move about.
We can think.
We can learn.
We can meet our own needs.
We are self-sufficient.
We can do for ourselves, by ourselves.
We can do for ourselves, by ourselves, better than at any time in human history.
Now, let’s really puff ourselves up and look at what we can do for ourselves.
End suffering (temporarily).
End pain (temporarily).
End heartache (temporarily).
End misery (temporarily).
End hatred (temporarily).
End child abuse (temporarily).
End criminal behavior (temporarily).
End drug abuse (temporarily).
Survive death (temporarily)
Make death go away (temporarily)

What we have.
We have power.
We have electric power.
We have nuclear power.
We have power from oil through gasoline and diesel.
We have power over the air via human flight.
We have built our country (the USA) into the most advanced country on earth.
We have unbelievable technology.
We have inventions.
We have life saving medicine.
We have extended human life.
We are trying to control the weather.
We have reversed the aging process in experimental animals.
We have discovered the kill switch in living cells which tells the cells to die.

Not only do we have power but we are getting more and more power from new power sources.

We want all power, of every conceivable kind, and unless God stops us, we will get it. Unfortunately, when we get it, we will use it. We have water, electric, diesel, natural gas, steam, coal, atomic, neutron, wind, laser, mind and spirit power. As mankind has become more powerful, the reasoning in the mind of mankind says, "Because we have the power, we don’t need God. And because we don’t need God, God is irrelevant. Besides, every time you get involved with God you have to follow all these silly rules that tell you how you have to live. Because we have the power, we don’t need to live by any silly rules. Now, because we have the power we can make up our own rules about how to live." This is how the sinful thinking of mankind runs.

However, not every person on earth thinks in these ways. Many people on earth do now admit they do need God and whether all of humanity will admit it or not, all of humanity needs God. If you and everyone on earth were to tell the truth you would say, "Yes, I do need God in my life." Praise God.

Perhaps we need God in such big and dramatic ways that we are afraid to say how much we need Him. (To be continued next week.)