The Heathen Rage

Psalm 2 is one of the Bible’s amazing prophecies. It describes the atheism and moral rebellion of the end times. “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us” (Psalm 2:1-3). Rage against God and His holy laws is the chief characteristic of the humanistic philosophy of the past three centuries, the philosophy that has largely overthrown the influence of Christianity in Western culture. In The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine (1737-1809) called the Bible “a book of lies and contradictions” and said it is more likely “the word of a demon than the word of God.” Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) rejected a God who punishes those who displease Him. Bentham was an apologist for homosexuality and exhorted governments not to legislate against “drunkenness and fornication.” Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) called himself “the most terrible opponent of Christianity.” Nietzsche concluded his autobiography Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) with the blasphemous words, “Dionysus vs. the Crucified” (not long before he went insane). John Dewey (1859-1952), father of “progressive education” and co-author of the Humanist Manifesto, called God “a faded piece of metaphysical goods” (Dewey, “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy,” 1916). Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), father of existentialism and perhaps the most influential philosopher of the 20th century, was an atheist whose “life was one continuous celebration of debauchery.” In his autobiography, Sartre blasphemed the Holy Spirit, claiming that he caught Him and threw Him out of his life. Rage against God’s holy laws is also the chief characteristic of the western pop culture that has spread throughout the earth. The rage is expressed continually through movies, television, literature, the news media, the fields of education, fashion, and art. The rebellion is seen in pagan religions, communism, evolution, militant atheism (e.g., the American Atheists paid for billboard ads in September 2012 calling the God of the Bible “sadistic” and Jesus a “useless Savior”), and the homosexual rights movement.

(Friday Church News Notes, January 8, 2016, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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