The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His anointed…

— Psalm 2:2

Did you realize that teachers in the public schools were being encouraged to become proselytizers for a new religion? Do you realize that secular humanism has been virtually established as the state national religion of America? In a classic statement in The Humanist Magazine, a humanist educator said this:

I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizer of a new faith; a religion of humanity … for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool, day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism.

I am afraid many parents don’t know what is happening. The secular humanists continually say that there is no such thing as humanism. Adolf Hitler said, “Let me control the textbooks and I will control Germany.”

Since secular humanism has had virtually full reign in our public schools, true learning has plunged. But that makes sense, since the Scriptures declare that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Question to ponder:
Why have so many of our schools become God-free zones?

For the LORD is the God of knowledge …

— 1 Samuel 2:3

If we are to secure the well-being of our children and the generation to come, we must teach them the Scriptures. The very reason education for the masses was created in the first place was so that people could read the Bible for themselves.

I think we need to take more seriously what the Bible says when it tells us that we, as parents, are to train up a child in the way he should go. We need to consider Christian education, beginning in the home, as we train our children in the Word of God, as we train them to pray, as we train them to walk the Christian life. Besides the home, we need to teach them in Sunday school and church and in Christian school, if possible.

We are told that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and from that simple statement there has come a desire to teach children. Education was taken away from the few and given to the many. And it wasn’t the slave who was to teach but it was given over to mothers. And children grew in the knowledge of God and in the knowledge of the things of this world. There is no doubt that wherever the Bible has gone, education has gone with it. And wherever the Bible has not gone education has lagged behind.

Question to ponder:
How has the Bible made you wise?

The words of the wise are like goads, and the collected sayings are like firmly embedded nails, given by one shepherd.

— Ecclesiastes 12:11

One scholar pointed out that in our public school system in America, we have been dropping one month per year academically ever since around the time they threw prayer out of the schools. It is interesting to look at tests that were given to students fifty or eighty years ago and see that many of today’s college graduates couldn’t pass a high school entrance examination given in 1900. Many college graduates today could not read McGuffey’s Reader [6^th grade level], because they wouldn’t understand many of the words.

For example, when John Adams entered Kings College one of the entrance requirements was to translate the first ten chapters of the Gospel of John from Greek into Latin.

We live in a time when there are powerful forces engaged in an effort to see that that Christian education is nullified and, instead, children receive a godless education. This has, of course, been a cause of great concern to many. We might ask ourselves, “How did it come about that so many of our children today are brainwashed in godless secularism in so-called ‘Christian America’?”

Question to ponder:
How can we impart wisdom to the next generation?

with the pure You show Yourself pure; but with the perverse You show Yourself shrewd.

— 2 Samuel 22:27

Dr. Maurice Roberts, minister of the Church of Scotland once said about unbelieving scholars:

Till their eyes are opened by faith [the critics] will go on with the age-old mischief of cutting the Jesus of the Gospels down to a size they can cope with. They grace their [so-called] science with the title of “scholarship”; in reality it is nothing but hatred of Christ’s authority and Godhead [emphasis mine] … . The Higher Critics and the liberal theologians … have placed Christ on their Procrustean bed and lopped off his Godhead, glory and grace.

A “Procrustean bed” is part of Greek mythology. In Procrustes’ inn he had a room with a metal bed. When anybody came to sleep in that bed, he wanted to make everything nice and neat and fit the way he thought it ought to, so he cut off their legs if they were too long. Or if they were too short, he would stretch them until they fit his bed. This is a marvelous metaphor that describes the way a lot of people think and act. And so it is with skeptics and atheists down through the centuries.

When the skeptics are dead and gone, however, Jesus will be going on from glory unto glory. How wonderful, how infinite He is! As Roberts also said, “Jesus is not in the smallest degree diminished by their low opinions of him. He remains the Lord of glory still.”

Question to ponder:
If you have any questions, seek the answers. St. Augustine said, I believed, and then I understood (not visa versa). Are you disturbed by the skeptics?

… making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself, as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, which are in heaven and on earth.

— Ephesians 1:9-10

The entire history of mankind before the advent of Jesus can be seen as nothing other than a preparation for His coming into the world. All history since His coming has simply been the unfolding of the progress of His Spirit in the hearts of men and the establishment of His Kingdom in the world.

Jesus Christ is the center of all history. All others are coming and going, while Christ remains. His Kingdom is grown, and He is the ultimate ruler, not only of our world but of the universe. The whole goal of history is to bring together all in Him, all things in heaven and on earth. This will be fulfilled at His second coming.

We pray the Lord’s Prayer. We pray “Thy kingdom come.” But do we truly desire it? Do we work for it? Christ is the King, not only of the world to come, but of this world as well. Do we pray that His kingdom will come in this world, in this land, in this century, in our time?

The word “kingdom” comes from the two words “king’s dominion,” and where the King holds dominion over the hearts of men, there His kingdom has come. It is coming by the gracious influence of His Holy Spirit, by the Gospel of His love.

Question to ponder:
Do you see evidence of all things in heaven and on earth coming together under Christ here in our world? Where is it clearest?

… but became futile in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

— Romans 1:21

One of the consequences of modern unbelief and the failure of rationalism is that modern man has been plunged into an irrational worldview that now dominates the culture all about us. This can be seen very clearly in the development of painting. If you go from Rembrandt, for example, to modern times and to Cezanne, the cubists and all other forms of modern art you will find that paintings become more and more incomprehensible.

How many people have stood in modern art galleries looking at a painting one way and another, sideways, and sometimes almost standing on their heads, ultimately concluding that it must have been hung upside down.

What are these artists doing? They are very sensitive to current philosophies, so what they are doing is portraying through their art the world as they see it. These modern artists show us in their pictures a worldview which has left God out. Their paintings reflect a world without meaning, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The next time someone tells you that unbelief gives you a rational, intelligible view of the world, think of the last modern painting you looked at and puzzled over.

Question to ponder:
If our rational God made a rational universe, why can people no longer see it?

He is the Rock; His work is perfect; for all His ways are just. He is a God of faithfulness and without injustice; righteous and upright is He.

— Deuteronomy 32:4

It doesn’t matter if everyone in the world joins hands and votes unanimously that God’s truth is false—it still remains true. It remains true whether I believe in it or I don’t believe it. Whether you accept it or you reject it does not alter the fact that God’s truth does exist and never changes.

Over against the relativism of our time, I think we need desperately to reassert what Jesus Christ said. “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32).

Jesus is declaring here that there is truth. He didn’t say, “You will know a truth.” He didn’t say, “You will know your truth.” We hear this today by those who say, “Well, that’s true for you, but it’s not true for me.” Jesus said, “You shall know the truth.”

God’s truth is true for everyone. Jesus Christ said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except by me” (John 14:6). He is not a truth, part of the truth, or somebody’s truth but not somebody else’s truth—He is the Truth. How ironic it is that Pontius Pilate could say with a sneer, “What is truth?”—when standing before him was Jesus Christ, Incarnate Truth.

Question to ponder:
Why is it so hard for people in our culture to fathom absolute truth?

… the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

— 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Many people are desperately in need of comfort. They may be experiencing financial pressure, homelessness, physical suffering, sorrow over a handicapped child, bereavement, disgrace due to sin, a life of loneliness, the aftermath of an abortion, fear and uncertainty, marital breakup, weariness of the flesh, a besetting temptation, a family suicide, the death of a spouse, a shattering divorce, or grief over a prodigal child. The list goes on and on and on. Surely, it is true that people need comfort.

The Holy Spirit is called the Comforter, and the Father is the God of all comfort. Jesus comforts us by His presence. Thus, we have a whole trinity of comfort.

In the very early years of our church, a wonderful young Christian mother had a two-year-old son climb the fence in their back yard when she was on the phone. He fell into the canal and drowned. I sat in her home for hours the next day trying to comfort her.

Person after person came in, but she later told me, “There were only two people who were really able to comfort me, and they were both mothers who had lost a child.” They knew how it felt and they were there in her time of need. Just by our presence we can comfort people in the time of their grief.

Question to ponder:
Can you think of someone who might need comfort and how you could possibly help?

My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations…

— James 1:2

Peter, as well as James, tells us that we should not be amazed when the fiery trials come upon us. It should be expected that our faith would be tried by fire that it might come out as pure gold. Therefore, God puts us through these trials of fire, that we may be sanctified and refined.

Christ looks into our hearts. Is your heart troubled this day? Is it filled with anxieties, with insoluble problems? Christ, indeed, empathizes with you. Not only does He feel your trouble, He alone is sufficient and adequate to deal with it. He has promised that He will turn all things together for our good.

There is no one who does not face troubles in this world. “But man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward,” as the saying goes, and this is true. We don’t get through this “valley of tears” without learning why it is so named. But Christ is there with us. He has promised, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). He is right here with us. He will see us through all our trials.

Question to ponder:
Have you ever looked back at a trial and understood why you could “consider it pure joy”?

Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

— John 11:40

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the transfiguration of Christ. Jesus took the disciples north of the Sea of Galilee to Mount Hermon, and there they went up to the top of that Mount of Transfiguration. He left the other disciples and took the inner circle, John, James, and Peter, a little bit farther. There they saw Christ with Moses and Elijah, who appeared from the dead and talked with Him. At that time, Christ allowed something of His divinity to shine through the veil of flesh and His garments were glistening white. They were so brilliantly white that the disciples could hardly bear to look upon them.

But when that was over, Peter felt a speech coming on, and so he said, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three sanctuaries: one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (Mark 9:5). Then there came a thundering sound out of the clouds. It was the voice of the Father, saying, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him” (v.7), which is gracious, heavenly language for “Peter, shut up and listen. Maybe you might learn something.”

Peter might not have been very eloquent, but his heart was right—it is the longing of every Christian that we might stay, that we might dwell where God is.

Question to ponder:
How do we dwell where God is in this life?