Title: The Godless Man
Text/ Isaiah 29:13-14, Mark 7:1-23, Matthew 15:1-20
1. Introduction
We've been meditating over the past two weeks on the idea that there are two types of people in this world: atheists and theists. But today's text says that there are people who have a third thought. These are people (theistic atheists) who say that there is a God with their words and lips, but in reality there is no God.
*This people draws near to me with their mouth, and respects me with their lips, says the Lord, but their heart is far from me; for they fear me only as they have been taught by the commandments of men (Isaiah 29:13) *You hypocrites, Isaiah has prophesied well of you, saying, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:7-9).
2. Characteristics of theistic atheists
first. Theistic atheists are those who have the form of godliness but deny the power of godliness. Their hearts are corrupted and they lose the truth, and they think godliness as a source of profit and cause quarrels (1 Timothy 6:5, 2 Timothy 3:5). . They say, “Shall the new moon always pass, so that we can sell grain, and the sabbath always pass, that we produce wheat?” (Amos 8:5). We wear God down with vain sacrifices and practices (Isaiah 1:10-15). They say that God is their master, but they do not fear God. Even the Sabbath sacrifice is said to have done our duty to serve God while sneering and extorting things, lameness, and sick things, saying how deplorable this was (Malachi 1:6-14).
It is the same in our day today. Those who attend the Sunday worship service but do not have sincerity and reluctantly to fill it out, those who attend the worship service to meet the people they need to meet rather than the worship service Even those who are sold out and have a boring and anxious worship service can be called atheistic atheists who have the form of godliness but deny the power of godliness.
second. Theistic atheists are people who change the order of the essential (God) and the superfluous (material-pleasure). Jesus said to seek the kingdom and its righteousness first, and then to find the material-pleasure issue of food and living. These are people who seek material-pleasure first and then seek God.物有本末 事有終始 知所先卽近道矣 (There are essential and minor things in the logic of the world, and there are things to do first and things to do later. If you know these things right away and practice them in real life, you will have mastered the Way. You can call it a human). In Go, there is something called a sequence. If the procedure is not good, Go loses. Life is like this. Theistic atheists are people who live out of order.
third. Therefore, theistic atheists live not God-centered but material-pleasure-centered. No, it has to be material-pleasure-oriented. Man is a being who lives by pursuing, longing, and wishing for something. Because God made all things and made them beautiful in their seasons, He also gave man a longing for eternity (Ecclesiastes 3:11). However, it is because the next best thing for those who have acknowledged the eternal God with their lips and not with a concrete life is material pleasure.
All the prophetic traditions of the Bible sternly warn that the future of a nation or individual who lives centered on material-pleasure away from God-centeredness is destruction.
* You sell the righteous for silver, you sell the needy for a pair of shoes, you covet the dust on the head of the poor, you pervert the way of the humble, and a rich man goes to a young woman and profane my holy name (Amos 2:6-8) You are the ones who have devoured the vineyard, and the spoils from the poor are in your houses. Do I trample my people, and grind the face of the poor? Do you build houses from house to house, and add land to land so that there are no gaps? (Isaiah 3:13-15; 5:8)
Victor Frankl, the founder of logotherapy (meaning therapy), said through clinical research results, “People who are frustrated or lost in the pursuit of the ultimate meaning of their life inevitably become engrossed in substances or pleasures as a substitute for them” (Logotherapy’s Theory and Practice, Bundo Publishing House, pp. 98-99).
3. Breaking the boundaries of theistic atheists
Because I am not another person, I do not know the heart of others. But looking back on myself, I am not an atheist. Not a theist either. I'm more of a theistic atheist. I want to live as a true theist. What to do? There may be several alternatives. For me, I try to escape the boundaries of theistic atheists through the following piety training.
獨一靜處 專精思惟 (German government office prudence reason): I will stay in a clean and quiet place alone and think deeply.
心不返照 看 無益: Reading the Bible dryly without concentrating your mind is futile, so you will read the Bible with earnest desire.
祈之禱之 Sacred 靈通知 (Notice of the Holy Spirit): I believe that if you pray earnestly to God and pray, the Holy Spirit will understand and make known.