This sermon by Ken Ham discusses the shift in culture from a Christian morality to a humanist philosophy due to the foundational change from God's word to man's word, impacting issues like abortion, homosexuality, and lawlessness. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the foundational aspects of creation, sin, and death in presenting the gospel, using examples from Acts 2 and Acts 17 to show the need to adapt evangelism strategies based on the audience's cultural foundation.

Answers in Genesis and Cedarville College present Answers with Ken Ham A 12-part video series defending the Bible from the very first verse. Today's question, how can we evangelize a secular world, part one. And now, Ken Ham. In nations like America, Australia, England which once had a rather Christian morality, we could say, prevalent in the culture, even though Australia was never a Christian country. Nonetheless, there was still a Christian morality prevalent in the culture. America, you could say, was a Christian nation. But we've been talking in this series about the fact that we've seen the collapse of the Christian worldview in the nations in our West, an increase in humanist philosophy. And we said that that's because of the foundational change from God's word to man's word and all associated with this whole issue of creation, evolution. So, we see increasing abortion, homosexual behavior, lawlessness, euthanasia, suicide, pornography. And we see an anti-Christian element, too, that's growing where Christians are considered the bad guys because you've got this conflict between humanism and Christianity. Well, the next question then, of course, once we've understood that foundational change, we've done that in other programs, what are we going to do about this? What can we do? Well, the most important thing, obviously, is what the Bible tells us to do, to go out and preach the gospel. But then we need to ask the question, well, what is the gospel? We say, well, the gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ died on the cross and raised from the dead. People need to trust in the Lord Jesus and they need to build their thinking on the Bible. Well, I agree, but at the same time, when Paul talks about the gospel in Romans, for instance, as well as talking about the good news of what Christ did on the cross and the message of the resurrection, to understand that, what book does Paul go back to? Have a guess. Genesis, doesn't he? In other words, you've got to go back to Genesis to understand the bad news, the bad news of the entrance of sin into the world, because the first man, Adam, rebelled, and the bad news that death is a consequence of sin. And, of course, I've been emphasizing over and over again that the Bible teaches, if you take Genesis to Revelation consistently, interpreting Scripture as Scripture, that death, bloodshed, disease, and suffering is a consequence of sin. This is a groaning world, and this is all important to understanding the gospel. In fact, just a reminder, as soon as a Christian believes in millions of years, and they've got all of these dead bones in the fossil record, and all this disease, like cancer, and so on, millions of years before Adam sinned, well, that actually destroys the whole foundations of the gospel, because my understanding of the gospel is this. You've got the foundational knowledge that Christ is creator, and that sin entered the world, and death is a result of sin. It was a perfect creation marred by sin. Death is a consequence. That's foundational to understanding why the Son of God became a man called the last Adam, to die, suffer the curse of death on a cross, without the shedding of blood. There's no remission of sin, shed His blood. Remember, you can't have the shedding of blood before sin, and one day, there's going to be a new heavens, and a new earth to come. I want you to consider the gospel in regard to those three major aspects, the foundational aspect of creation, sin, and death, the aspect of the power of the gospel, Christ crucified, raised from the dead, and the hope of the gospel, the consummation of all things. Now, think about it carefully in regard to those three aspects, so we can talk about how do you communicate the gospel to people in today's world. 1 Corinthians 1.23 is a verse of Scripture I want you to keep at the back of your mind. We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, but unto the Greeks foolishness. Now, keep that at the back of your mind here. The preaching of the cross is foolishness to the Greeks, but what to the Jews? Stumbling block to the Jews. Stumbling block to the Jews, foolishness to the Greeks. 1 Corinthians 1.23. Keep that at the back of your mind, and what we're going to do is this. We're going to look at the way in which the gospel was presented to two different audiences in Acts 2 and Acts 17. So, we're going to take that gospel, the foundational knowledge of Christ, creator, sin, death, the power of the gospel, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the hope of the gospel, consummation to come. We're going to see how that gospel message is communicated to an audience. In Acts 2, we have Peter on the day of Pentecost, and he gets up and teaches a very, very bold message. You men of Israel, hear these words. This is in Acts 2, of course. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you. And he goes on in saying, him being delivered by the determined counsel and full knowledge of God, ye have taken by wicked hands, have crucified and slain him whom God hath raised up. I mean, he's basically saying, you nailed the Son of God on the cross. You crucified the Son of God. And he goes on, and we read him saying that they need to repent. See, when they heard this, in verse 37 of Acts 2, they were pricked in their heart. Notice that, they were pricked in their heart. Why could they be pricked in their heart? Well, keep that at the back of your mind. And they said, what shall we do? And Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And then notice something here. When you go down to verse 41, they that gladly received his word were baptized in the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. Boy, doesn't that sound like some great, big evangelistic crusade, doesn't it? Some great, big rally. In fact, it reminds you of some of the great, big evangelistic crusades of the past when thousands of people came forward in true repentance of their sin. Well, I want us to think very carefully here. See, Peter's major message here was the message of the cross. That was his major message. Remember, the preaching of the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews, right? But what to the Greeks? Foolishness to the Greeks. Now, let's consider the Gospel again and regard those three major aspects. The foundational aspect, creation, sin and death, and the power of the Gospel, Christ crucified, raised from the dead, the hope of the Gospel, consummation of all things. When Peter was going to those people in Acts 2, who was he really preaching to? Well, mainly Jews or people convinced of or very familiar with the Jewish religion, Jewish proselytites and so on. And so, back then, I know there's a lot of Jews today that don't necessarily believe in God. But when Peter was preaching back then to those people, did they believe in God as Creator? The answer is yes. They understood about God as Creator. Did they know why death was in the world? Hey, they were there to sacrifice animals, weren't they? They knew why there was death in the world because they had to shed blood because of sin. They understood about that. Did they know what sin was? Could they define sin? Absolutely. You know why? They had the law of Moses, didn't they? And they knew that sin was adultery and sin was idolatry and sin was taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain and so on. See, what I want us to understand here is when Peter was going to these people in Acts 2, he was going to a creation-based culture. And not just a creation-based culture, but a culture in which the language Peter was speaking was the same language they were speaking and the words meant the same. So, when he said sin, when they heard sin, they had the same meaning that Peter had. They understood what sin meant. When he said God, they knew the God that Peter was talking about because it's the same God, the God of creation. When he talked about death, they understood why death was in the world. My point here is that Peter didn't have to go in and convince them about creation. He didn't have to go in and convince them there was such a thing as sin. He didn't have to convince them that death was the penalty for sin. Peter could actually build on that foundation that was already there because their stumbling block was that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. That was their stumbling block, wasn't it? So, in essence, what Peter had to do was to build on the foundation that was already there. He could assume a foundation that he didn't really have to deal with in essence. He could build the rest of the structure on that foundation. Now, let's stop here for a moment because I'm going to go on in a little while and talk about Acts 17. I'm going to talk about Paul when he went to the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill. I'm going to say, well, Paul had to do this, Peter had to do that, understanding that the bottom line is it's God through his Holy Spirit who opens our heart to the truth. But he uses the foolishness of preaching, doesn't he? And I don't understand all that. I don't think any of us do, really, in essence. But we're to be obedient to the Lord. I mean, think about it. When Paul was preaching, he would basically argue, confute, powerfully dispute, use every argument he could to convince people of the truth, knowing he didn't do the convincing. It's the Holy Spirit who does the convincing. See, we're dead in trespasses and sin, aren't we? So, the Bible says. That's the same word that describes Lazarus. Lazarus is dead. You know, some people have the wrong idea, I think, about salvation. I've heard our pastor once give an analogy. We're out there drowning and we put up our hand and God saves us. No, that's not what it is. We're out there drowned on the bottom and God picks us up and breathes life into us. But nonetheless, how shall they call on Him in whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher and how shall they preach unless they be sent and so on? We need to go out there and preach the Word and do our best to convince people, knowing it's God that does the convincing. Tell you what, that really helps me when I'm talking to some of these ardent humanists and others and arguing with people at seminars to know I have to be diligent and do my best but, you know, if they don't listen, you know, God's the one that's going to open their heart to the truth. I'm glad it's God that opens their heart and not me because I couldn't do it. And so, I just do my best. You've got to put it all together, man's responsibility and God's sovereignty there all together. Now, I just emphasize that to you so you understand what I'm saying when I say Paul had to do this, Peter had to do that and so on. So, in Acts chapter 2 here, in regard to the structure of the gospel, if you like, the foundation is already there. He's a creation-based culture. They understood the language. So, therefore, Peter could go and build a structure. I suggest to you, that's why people could be pricked in their heart because they knew about sin and that's why there could be such a response. Before we get on to Acts chapter 17, let me tell you about a time when I went to Japan. When I went to Japan to speak over there, when I arrived in Japan, I had to sit down with a Japanese translator who was a son of an American missionary who grew up in Japan. He said, Now, Ken, I have to explain some things to you. He said, When you say God, he said, I can't just translate God. I said, Well, why not? He said, Because over here with the Shinto religion and they have Buddhism too and a mixture of the two. He said, But with the prevalent Shinto religion, they have many gods. So, if I just say God, they'll say, Oh, that's another god to add to all our other gods. He said, You've got to understand, in Japan there's no Christian basis. In fact, up until the last war, Christians were persecuted and killed in Japan. So, he said, When I say God, I'm going to have to define who God is, the God that made the world and all things therein. This is a different God from the gods you talk about. This is a special God. This is the one true God. He said, So, I'll have to define God. I said, Oh, that's interesting. I hadn't thought about that. He said, Because when you use God, they don't hear God as you do. It's a different language in a sense. Oh. He said, Now, another thing. If you tell them they're sinners and they need to repent of their sin, yes, how do they know what sin is? If they don't know the account of the fall and don't understand about Adam and Eve and don't understand about the history in Genesis, how do they know what sin is? Oh, good question. How do they know what sin is? Well, they won't. Oh. So, if you tell them to trust in Jesus, yes, well, who is Jesus to them? Unless they understand the last Adam, the first Adam, unless they understand all that foundation from Scripture, how will they understand who Jesus is? You know, that reminded me of New Tribes Mission. You know, when New Tribes Mission went into pagan cultures and would preach the message of the cross and trust in Jesus, they thought they had all these converts. Later on, they found out they weren't really true converts. These people just added Jesus in with their other gods, so to speak. They found out that they had to start right at the very beginning, right from Genesis, and lay that foundation so that then when they talked about Jesus and sin, they understood. It's then that there were true conversions. I was sort of reminded of that when I went to Japan. So, in Japan, if I was just to stand up and say, repent of your sin, when there's no real foundation there for the gospel, and keep in mind that evolution has taught us back through the universities and school system in Japan as it is in other places in the world, and so the foundation of creation, sin, death, is not there in that culture. It's basically an evolution-based culture. Of course, they have their other religions, Shinto, and so on. And so, if you come in to preach the message of the cross, the foundation is not there like it was in Acts 2, and that's why I had to start right from the very beginning and lay that foundation so they would understand. You know, this was a reminder of something that really hit me when I read Acts chapter 17. Have a look at Acts chapter 17, and here's Paul, Mars Hill, and he's going to the Greek philosophers, the Epicureans and the Stoics in Athens there, and certain philosophers, the Epicureans and the Stoics encountered him, and some said, what will this babbler say? Others, he seemed to be a set-aforth of strange gods because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. Now, remember, the preaching of the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews, but what to the Greeks? Foolishness. So, here's Paul going to the Greeks to preach the message of the cross, and what's the response? What foolishness is this? What nonsense is this? What are you talking about? Who's he speaking to? See, one of the things that we've got to grasp hold of is this. When we're going to go to preach the gospel to someone, we should be thinking in terms of who are they? Where does their thinking come from? What's the foundation of their thinking? You see, that's the lesson I had to learn when I went to Japan. That's what I was trying to teach you. When Peter was talking to the Jews, think about the foundation that was already there, and in Japan, the foundation that wasn't there. That's the lesson that New Tribes Mission had to learn when they went to a pagan culture. They didn't have the foundation of the gospel. They had to start from the beginning. You can't just build a structure without a foundation. Now, here in Acts 17, we need to think, well, who was Paul going to here? The Greek philosophers. Well, who were they? Well, the Epicureans. They believed in Epicurus. They believed everything evolved from the earth. That sensuous pleasure was the chief good of existence. The Stoics were pantheists, but pantheism is another form of evolutionism. This is not a creation-based culture. This is an evolution-based culture, and so here we have Paul going to an evolution-based culture. They have no concept of the God that Paul understood, no concept of the God the Jews understood, no concept of sin except what's written on their hearts, of course, that God has put there, but no concept in the culture as a whole on understanding of sin. They didn't have the law of Moses. They didn't know why death was in the world. My point here is they didn't have a foundation, and so when Paul comes in to build a structure, what happens? That structure can't stand on that foundation, and the response is, what foolishness is this? What nonsense is this? What are you talking about? And so, here we have a situation, in a sense, similar to Japan, if you like. The foundation is not there, and so, therefore, you can't just impose the structure on a wrong foundation. Their foundation was many gods, the gods evolved and you evolved and so on. That foundation won't allow the rest of the gospel message, if you like, because that structure can't stand on that foundation. And so, what did Paul do? It's interesting. In Acts 17, he looked around and he saw all these altars and as he looked around and saw these altars, he said, ah, there's one here to the unknown God. Let me tell you who he is. Let me tell you who this unknown God is, and then he defines God in detail. I'll remind you of my Japanese visit. Verse 24, God made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, and dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worship with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he gives to all life and breath and all things that are made of one blood, all nations of men, for to dwell on the face of the earth and have determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation. You know what he did? He ran an Answers in Genesis seminar on Mars Hill, didn't he? Maybe that was the first Answers in Genesis seminar, I don't know, but what he's really saying is, let me tell you about the real God. He made everything. He holds everything together. He made of one blood. Actually, the words there really say we're all one. We go back to one man. We're all related. He was explaining we go back to Adam to explain the fall of man and the entrance of sin and death and so on. You know, I suspect that Paul actually gave quite a detailed sermon and what we have here is a summary which is all we need and it's a summary of the things that Paul told them and that's all we need to understand this. Now, what happened when he went back and then laid the right foundation? Let's see the response because he went on to talk about the fact that God is a God who judges in verse 31 and then he talked about the resurrection again. See, remember, Paul said he wanted to preach nothing else but the message of the resurrection. Of course, Jesus Christ rose from the dead which is the power of the gospel because if Christ did not rise from the dead, our faith is in vain as Paul tells us. Look at verse 32. When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked and others said we'll hear the again on this matter. In other words, some said, ah, interesting. Now, some mocked like last time but notice this, certain men claimed unto him and believed. In other words, actually, some were converted. Not many, just some. Now, I've actually had people tell me, ah, we went to a Bible college. I've had this happen on a number of occasions and they said, our professor said don't use the methods of Paul. He only got a few converts. He tried to be intellectual about his faith and so on. We need to be like Peter and just get out there boldly and say, you sinner, repent of your sin and preach the message of the cross. Don't be like Paul. Paul didn't get many converts. Paul wasn't successful. Actually, Paul was incredibly successful. You know why? Because Paul was going to a culture where they had a whole different foundation. When he said sin, they didn't know what sin meant. When he said Jesus, they wouldn't know what Jesus meant. If he said God, they didn't understand God in the same way. You see, it was like a different language. A whole different culture and he had to change their thinking from the foundation up. You know what? That's a very hard job indeed. Think about this. If somebody from a whole different culture comes to America or comes to Australia, they're not going to fit in straight away. You know why? Because they think differently. Different cultures, you think in a totally different way. I remember in Japan at the end of my tour, a Japanese translator said to me, remember when you told such and such a joke? I said, yes. The people all laughed? I said, yes. He said, in Japan, they wouldn't have a clue what you were talking about. It doesn't fit with their culture. He said, I just told them, be polite. Mr. Ham told a joke, please laugh. And they all laughed. I mean, that was pretty embarrassing later on, wasn't it, to find that out. You see, I've got a friend who's American, married to a Japanese and were telling jokes to each other once in the car and his wife says, why are they funny? I said, well, can't you see? No, Japanese don't think that way. And I had to learn the fact that if you're from a different culture, you can think in a totally different way. That's why in our session on interracial so-called marriage, we're talking about the fact that if different cultures marry, they'll be prepared for some communication problems. I could give you many, many examples. Missionaries have understood that when you learn a foreign language and you go out to a pagan culture and you're going to preach to them, you can get into all sorts of trouble unless you understand the culture. Because you can say the right words, but if you don't understand the culture, you won't necessarily communicate. There are many examples we could give in relation to that. I think of even cultures that are very similar and yet we're different. Take Australia and America. I mean, we speak the same language, sort of, don't we? I mean, Americans have twisted it a bit and all that, but do you realise, you know, we've lived as a family in America now for nearly 14 or 13 years and we still have trouble communicating in a sense because we still see that clash of ways of thinking. I remember when an American teenager came over to stay with us when we still lived in Australia and we had a baby at the time and I was trying to be nice to her and I said, oh, would you like to nurse our baby? She nearly died. And I said to her, oh, don't worry, I'll nurse the baby. I've never seen a look on a person's face like that before. You see, in Australia, nursing a baby means hold a baby. But I found out, much to my embarrassment, a little later on, in America, nursing a baby means breastfeeding a baby. So I said to her, would you breastfeed the baby? And then I said, I'd do it. I mean, no wonder she was confused. Maybe she thought we Australian males had some upward evolutionary mutational change or something like that. But, you know something? See, I said, hold the baby. She heard, breastfeed the baby. I didn't say, breastfeed the baby. She thought I did. You see, we had different cultures and so those words mean different things. You see what I'm trying to get at here? Very, very important, isn't it? I remember when we were in Los Angeles, in San Diego. We lived in San Diego for a number of years. We were living in California, which is an interesting place to live anyway. And we had to learn something else. When people would say, ah, why don't you come on over sometime? You know, when you're sort of parting ways, you know, oh, come on over sometime. You come on over. What are you doing here? You said, come on over. Oh, no, come on over doesn't mean come on over. Come on over means bye, don't call us, we'll call you. You know, we had to learn that in regard to American culture. See, in Australia, if you say, come on over, people come on over. Oh, glad you came on over. Have a cup of tea. In America, what are you doing here? See, it's a whole different culture, isn't it? And I'll never forget the time when I had a problem with my battery. The battery, I went to somebody and I said, can you help me? My battery's flat. Guy looks at me, huh? I said, I just need some help. My battery's flat. Huh? You know, later on, we sorted this out over a period of millions of years, uh, later on, when we finally communicated, you know, he went, oh, your battery's dead. Well, it never was alive. I never, I didn't understand that, but he said to me, you know what? I was sitting there thinking, how did you run over your battery? Because it's flat. Well, in Australia, flat battery means it's got no current in it. Over here, you've got to say dead battery, and I tell you, anyway, it's interesting. But see, if you can understand, when you're going out to a different culture to communicate, if you don't understand the language, and you don't understand how they use words in that language, in that culture, you will not communicate. Now, friends, this is what we've got to understand. Just like when, when Paul went to the Greeks, he had to recognize they didn't have the foundation there to understand about sin, to understand about creation, they didn't have the foundation of the gospel, so the preaching of the cross was foolishness to them. That's why, in essence, what Paul had to do was start right at the very beginning and define who God is and explain about sin and explain who Jesus is and explain where we came from, that we're all one, to give the whole history of humankind and so on, so they would understand the gospel. And, you know, when you're going to change somebody's thinking from the foundation up, it's hard work, it takes a lot of time, and results are slow at first, which is why results were slow with Paul, but he was incredibly successful because he was seeing people changing their whole way of thinking. Now, what am I saying to us? Here's the application, and we'll go on and discuss this further in part two of this particular program. Here's the application. I'm going to suggest to you that our culture, in America, for instance, or Australia, or England, was once very much like the Jews. Because Bible readings were in school and prayer in school and the Ten Commandments and, you know, ministers in schools teaching religious, what they call religious instruction and so on, when you said sin, people understood sin years ago. When you said God, they understood the God you were talking about. When you talked about why death was in the world, they understood death was a penalty for sin and so on. In other words, you could assume a foundation was there and come in and preach a gospel. You've seen us repent of your sin and we've seen great evangelists in the past who've come to even Australia and England and we've seen thousands of people respond, you know, particularly generations ago, but what I want to suggest to you is this, and this is the thing the church has missed in my opinion. Our culture is no longer like the Jews, it's become like the Greeks. We have whole generations coming through an education system devoid of the knowledge of God. God's basically thrown out of education. They don't hear about the Bible anymore. They don't go to Sunday school like generations ago. Kids might have went to Sunday school and so on. And so we have whole generations who don't understand sin, don't understand who God is. They're trained in an evolutionary perspective and the church is going out there and saying, you sinner, repent of your sin and I'm suggesting to you they don't understand anymore. They don't hear. In fact, remember those castle diagrams. The castle of humanism, it's foundation evolution. The castle of Christianity is foundation creation. God's word is truth. Remember the humanists knocked out the wrong, sorry, knocked out the foundation of God's word and that castle of Christianity collapsed and then I've been talking about the fact that we need to restore the right foundation so that the castle of Christianity can stand. Here's the point. Look at those two castle diagrams. On the basis of the Christian castle, when you say you sinner, repent of your sin, when they had the foundation of God's word, they knew what sin was. When you said you're accountable to God, they understood that because of that foundation. When you said abortion's wrong, they understood why abortion was wrong. But see, there's been a change from the foundation of God's word to the foundation of man's word, right? Evolution. And so, on that foundation, when you say abortion's wrong, they say, no, it's not. When you say you're a sinner, they say, what are you talking about? When you say trust in Jesus, they don't understand. They don't hear anymore. You see, the foundation has changed and we have got to recognize as a church today that by and large, in a general sense, our culture is much more like the Greeks than the Jews and yet, if we're honest, most of our evangelistic campaigns still approach the church, the culture, as if it's like the Jews and it's not. It's become like the Greeks and if we want to be successful in evangelism, we've got to understand that change in foundation. But you know why the church, by and large, hasn't seen that change in foundation? Because it's helped the change in foundation because most of the church has compromised with millions of years or evolution, added man's ideas to the Bible. Genesis doesn't matter. It's not that important and that's why the church has helped the change in foundation from God's word to man's word and that's why they don't understand the difference between the Greeks and the Jews and that's why, increasingly, we're not successful in evangelism. My book, Creation Evangelism for the New Millennium, really details this and enables us to study it in a great way and the more that churches take this up as a part of their evangelistic outreach, the more I believe we're going to communicate the gospel to the culture today. Thank you very much. Applause For more information on Answers in Genesis, call toll free 1-800-350-3232 or visit our website answersingenesis.org This video series was produced on the campus of Cedarville College, a creationist Baptist college of arts, sciences, and professional programs. For more information, call toll free 1-800-CEDARVILLE or visit the college website cedarville.edu