Did you know two famous sermons are recorded by God in the book of Acts by Dr. Luke. First there is the sermon by Peter in Acts 2 and then there is the sermon by Paul in Acts 17. There is something about these two sermons that may surprise you as it did me. Peter's sermon in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem resulted in about 3,000 souls being saved and was obviously a tremendous success. Peter preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified supported by scripture and pulled no punches. Now remember this most important point. Peter was preaching to an audience of Jews. The Jews believed in Genesis and thus had a creationist concept of the universe. They had a foundation for understanding sin and thus a foundation for accepting a Savior. They saw the need of a Savior since Adam had led us into sin and separation from God.
Now lets examine Paul's sermon in Acts 17, delivered to a Greek audience in Athens. Before the sermon Paul had contact with the Greek Epicureans and the Greek Stoics who were typical of all Greeks and scriptural preaching to them was a babble. This was because Epicureanism and Stoicism were based on an evolutionary world view. The Epicureans were essentially atheists like modern Darwinian evolutionists, while the Stoics were pantheists (everything is God) like the modern New Age evolutionists. So the brilliant Apostle Paul preached the first creation evangelism sermon to these Greeks to begin to lay down a foundation in their minds so they could understand the Saving Gospel. He told them of "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth". Some mocked, but some listened.
The point of all this, if you haven't yet caught it, is due to a change in our culture over the past 150 years caused by the acceptance of evolutionary origins and rejection of the Biblical creation account, the majority of people, even in the church, are Greeks in their thinking. Once a person accepts the Bible as true history, the rest is not difficult, but it is almost senseless to preach the Bible to people who do not accept the Bible.
What must we do? The church must return to basics. The church must teach the answers to skeptic's questions. Who is God? Is God real? Is the Bible true? How do we know? Where did we come from? Why are we here? Can we believe the Bible? Why? What is sin? Why? Is evolution scientifically possible? Is evolution science? Can we get pastors to begin to preach to the Greeks instead of the Jews?
Creation science evangelism is only proclaiming one thing and this is that the Bible is true, and historically accurate. Isn't it strange that so much opposition and indifference comes from the church?
"Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgements endureth for ever." Psalm 119:160
Sidney C. Phillips M.D. 1999
