Word of Salvation – Vol.24 No.29 – April 1978

 

Twentieth-Century Machine-Man

 

Sermon by Rev. H. W. Pennings, Th. Grad. on Genesis 2:7

Scripture reading: Revelation 18

 

Since the fall of man into sin, congregation of Jesus, there has never been a time when all men took the Word of God seriously.  But there has been a time when it was taken seriously by a greater percentage of the population than we experience today.  For instance, even in the days prior to the greatest flood the earth has experienced, when we read in Scripture that things were so bad on earth that God “repented” He had made man, most people accepted as fact that man is man because he is created by God.

There were certainly exceptions, even in those days.  We know this because we know that there are other accounts of how man was created, and we can assume that these accounts were in existence already in the days of Noah.

Also in our western civilization, there was a time when most people took at face-value the teaching of Scripture that man is God’s creation, and that that is the reason why man is man and other creatures, not created in the same way, are different.

Not all who believed it showed much evidence of that belief, but that is another matter.  And also within our western society there are exceptions: there have always been those who laughed at the Biblical record of creation.

As for us, and as for our forefathers in the faith, we believe that man is created by God as a LIVING SOUL.  He does not HAVE a soul; he IS a soul.  He is a soul, and therefore he is “man”.  Because he is man, not animal, his privilege is to be related – to God, to have fellowship with God.

Alas, few people believe that anymore.  Well, few?  Millions believe it!  And for those millions it is the corner-stone of their relationship to God the Father through Jesus Christ His Son.  Millions believe it.  But many more millions don’t!  If we had the means and ability to get statistics on the matter we would probably find that, whereas once as many as HALF of the world’s population accepted our text to be factual, the percentage has diminished radically.

Maybe, congregation, you think that this is a relatively unimportant matter.  After all, you say, if someone believes that man is created by God to be a living soul, but lives as if God doesn’t exist, of what benefit is his belief?  As we read in the book of James, even SATAN, yes, SATAN!  believes that God created man as a living soul to have fellowship with God.

And yet, it does make a difference.  It makes a COLLOSAL difference.  It makes all the difference in the world… for OTHER people – those who do not live as sons of God who refuse to live as living souls of God’s creation because they reject the salvation of the One God sent to restore the relationship… and also for US!  In this twentieth century God still says to man: “I created you as living souls.”  But this Word of God is pushed more and more into the background.  We have more and more people whose profession about man consists only of two words: “MAN IS…!”

Some years ago now – about 1971 – the more popular press began publishing and generally making known things which had been going on in some universities for a number of years.  Magazines such as TIME and LIFE and NEWSWEEK and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ran stories on bio-chemistry and molecular (pronounced MOLEC-ULAR) physics and on genetics.  They began reviewing books which had previously only been reviewed in publications read by professional scientists.  People like us for the first time became aware of what some twentieth century scientists were planning to do with our world.

These widely-read publications began looking at the work of one JACUES MONOD, university professor, and winner of the Nobel Prize for physics in the year 1965.  His grandfather had been one of the most noted preachers in France, a real leader of God’s people.  But his grandson wrote a book entitled, “CHANCE AND NECESSITY”.

It can in no way be described as a book of pure science.  For science consists of OBSERVING and then INTERPRETING what is observed.  There cannot be any conflict between the teaching of the Word of God and what man discovers and interprets UNLESS MAN HAS MADE ERRORS.  There are some who go so far as to call the study of God the “queen of the sciences.  So, this book which Monod called “Chance and Necessity”, is not a book of pure science.  It is rather a book which describes the opinion of one man about the life of all men; it is a book of philosophy.  This is what Monod writes: “In my opinion, the future of mankind is going to be decided within the next two generations.  Two things are absolutely necessary; we have to aim at a stable society and the destruction of nuclear stockpiles.”

Leaving aside for our purpose what he writes about nuclear stockpiling, we only enquire further what he means by a “stable society”.  Reading on we discover that what he has in mind is the setting up of some kind of WORLD-WIDE AUTHORITY to police a LIMITED AND PLANNED AND ORGANISED WORLD GROWTH.

Another university man to write in a similar manner is DR. FRANCIS CRICK.  He is considered by many to be one of the most outstanding men researching in the field of BIO-CHEMISTRY today: a leader of opinion; a man respected for his views.  In a lecture entitled, “Why I study biology”, he makes plain to all that he studies it for RELIGIOUS REASONS.  But before we all applaud, let us have a look at this religion of Dr. Crick…!  He recalls that he once met a girl at a university who was impressed with the claims of the “religion” of astrology and who was a practitioner of astrology.  He says about this: “I think that one has to say that astrology is really complete nonsense I wonder whether people (who practise it) SHOULD BE ALLOWED AT A UNIVERSITY AT ALL.”

Once again, we will not talk about astrology and its claims: we already know that, as a religion, it is idolatry.  But we must see that Dr. Crick advocates that it should be determined, ON RELIGIOUS GROUNDS, WHO SHOULD, AND WHO SHOULD NOT, BE ALLOWED TO GO TO UNIVERSITY!  He implies that society should determine that some people should not be given the opportunity of higher education, not because they are not capable of learning, but because they believe something which ought not to be believed.  And he continues in the same lecture: “If you have a population where everybody is the same (in ability), it is a bad situation.  There must be variety.  Sooner or later we will have to realize that the future IS IN OUR HANDS; that we CAN DO, to some extent, WHAT WE WANT… What sort of people would we like to have in the world?  In the long term, we will have to ANSWER THAT QUESTION AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!”

The implication is quite clear.  Dr. Crick does not refer to EDUCATING people.  Oh no!  He wants, through the science of bio- chemistry, first of all to determine who should be born – secondly, where they should be born – thirdly, who should, and who should not have children – and fourthly, who should be allowed to remain alive and who should be made to die.  AND, CONGREGATION, WHICH SKEPTIC WILL SAY THAT MAN WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO DO THESE THINGS?  We quote him just once more: “The science of biology IS THE MAJOR REVOLUTIONARY SUBJECT….!

And then there is another French biologist, Dr. Rotland, who writes: “It will be little more than a game to change a subject’s sex, the colour of its eyes, the genetic proportions of its body and limbs, and perhaps facial features!!” “In fact, claims are made THAT THIS HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE ON ONE KNOWN OCCASION!  What shall we call all this?  Is there a name more suitable than the name MAN-FARMING?  AND IT IS A RELIGION AS WELL AS A SCIENCE.

All these well-known educationalists and there are many, many more – have in common a belief that man is a machine!  He came by chance into the world.  But we can no longer afford to rely on chance, they believe.  Nor do we HAVE TO RELY ON CHANCE ANY MORE.  We can do something about it with this major revolutionary subject of the world.

This is what ALDOUS (pronounced ALDO) HUXLEY foresaw when, many years ago now, he wrote the novel “Brave New World”.  He saw that it was possible to condition the behaviour of most people.  They would all come from test-tubes.  Their genes would be so structured beforehand that some would automatically become labourers, others trades people, others executives.  The words MOTHER and FATHER would cause embarrassment; they were swear words!  Everything was THING – impersonal.  For man is a machine.

When Huxley wrote this novel thirty years ago he imagined that it might take another 600 years before it could be practised.  But our most respected geneticists and bio-chemists and behavioural scientists look more to the year 1980 than the year 2500.  And we may seriously ask about this godless society in which we live, how long it will be before the opinion of a few elitists becomes the accepted standard of the masses!  And then, who is going to make rules for all this?  And who will become the BIG BOSSES, who themselves, of course, CANNOT BE TOUCHED!

We are on the verge of a revolution – we are, whether we like it or ignore it doesn’t make any difference.  It is the revolution, caused by a denial of the most basic of God’s teaching, which may well determine if we will have more children and how long we will be allowed to remain alive.  The more the words “Thus saith the Lord” become out of fashion, the more we will act like machines, and will treat each other that way.

Yet all the while Scripture is proven, as far as things can be proven, to be God’s totally reliable Word.  And it still teaches this twentieth century than man is a LIVING SOUL.  It still teaches us that sin has come into the world and that sin has caused there to be a big gap between God as Father and man as His children.  It also still teaches that there is a way of renewal which is GOOD – the way of renewal through Jesus Christ in whom man is a NEW CREATION. Because through faith in Jesus Christ man can receive a NEW HEART and NEW MIND from God.

You see, congregation, we have to agree with these modern world-changers in some way.  We have to agree that this world HAS TO CHANGE!  But we know that the change has to be effected in GOD’s WAY, and in GOD’s TIME, and only through GOD’S SON JESUS CHRIST.  The message of Scripture to this corrupt twentieth century is a way of renewal, through the forgiveness of sin and the restoring of the relationship between God and man.  It teaches us that there can be no other way, because man is a living soul, created in God’s (shall we say) “soul image”.  It teaches us that this is the only way God will tolerate.

It does not teach us that God will most certainly not allow man to attempt OTHER WAYS OF RENEWAL!  For what is being advocated now is only an extension of much which has been advocated throughout many past centuries.

People in the past largely respected the teaching of Scripture about the structure of man.  They realized that there were philosophical as well as scientific boundaries for what man can and is allowed to do.  But these boundary fences have all but been trampled into the ground.

We read in Scripture about the coming of the antichrist.  We realize that he will have a large amount of control over the affairs of men for a certain God-ordained period of time.  We have always interpreted these passages of Scripture in the light of what WE THOUGHT WAS POSSIBLE.  But it becomes clear that MORE is possible than was once imagined.  Do you understand our meaning, congregation?  Scripture tells us that the time of the reign of the antichrist will be a time when the love of most men for God will grow cold.  That of course also refers to men’s obedience.

One the one hand we have no cause for despair.  We know that, no matter what evils are brought into the world through biology and genetics, we will always be safely in the all-powerful protection of the God Who made us.  We are God’s living souls, no matter what man may say, no matter what man may do to us and we can be sure that God Who gave us new life in the Lord Jesus Christ will make sure that we endure in the faith to the end.

But on the other hand we have a huge responsibility thrust upon our weak shoulders by the God Who made us.  It is for, a start, NOT TO ALLOW OUR LOVE FOR HIM TO GROW COLD!  For that started the rot of sin in the first place.  That means, do not treat each other as machines.  Do not practise it, and with God’s strength try to prevent others from teaching it, that the Christian faith needs only to be dragged out of the weekday cupboard on Sundays.  For in that way all Christian people add their loud “Amen” to the godless scientists we have been hearing about.  And fight against the devil in this matter.  Be aware of what is going on around you.  Only then can you protest.  And be God-fearing people in this godless world.

And, do not let your love for God grow cold in this way, that you allow your own children and the children of other members of the congregation, TO BE INSTRUCTED IN SCHOOLS WHERE WHAT WE HAVE BEEN LEARNING ABOUT IS BEING MORE AND MORE ACCEPTED.  Do not imagine for a moment that it could never be taught in the state schools of your area.  FOR MANY OF THE BEHAVIOURALIST PRINCIPLES BEHIND THE THINKING OF THESE SCIENTISTS HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED THERE FOR YEARS ALREADY!

Be sure that you are obedient to God, no matter how severe the sacrifice appears to be at first, by establishing and maintaining schools where our children will be taught how to face up to these godless teachings of men – schools where the behaviourist principles we have been talking about are NOT KING – where JESUS CHRIST IS KING!  That remains God’s way for you in this world, congregation.  Do not be fooled by Satan’s soft-talk that everything will be alright.  And examine your love for God the God Who made you to be His living soul! – examine yourself, whether your love has not gone cold already.

Praise be to God that we can understand these things that, living in 1978 our God is walking before us lighting up the darkness.  Will you please always continue in that light?

AMEN.