Some time ago, a special committee appointed by the mayor of New York City investigated a million of the public school pupils of that great metropolis. This committee discovered that one-half of those million children were maladjusted in some way and stood in need of specialized help. Surely this points out one of the great, glaring problems of our 20th century way of life. A distressing spirit of frustration has gripped the lives of millions who are not able to cope with the problems of the age.
You know, friends, this is doing something to the religious faith of people. The shattering of old-time standards and moral principles has set a new record in recent months. Psychologists are trying to explain the meaning of this drastic departure from the tried and true American ideals. Children surely can't be expected to do better than their parents in this matter of exercising spiritual faith. We live in an alarming secular society. Almost everything about our public education is slanted toward providing children with materialistic concepts. Even though the majority of American parents belong to some church, there is a constant slackening of attendance at worship services. In other words, the prophecy of God's Word is being fulfilled before our very eyes. The last days, we are told, will be marked by a great form of godliness with very little power behind it. One of the most startling statements Jesus ever made concerning the end of the world is found in Luke 18:8, and it is in the form of a question. He asked, "When the Son of man cometh, will He find faith in the earth?" The implication of this question is very clear, friends. We can expect a growing disregard for true religion and true faith. Multitudes living in the world today think matters will get better and that we will grow into some golden millennial age of peace when all men will be converted. I wish this could be a true picture, but it is the very opposite of what the Bible teaches. Such men are living under a terrible delusion of progress and security. Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man." Luke 17:26.
How were they living in those days, friends? Jesus indicated that they were eating and drinking and marrying in such an extreme and excessive degree that finally a flood had to wipe them out of existence. We read in Genesis that the imagination of the heart was evil continually with the people living before the flood. We don't have to look very long or very far to see the same conditions prevailing today. We live in a sex-obsessed society which has a defiled imagination. The soaring divorce rate indicates that Jesus spoke the truth about the perversion of marriage. Almost one out of two marriages ends in the divorce courts today.
In America alone, over 10 million alcoholics are destroying themselves with the liquor poison. At the present rate, 1500 new alcoholics are being made every single day. All over the world men are wondering why this beautiful free country should be racked with so many social problems. Nowhere is there more luxury and leisure to be found than in the United States of America. The present work week will probably be cut back to even less, if some of the labor unions are able to have their way. So far, it seems that the labor unions have been controlling things pretty much as they please.
Friends, why do the problems grow as we develop a more luxurious way of life in America? We generally associate luxury and leisure with security and happiness. Yet, the very opposite seems to be true. With the most advanced civilization in all history, our suicide rates are on the increase. Mental hospitals are overflowing with patients, even children are beset with numerous frustrations and mental disturbances. The growing church membership rate doesn't seem to solve the social problems of even a Christian nation. More significantly than that, the crime rate continues to rise in even greater proportion than the church membership growth. Paul was certainly right when he said there would be a form of godliness, but no power behind it. Jesus asked a very relevant question when He asked, Will there be faith in the earth when the Son of man cometh? Every sign Jesus described in Matthew 24 is being fulfilled today.
Let us concentrate for a moment upon those signs which are being seen in the religious world. Evidently there will be a tremendous loss of faith as religion turns into a dead form and an empty shell. A few years ago no one ever dreamed that the day would come when theologians would question either God's existence or His power to perform miracles. Even the most wicked man would not boast of his unbelief, but now we face the incredible situation of high church leaders publicly proclaiming that they do not believe in the God described in the Bible. These same theologians don't believe in the virgin birth or the inspiration of the Bible.
What is the matter, friends? What has happened to our age that men of the cloth can become so confused on such basic issues? We want to find out in the broadcast today some of the reasons for this confusion. First of all, of course, everything is in a state of ferment and change. Everything from dress, art and music to religion seems obsessed with new radical terminology and customs. The idea seems to prevail that the modern age demands new guidelines with much more freedom than has been known previously. Listen, friends, we do live in a very permissive generation. Youth are rebelling against all types of restrictions, the devil has sold them a bill of goods, and they are convinced that more freedom is necessary. But this is a false freedom! It is a vast delusion which Satan is using to his own advantage. This freedom demands license to actually commit adultery, lie, steal and break any laws that are not agreeable to the individual. Like a surging tide of iniquity, it has swept over the universities and high schools of the land. The result has been moral standards crumbling to the dust.
This diabolical philosophy reasons that there is no absolute standard of right and wrong. Everything is relative, depending upon the situation. College presidents are now giving out statements that they do not care what students do in private. Girls are allowed to spend most of the night in men's dormitory rooms. Colleges are even issuing birth-control materials. Well, you say, perhaps we couldn't expect secular authorities to stem the tide. And yet, friends, once upon a time, college presidents did advise the youth to be moral and religious.
But what of the religious leaders? What are they doing and saying about this drastic departure from high standards? Surely they can put the young people in place and restore the old standards of purity. The tragic truth is that many modern-day religious leaders are swinging away from the Ten Commandments of God and absolute standards of right and wrong, also.
Dedicated churches and cathedrals have become the platform for jazz worship services and modern dancing classes. Talk about mixed-up children, friends, we have plenty of mixed-up adults, also, and some of them have B.D.'s and D.D.'s and Ph.D.'s. How could they ever take such positions anyway? Don't they realize that the Bible and the Ten Commandments are still binding upon us? Yes, they know about the Ten Commandments, friends, but they don't believe the Bible very much anymore. Fearful inroads have been made by skepticism and modernism. Some leading religious leaders have publicly rejected the virgin birth of Christ, they have openly derided the flood story of the Bible as a myth and legend. The creation account of Genesis is held up to ridicule and completely discounted by the leading officers of great denominations.
Let me tell you something, friends. The influence of such leaders and churches has led to a teenage rebellion against all authority. What could be expected of the present generation? We have sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind. We are now reaping the fruit of all this fearful skepticism which has been repeated publicly by religious teachers. These theologians have communicated their doubts to the young people, and a whole generation has been brought down to that level of unbelief.
Redbook magazine made a survey in eight leading seminaries in the United States. They discovered that only one percent of the young men believed in the Second Coming of Jesus. Listen, this new tide of skepticism was started when religious leaders accepted the theory of evolution years ago. When the Genesis story of Creation was rejected, a door was opened to bring in myriad speculations concerning man's ideas. At first, theologians tried to make the Bible agree with evolution. They tried, for example, to make every day of creation a long geological period of time. They attributed to God a kind of hit and miss, trial and error process of creation that required billions of years to complete. But the story just wouldn't stand up, friends. The Bible says, God spoke and it was done. The Bible says, God made man upright in His own image. There was just no place for the fall of man in the evolutionary scheme of things; therefore, the flood became the special object of attack and ridicule. Evolutionists hated that story because it explained how the earth's layers could have been formed as the result of the flood. The evolutionist, of course, had to have the earth layers to prove his theory.
Just to give you an idea how far afield some theologians were led by these false conceptions, listen to this statement by a former president of the Federal Council of Churches in America. In answer to the question, Do you believe that there was a flood as related in the book of Genesis? his answer was, "There was not sufficient water available to cover the whole globe at one time to the summits of its loftiest mountains. And had enough water been added for this purpose, its extra weight would have seriously disturbed our planet's place in space and probably have deflected it from its orbit." Now just imagine, friends, a statement like that being made by a man who headed up the Federal Council of Churches. Of course, we are not surprised at this, because the Bible has not been the most popular reading material even for such men of the cloth. Such positions only confirm the prophecies of God's word. In 2 Peter 3:3 we read that in the last days men would actually arise to scoff and scorn at the idea of a universal flood. The Bible says that this is only one of the signs that the end of the world is drawing near. Friends, if the Bible story of creation is not true, then perhaps other parts of the scriptures are also untrue. If we can't believe one portion of the Bible, then we can't believe any of the Bible. Thank God that it is true in every part, and it is our only sure guide in the dark confusion of today.