Men Have Forgotten God

What a week for our country. After a week that included the assassination of a brother in Christ Charlie Kirk, school shootings, a police officer shot here in Austin, and the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, it’s appropriate to ask, What causes a society like ours to tear at its very fabric like this? What causes such deep anger in a man’s soul so as to climb on top of a building and shoot a man whose spiritual and political views he disagrees with? What troubles a young person so much that he decides to shoot up a school or a church service? What sickness in a person leads him to brazenly slash a random girl’s throat on a train or shoot a public servant in a park? 

There will no doubt be all kinds of analysis and speculation and parsing of the varied reasons and causes of these horrific events. There’s certainly a place for that. But as we come before the Lord this morning as his people to worship him in fear and trembling, I want to offer us perhaps the best explanation for all of this. These are not my words, but the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Russian author, speaking and writing in the wake of the many decades of horror and violence of Communist Russia. He simply says this: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” 

What an accurate encapsulation of Biblical truth. We are fallen creatures. Humanity has fallen from an intimate knowledge and relationship that we once had with our creator-God, in the Garden of Eden. And because we have forgotten God, all manner of evil has befallen us. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 1:28–32

[28] And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. [29] They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, [30] slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, [31] foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. [32] Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

In summary:  “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”

Now, we’ve spoken with some of you this week, and in light of such heinous evil as we’ve seen this week, anger and disgust is understandable. Sin is horrifying, and events like we’ve seen lately pull the mask off evil for us to see it plainly. In our anger and disgust at evil, though, we must not also succumb to evil. In your anger, do not sin. As Jesus showed us last week, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 

Rather, let us as God’s people this morning, in our lament over evil, confess the truth together. We do this for several reasons. Confessing truth together helps us to fight lies. The devil as we’ve seen in John is the father of lies, a murderer from the beginning. Confessing the truth in a world filled with lies is an act of bold protest. Its clarity cuts through the noise, and focuses us. And lastly, confessing the truth regularly together keeps us from forgetting God, as Solzenitsyn warned. And so, in a moment, we are going to recite the Nicene Creed together. 

We had planned to recite the Nicene Creed together this morning, even before the events of the week, but it seems even more fitting for us now. This creed was agreed upon as a more complete summary of the Christian faith in the 4th century—both in protest to lies that were being spread about our Christ, and as a way to unify Christians after centuries of persecution and violence. It wasn’t drafted in a vacuum or an ivory tower, in other words. And likewise, Christians for centuries have confessed its truth in times of both peace and turmoil.

And so I invite you now to stand and confess these words together with me, and then I will lead us in a prayer of lament after a brief moment of silence:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,

Begotten of the Father before all worlds;

God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God;

Begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father,

By whom all things were made.

Who, for us men and for our salvation,

Came down from heaven

And was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary,

And was made man;

And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;

He suffered and was buried;

And the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures;

And ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father;

And he shall come again, with glory, to judge the living and the dead;

Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life;

Who proceeds from the Father and the Son;

Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified;

Who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead=,

And the life of the world to come. Amen.