Pastor's Sermon Notes:

August 9, 2026: Ethical Atheist

Psalm 14:1-3, TLV - The fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” They are corrupt; their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. Adonai looked down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They all turned aside, became corrupt. There is no one who does good —not even one.

As we continue to understand all the new-normals of our society, we need to stay on top of the new kinds of thought presenting itself to the culture and coming toward us right now. One particular group is rising boldly: the “ethical atheist.” They believe they are Thoughtful, Honest, Ethical, Intelligent, Skeptical, and Thinking people.

The Bible tells us in the Book of proverbs, chapter 14, “The naïve believes everything,
but the sensible person considers their steps. Yet like always, the idea of being a high-information voter or a well-informed citizen is counterfeited by Satan. And out of that perversion of common sense comes the atheist; the modern day wise man or woman who, on paper, looks like the perfect person: thoughtful, honest, ethical, intelligent, skeptical and thinking.

Our universities, as we’ve recently discovered, are loaded with these people. They are kind and understanding. They are accepting and inclusive. But they have zero compass regarding what is right and wrong. No safe navigation system. Because their true-north is themselves. Humanism is the root of their atheism. Humans are in charge... not God. So they, themselves, become the plumb line. What they believe is the rule. How they perceive things, is the reality. Look at what Paul said about them:

2 Corinthians 4:3-5, NLT

If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake.

Ethical Atheists have rules, you see. And we need to know them. Here’s #1:

Thou Shalt Not Believe All Thou Art Told.

“When exposed to something new, do not accept what you hear without facts to support it. You must always be on your guard to protect yourself and your knowledge.”

Right away, we can see two blaring issues that are woven through everything the ethical-atheists believe: Trust no one and fear anything that could appear threatening to their logic. In their deception, they believe that their own mind is perfect in its thinking, and the knowledge they’ve put into their mind is perfect…so they fiercely protect it and trust nothing outside of their own understanding or experience. How can you know God under these tenets? We cannot even know everything there is to know about God, so how would the Lord shoehorn Himself into that system locked inside a human mind? It leaves no room for faith.

Hebrews 11:1, NASB95

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

When we begin to unpack how they actually think, how does a Christian approach them? Under the mandate of Christ to win the lost and share the Good News…what do we do? Be aware that they have trust issues. They already don’t believe you before you even open your mouth. But we do have something they can’t refute and can only listen to: experiential knowledge. We have experienced Christ, and we have all the facts about it called, “the word of our testimony.” It is our story of how Jesus saved us, how we love Him and why.

Revelation 12:11

And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.

Thou Shalt Seek Knowledge and Truth Constantly.

“By weaving a complex web of lies, religions are able to control people and remain in power.”

So we definitely hear the fear in their rules. Christians are supposed to be doing the same thing, reading the Word of God constantly to keep our minds focused on the Will of the Lord and the things of God. Read it to know it. Study it to live it. RELATIONSHIP with God, not religion, makes us want to know more about this wonderful partner in life who walks beside with us through our lives.

John 16:13

But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.

So how do we approach this facet of the atheist belief system? They like facts. (Remember, they believe that absolute truth comes from them.) So know something about your Bible besides the verses in it, to get them curious about the real truth from the Holy Spirit. For example: “Did you know the Bible contains 66 books written over 1,500 years by 40 different writers but it consistently tells one big story of God's plan of salvation that culminated in Jesus Christ. In addition, there are over 300 specific prophecies in the Old Testament that are fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.” And when they ask you, like what... what prophecies? Be ready with a few scriptures. Make it your personal project to know some specific prophecies of the three hundred that absolutely prove Jesus Christ is Messiah. (There’s some homework)

Thou Shalt Educate Thy Fellow Man in the Laws of Science

“It is not good enough to sit comfortably with your knowledge of the Universe and look in pity at those who are still governed by lies, mythology and sensationalism. Thou shalt enlighten thy neighbor.”

It’s crucial that Christians understand this. Atheists make up the bulk of our teachers in higher-ed. They are just as zealous to spread their twisted gospel to your children and grand-children as we should be about telling others about Christ. Atheists condescend to the rest of us and think we’re stupid for believing in God. Even so, we still have a mandate from our leader that is far more powerful than their vendetta:

Mark 16:15

And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.”

We can do this in love, because our God IS love. And He loves the atheist.

Thou Shalt Not Forget the Atrocities Committed in the Name of God.

“Many people have limited knowledge, or none at all, of the atrocities committed during the Inquisition, the Crusades, etc. by the Christian Church and in the name of religion.”

Sadly, this is true. People worshiping their religion, their doctrine and not their Jesus did horrible things in His name. These people were operating under the demon-spirit of the Pharisee, the spirit of Religion and it still goes on today. I meet countless people wounded by religious churches who weren’t introduced to the love of God, they were force-fed a religious rule-book, and they left Church and never went back. But our God is a Redeemer. Not only of people, but of a people’s history.

Isaiah 44:22

“I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud and your sins like a heavy mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.”

I myself have witnessed hundreds of thousands of people on their faces in a stadium who were led to repent for what was done to the First Nations of America (the American Indians) for example. There are countless documentaries and recordings about moments like that when the Body of Christ repented for sins done by missionaries and colonizers etc. All we can do is throw ourselves on Jesus’ grace and pray, which we have collectively done as a Body for about three decades now. But atheists don’t know about all that... they don’t watch conservative national news or hear about it in their leftist/socialist media outlets. Believe me, it’s not on Tick-Tock. So we simply tell them that we have done business with God on it and move on.

Thou Shalt Leave Valuable Contributions for Future Generations

“It is important that our generation, and all those that follow, leave scientific knowledge and resources for our offspring to build upon.”

Legacy is really important to the atheist. Remember, they believe their knowledge is superior and their belief system is the absolute truth. So they want to do both things that the Christian wants of their truth: to spread it around and pass it down. It’s a battle for the truth. Yet, in our case, this isn’t our truth—it’s His.

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

God loves the atheist so much. Our job, as we found out last week, is to pray. Never give up!

July 26, 2026: Comma or Coma

Proverbs 24:16, TPT

For the lovers of God may suffer adversity and stumble seven times, but they will continue to rise over and over again. But the unrighteous are brought down by just one calamity and will never be able to rise again.

We know that human history is full of adversity. Job said,

Job 5:6 &7, NASB95

“For affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground, for man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward.

Trouble came to earth, in other words, when man came. Man wasn’t the problem to the earth until mankind brought sin into it, in Genesis chapter three.

Many of our biblical heroes became men and women we admire because of how well they coped with and survived terrible difficulty and hardship. If I throw out some names like Moses or Debra; David or Paul... we usually think first about their trials that marked their lives. Something they went through and how they persisted until God miraculously delivered them, etc. That’s what we remember; the hard stuff they went through and how they did it.

Winston Churchill comes to mind in modern history when we think of someone who, though he began life in privilege and ease... spent his adulthood being disliked and maligned; often misunderstood and rejected. Because he was used by God under paralyzing strain, hard work and prayer, to save his nation and the world, from darkest evil. He persevered.

In case you don’t know or unaware of who Winston Churchill was, he was a knighted statesman of Britain; serving as the Prime Minister during the years that Adolph Hitler intended to assume global power. Churchill forged crucial ties with U.S. President Roosevelt and the Soviets to secure Allied victory over Hitler and the Nazi’s. Hitler was defeated because Churchill persevered when nobody believed him. The ongoing Nazi holocausts were ended because one man stood up and brought to light what Hitler was really doing—the United States had no idea at the time. It was a confusing era with lies and propaganda clouding up all the world’s news channels. Sir Winston would not relent in destroying Hitler by any means possible. But after his success in WWII, Sir Winston faded quickly into the background, lost that political election in 1945 and sat down discarded and disgraced. He was a tricky character and not well liked. Even though he had masterminded the winning of the war.

Yet by 1951, he was back on the world’s political stage and re-elected as Prime Minister of England. He even won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1953. He fell down many times, but got up again and again. Sir Winston died at the age of 90 in 1965.

Very much like Trump, Sir Winston endured continual opposition the entire time his destiny in God was unfolding on the world’s stage. Churchill has many, many quotes about not giving up because he learned the value of perseverance... which is a virtue of the Kingdom of God.

James 1:12, NASB95

Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

One of the crowns of heaven will be given to you upon arrival, if you’re a persevering person.

I heard a pastor I admire speaking to his audience about adversity. He said this, “Right after the rug is yanked out from under you, and the dust has settled, you must decide... will this be a comma or a coma.” In other words, am I going to step back from the tragedy or trauma, lick my wounds and take a pause; reflect and regroup to rise again—or am I going to check-out altogether. Am I going to sit down, shut down and stop living? We all know people who responded as either a comma or a coma, when faced with something catastrophic; or maybe something just upsetting and disappointing.

Please read Proverbs 24:15-20

King Solomon is writing down what is titled in some of our Bibles “Precepts and Warnings.” (A precept is an instruction or a command.) Solomon, in this section of our Bible, is writing his wisdom literature, which is what the Proverbs are called. He’s writing to his son and heir to the great Kingdom of his father David that he inherited and will one-day pass on... to this boy he’s writing to. Solomon is now the king, he’s the richest and wisest man who ever lived. And he’s putting into words what he has learned over the years. He explains first, the difference between the wicked and the righteous—when it comes to calamity.

Disaster, hardship, calamity comes to us all; righteous and unrighteous alike. However, Solomon seems to tell us that righteousness has a power to it. I’m going to call this the “Power of the Overcomer.” That if we live a holy life; a life that honors God; we’ll get back up. We will overcome whatever comes.

In contrast, the wicked... those who do not honor God or the lives of their fellow man... they stumble and fall as well, but they stay down. Hopeless.

The righteous will survive the same storm as the wicked; yet they will get up again, and again, and again...even though they, too, have fallen. Why? Because of this verse and the many other promises from God in our Bible:

Psalm 34:15-19

The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.

I believe that every calamity, every trauma, every setback is a comma. Every trial is a comma. But, like most things in life, it’s what you do with it. How we respond. One of the things that can turn a comma into a coma is disappointment.

Disappointment is when your expectation was not the same as the reality. Disappointment often reveals the fact that we are not looking at the truth. We’ll discover freedom and relief by knowing and embracing the truth.

John 8:31 & 32

So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Sticking with truth and not denial or delusion will prevent the Deceiver from getting to you. Satan’s job is to keep the truth away from us. To keep us believing his lies. Furthermore, if we’re disappointed, we’ve got a bigger elephant in the room: we had a plan that got derailed and we’re sad, depressed, upset. There are two questions that will keep a comma from a coma if we’re willing to ask them in that moment of disappointment:

Was I expecting God’s plan or demanding mine?

Proverbs 19:21 - Many plans are in a man’s heart but the counsel of the Lord will stand.

Did we even pray about it? Did we ask God what He was doing when with this situation or that person? Remember, we’re the overcoming, righteous people of God—so He wants the best for us at all times. But that may not look like what we think or plan.

Am I willing to change course? (Surrender & adapt)

Luke 22:42

When we insist on pushing forward our expectations about life and people, we will be certain to be disappointed, bitter and in the end, full of pride. (We want what we want.) And after the pride... we fall into destruction. (Proverbs 16:18.)

The bottom line with the storms of life and the calamities that come to every home and every person is this: It happens. Fall down; meet with your God; find rest for your soul. And then, we lean into Revelation, chapter 3 and we tap into the power of God to get back up and keep moving. Try one more time.

Revelation 3:19-21

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.

Jesus tells us that we will sit WITH HIM on His throne; in a powerful position to be better, stronger and wiser than ever before. Take those commas... those pauses in life that are caused by hurt... and turn them into throne-room moments