Most people don’t know it……but, it turns out that Marilyn Monroe was an extremely intelligent woman. A few days before she died, she spoke with Billy Graham. This conversation arose out of a “word” given to Billy Graham, telling him to approach her with the offer of salvation. At the end of the conversation, she told him, “I don’t need your Jesus”. I suspect that this statement put Billy Graham in his place and effectively ended the conversation.
It’s an interesting comment on several levels.
In the first place, she recognizes the existence of God…..specifically, the God described in the Bible…….Billy Graham’s God. She didn’t deny God’s existence. She didn’t deny his power or his authority…….his sovereignty. What she did was to deny her need. Considering what happened over the next few days, she clearly was desperately in need. On the face of it, she was catastrophically naive about her need.
Given her imminent death, she was wrong. She actually needed God more acutely than she had ever needed him before. I think that a more accurate…….more truthful comment would have been, “I don’t want your Jesus.” That is to say, “I’ve got this under control, I don’t want any outside interference.”
And that is precisely where most secular humanists are today. The secular humanist puts himself in charge……of everything. He is smart and powerful……without question, the smartest, most powerful entity in the universe. He understands just about everything. He manipulates his surroundings to his advantage. In order to pull this off, he puts himself at the apex of the power and control pyramid. The pure SH denies the existence of God……..the existence of any higher power……..the existence of any Supreme Being to whom he must submit. This is wrong……however, it is, at least, intellectually honest.
But, there is a second tier of SH. This is where most Secular Humanists operate. This is where a great many Christians operate. These are the people who admit the existence of God. They just refuse to follow his instructions. They keep him boxed up in a corner of their life. They drag him out every now and then, give him a “to-do” list that promotes their agenda and then stuff him back into the box where he will not interfere with their efforts to control the universe. They believe that this will be enough to buy them a spot in paradise…….and they might be right. But, this plan is fundamentally dishonest. It reduces God, the creator of the universe, to a cosmic “gopher-guy”………a useful tool…….the guy who cleans up the mess after the party is over. They ascribe to God only the characteristics that fit in with their world view……with their plan. They ignore any facet of God that interferes with their master plan. In effect, this “mocks” God and his plan.
This might be the Christian who supports missions around the world, but who wants every last illegal alien rounded up and sent home. Why? Because the “illegals” are using up the resources that would otherwise go to supporting our American lifestyle……a lifestyle that is lavish by comparison to the rest of the world. It is a lifestyle where we spend more than we earn and put the deficit on our credit card. It is a lifestyle that is not sustainable. It is a lifestyle that will implode……soon.
The solution is to solve the problem of sovereignty. The solution is to run the world according to God’s plan instead of our own. That means every letter of God’s plan. That means honoring God’s plan…….instead of our plan. This means putting God’s plan ahead of our plan.And what is God’s plan?
Love God……love everybody else.
And here is the hard part. That will mean doing things that often do not serve our plan. This will mean sacrificing our plan into order to serve God’s plan. This will mean compromising our plan and, likely, our lifestyle.
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Galatians 6:7-8, ESV
You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:34, ESV