In Colossians chapter one, we read, beginning at verse 12, and hear now the word of our God. This is in the midst of Paul's prayer for the church. He says, strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power unto all patients and longsuffering with joyfulness. giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him. And he is before all things and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning. the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. And having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself. By him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works Yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you wholly and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. And thus we have the reading of God's word. May the spirit of God give us understanding. My purpose tonight is to look at one last philosophy. It's one that in some ways is very different from those that we looked at so far. It's a philosophy that still drinks deeply from the wells of humanism, but it has a very different face on it. It's called objectivism. And the chief promoter of objectivism in the 20th century was the novelist philosopher Ayn Rand. Now, what makes objectivism different is that it's far more conservative than, say, the new atheism or postmodernism that we've looked at already. And you see that in the way that conservative speakers speak of objectivism. Just two years ago, Rush Limbaugh, for example, quoted Rand, calling her a brilliant writer and novelist. And even William F. Buckley, who disagreed with her, once complained that her desiccated philosophy's conclusive incompatibility with conservatives' emphasis on transcendence, intellectual and moral, and yet at the same time recognized the profound influence that she was having on conservativism, even though she was a pro-abortion atheist. In 1987, There was an article in the New York Times that referred to her as the Reagan administration's novelist laureate. And David Nolan, one of the founders of the Libertarian Party, stated that without Ayn Rand, the Libertarian movement would not exist. She was greatly admired by men like H.L. Mencken, the Baltimore Sun columnist And Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, was one of her first disciples. Now, with a liberal socialist occupying the White House, Ayn Rand's philosophy and her name seemed to come up a lot more frequently than they used to. In spite of the fact that she died almost 20 years ago, Her novel, Atlas Shrugged, sold more than 800,000 copies in the year 2008. And it's regarded by members of the Book of the Month Club as the second most influential book in their lives. Thankfully, the Bible still ranks first in that list. And of course, if you've been keeping up with movies lately, You're aware that Atlas Shrugged, the novel that I just mentioned, is being made into a three-part movie. And the first part of that was released this past April 15th, a date that was no doubt chosen on purpose. Well, from what I've just said, you can see that objectivism is a powerful philosophy. A lot of what passes is conservative values, Republican principles, and libertarian ideology. is derived either directly or indirectly from Ayn Rand. But the question that's before us, as it always is, is are the core ideas of objectivism biblical? As Christians, it's not enough for us to simply know where they came from and see a sort of superficial similarity between them and perhaps our own ideas. But we need to examine them in greater detail from scripture. Now, to make this determination, we really have to understand a little bit about what objectivism is. And I think the best answer to this question was given by Rand herself shortly before her book Atlas Shrugged was published in 1962. There's a pre-sale conference for the book. And at this presale conference, a bookseller asked her to give the essence of her philosophy while standing on one foot. That is, he wanted her to summarize it very quickly. And she responded by listing four points. And they're as follows. There are some big words in here, but eventually I'll get to explain what these words mean. Number one, metaphysics, objective reality. Number two, epistemology, reason. Number three, ethics, self-interest. And number four, politics, capitalism. Now, what did she mean by these four things? They're obviously not statements of any sort. They're just identifications. And it's not really my purpose tonight to give a lot of detail about what she has to say about this. But I hope to at least give some basic understanding of what she says. First of all, her first point deals with metaphysics. Metaphysics is basically what is. What's the stuff that the world is made of? Well, if you go back into the ancient Greek philosophers, you see that some of them, though not all of them, taught that the universe consists of only a very few basic elements. Earth, wind, water, fire, and occasionally they added ether as well. Well, modern materialists really follow the same idea, except that they replace those particular items, earth and wind and so forth, with electrons and energy and velocity. Now, on the other hand, Plotinus, who was a third century Greek philosopher, And he started the school of thought known as Neoplatonism, believed that the one, the intellect, and the soul are the most fundamental realities. He, you see, was not a materialist, but an idealist. Well, in contrast to these views that I've just presented, Rand proposed that reality exists as an objective absolute. In other words, facts are simply facts, and a fact will remain a fact regardless of what a man thinks about it, and it will remain a fact regardless of what man does about it. All of man's wishes, his fears, his hopes, his dreams will never make anything, anything other than what it is. A fact is a fact. Now, as you can see, this is a very harsh view of reality. Since Ayn Rand denies the existence of God, the only thing that she's left with is impersonal fate. Now, her second point takes up the study of epistemology. Epistemology is a big word that simply refers to the study of how we come to know things. And this has been a very prominent branch of theology over the last hundred years or so, but I would also say that in my view it's also been one of the most disappointing. Because most of the books that have been written on epistemology from a Christian perspective have not really dealt with epistemology proper, but rather with the status of our knowledge. In fact, I'm only aware of one or maybe two theologians who have really tackled the tough questions head on. But be that as it may, Rand proposed reason as her principle of knowledge. Now, if you're thinking that that immediately makes Rand a rationalist, you would be absolutely wrong about that. And the reason is very simple. In classic philosophy, rationalism asserts that all knowledge is derived solely from the human mind. It teaches that knowledge consists of innate ideas plus whatever we can deduce from those innate ideas. It involves the ideas plus their implications. But you see, this is not really what Rand meant when she said this. For her, reason functions as an organizing principle. It takes the sensory data of the world that we collect through our five senses and it integrates it into one way of thinking. And once reason organizes that data, it then guides the individual to action. On one occasion, Rand summarized her epistemology by saying this, you can't eat your cake and have it too. In other words, what she was saying here is that reason serves as a practical role. It will help you to avoid inconsistencies as you organize all the different experiences that come into your life. Now, with information coming from the senses and reason organizing it, You can see here that there's a very important flaw in what she's saying, and that is that there is no room in objectivism for God or for a revelation from God. Man's mind is the final word on truth. He judges what is, he judges what should be all by himself without any reference to anyone above him. Now, the third point that Rand mentions as a part of her objectivism is ethics. And here she describes her own view as self-interest. Now, we all know what the Westminster Confession teaches about man's purpose. It says that his chief and highest end is to glorify and enjoy God forever. But Rand's view stands in stark contrast to this. And I can really not do any better than simply let her speak for herself on this particular point, because she makes it clear that man's noblest goal is to make himself happy without getting in anyone else's way. This is what she wrote. Man. Every man is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life. It's a very strong statement. And she meant every word of it. And one of the criticisms, in fact, of Rand that people have offered over the years is that her view of each man serving his own self-interest inevitably leads to anarchy and not freedom. And how can it be otherwise, since the purposes of some men are often in direct conflict with the purposes of others? And then finally, Rand's fourth point is her politics. She advocates laissez-faire capitalism. And she's a very strong advocate of that, and that explains why libertarians in particular are attracted to her. She says that the state's only role in economics is to protect the rights of men who enter into voluntary contracts with each other. The state should use force only against those who use force against others, either to seize their property or possessions or to harm them in some way. So in other words, force should only be used against criminals and foreign invaders. Now, in studying Rand, one of the comments that caught my attention by a very good writer is that Ran never lost a debate against anyone. And I find that to be rather remarkable, because that's something that can be said of very few people. And so I began to wonder, why is it that she never lost a debate against anyone, at least from this other person's perspective? And the answer is very clear. It's because once a person exposed his or her most basic premises, She would systematically demolish them, and then she would draw her opponent into her own system. In other words, she was sort of a presuppositionalist. But you know what? There's one argument that she will never win, and I doubt she will even try to win. And what I'm talking about is the vindication of her humanistic and pagan philosophy before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ. What could she possibly say to justify herself when she stands before the one that the Apostle Paul described in our text tonight? Now, look at our text with me and see what Paul says here. The words that we read a little while ago are sort of like a target. You can think of it that way. On both ends, there's a description of what God the Father has done for us through his dear son. We see this in verses 12 through 14. Paul says that he's made us partakers of the inheritance and light. He delivered us from the power of darkness. He translated us into Christ's kingdom. He gave us redemption. That is the forgiveness of sins through his precious blood on the cross. And then skipping a few verses, if you pick up again at verse 20 and read through verse 22, you see that this is spelled out again there. And here Paul stresses the fact that reconciliation took place because of Christ's death. And the heart of reconciliation is that we being sinners have been brought into fellowship and communion with a holy God. Jesus, according to Paul, is therefore able to present us holy and unblameable and unreprovable in the sight of God. Now, there can be no doubt that these ideas that I just outlined very quickly are very precious teachings of scripture. They give hope and meaning to us. And we're going to come back to these ideas for a little bit toward the end. But what I want you to focus on now is that bullseye that's right in the middle of this passage, verses 15 through 19. Here, the Holy Spirit gives us a glorious description of Christ. In fact, it's not just a glorious description. It is a superlatively glorious description. Let's read it again, beginning at verse 15 and see for yourself. Paul says that Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. You see, every part of this description is filled with wondrous truth. It presents Jesus Christ as the mighty God of creation who governs and preserves all things for his own purposes and glory. In this world that's governed by Jesus Christ, there are no such things as accidents. It cannot be. Even the things that we call the laws of nature are simply the expression of his perfect will. Jesus Christ is a God of perfect order. And notice, as you look at these verses that we just read, that Paul allows no exceptions to this. In fact, he states this point over and over by repeating the words all and every, which in the Greek are really just one word. And we see that word seven times in these few verses here. Verse 15, Jesus is the firstborn of every creature. That is, he has a right to govern creation, and he shares that right with no one. Twice in verse 16, we're told that Jesus created all things. And so that we don't miss the point, Paul went to explain that it's all things in heaven and all things that are in earth. It's things that are visible as well as things that we can't see, as well as all kinds of power structures that exist. And the second time in this verse, when Paul says that Christ created all things, he specifically says that he created them all for himself, that is, for his own pleasure and glory. Then in verse 17, we see that Christ is before all things, that is, he existed eternally before the world was ever made. And at the end of the verse, Paul says that by him all things consist or all things hold together. Verse 18 says that he has preeminence in all things. That is, he's the divine sovereign. He has to have preeminence because, as verse 19 says, all the fullness of God, that is, all of God's essence and glory dwell in him bodily. You see, Ayn Rand was right when she said that no amount of thinking or wishing or dreaming on our part would ever change a single thing in the entire universe. But when she says that facts are just facts, that things just are what they are, she could not have been more wrong. Impersonal fate doesn't rule this world. Jesus Christ does. The whole universe, in fact, is governed by one who has an amazing love for his people and who delights in the works of his hands. And I ask you, wouldn't it be absolutely horrible to live in a world where things just are what they are? Impersonal fate might bring you happiness. It might bring you success. It might bring you wealth and power. But you know what? Even if it did, there would be no meaning nor purpose in it. Or this impersonal fate might bring you immeasurable sorrow. You or your loved one might be crippled in some horrible accident, like our dear brother Jay was just a few weeks ago. But you would have no place to go to find comfort. The most that accidents and calamities can teach you is that you need to buck up and go on. Or do they really teach you that much? Because if they're really, you see, without meaning and purpose, then they have to be absolutely pointless. But consider what Christianity offers. Paul wrote in our text that Jesus Christ is not only the mighty God of creation who governs all things according to his perfect will. but that he is also the mighty savior of his people, governing the entire universe for the benefit of his people. Verse 18 says that he is the head of the body. Now, think of the incredible comfort that's attached to this thought. If everything in the universe must work out for your good and for the advancement of Christ's kingdom, then there must be meaning and purpose even to those things that run against your desires. Granted, no one wants marital problems. No one wants rebellious children. No one wants financial hardship. No one wants the death of a spouse or any other such thing like that. And yet the providence and love of God brings these things into our lives anyway to accomplish things that we could never have imagined. We ought to be glad that the facts are not just facts, but they're facts created by Christ, because among other things, He uses these facts to teach us that he is the loving God, the head of his church, and that he prizes and cherishes his people above everything else in creation. In the context of what Paul is writing here in Colossians, his reason for mentioning this is even more specific than that. Because you see, the Colossians had come under the influence of a type of thinking that was particularly deadly. It was a bunch of ideas that eventually developed into a philosophy known as Gnosticism. The Gnostics believed that they, and they alone, had the secrets of the universe. That would be more accurate, perhaps, to say that they really didn't understand anything at all because they were not looking at things through Christ. But go back a little bit beyond where we started. Look at verse 9. You see what Paul is praying for the Colossians for here. He's praying that they might be filled with real knowledge, that they might live according to that real knowledge. In other words, the truth about Jesus Christ is not just information that's to be sucked into your mind like a sponge and understood by the minds, but it's assurance as well. It's a certainty. It's a certainty that God hears our prayers, that he loves us, that he gives us what we need in this world that belongs to his son. Now, beloved, do you see how this speaks against Rand's second and third points? She claims that knowledge is what can be perceived by our senses and organized by our minds. Actually, that's what R.C. Sproul and John Gerstner wrote in their book on classical apologetics. They list that as one of their four indisputable axioms. But this is not true. Our senses fail us in many ways. They may be dull. At times they're malfunctioning if we're ill. Our minds might not categorize the information that our senses give us correctly. Real knowledge is only to be found in Jesus Christ. He is the light that lightens every man coming into the world. By common grace, even the most hardened sinner knows certain things like two plus two equals four. This piece of information is part of God's eternal knowledge. But even more importantly than that, Jesus Christ is also the light of everlasting life to those who put their trust in him. Rand also claims that the guiding principle of human behavior should be self-interest. But Paul could not have demonstrated more clearly in our text that the universe doesn't revolve around us as individuals, no matter how highly we might think of ourselves. And believe me, Rand thought highly of herself. In fact, once on a television interview with Mike Wallace, She said that she was the most creative thinker alive. That's a rather arrogant statement to make. But what Paul says in our text is that the universe and every detail in the universe revolves around Christ. He made it. He rules it. It serves his purposes. Every detail of it brings him glory and honor. Now, one question remains. What about Rand's political views? Are they compatible with Christianity? And the answer, again, is no. There is, in fact, a formal similarity, just like there would be a formal similarity between an unbeliever helping an old lady cross the street and a believer doing the same act. To our eyes, they both look like the same thing. Well, in the same way, there is sort of a formal similarity between Rand's conservative political views and a biblical view of government. After all, Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 both make it clear that the purpose of civil government is to punish those who do evil and to reward those who do good. In fact, both of these passages even limit government to these two uses. There is no biblical warrant, for example, for governments to regulate the affairs of businesses and corporations or manage the lives of individuals except in cases of right and wrong. And nor should any government take it upon itself the role of the world's police force. But when you get right down to it, free market capitalism is really inconsistent with objectivism's first three principles. Objective reality doesn't require capitalism. In fact, Rand herself admits that it's an ideal that has yet to be reached. Her reason may classify capitalism as the noblest economic system, but why doesn't she favor totalitarianism or anarchy, both of which are more consistent? And her idea of man as the hero of an atlas who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders really runs counter to the unregenerate nature of man, who, when he gets a little bit of power, prefers to slave and dominate men rather than free them. You see, true freedom exists only in Jesus Christ. That's why I was glad that Greg read from John 8 at the beginning. Jesus made it clear there. He says, if the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. A person is free only when he is able to fulfill the role that God gave him. And no one can do that unless the Son of God transforms that individual into a child of God. The ideal that Rand sought can only be found in glory. And that's going to be given, of course, only to those who turn to Jesus in repentance and faith. We do experience a foretaste of it in this world, a taste of it. Although I use the word taste there, I don't want you to think that it's a small, insignificant taste. It's not like when you go to Costco and they just give you those little samples of their products. What we have in this world is really a huge taste, a colossal taste. Liberty is a wonderful thing, and it only makes sense in the context of the gospel. It's a concept that can only work in a society that has been heavily influenced by the common grace effects of the gospel. Now, look again with me at the verses that surround the bullseye of our text today. And notice here what Jesus did for you to bring you into this condition of freedom and liberty in him. He says that you are heirs of his kingdom. Is there a kingdom where true freedom exists? Jesus says there is. It's his kingdom. And he will transform you into his saints. He took you out of the kingdom of evil, where the devil and men like to control others and to dominate others. And he brought you into a kingdom of love and mercy. Paul says that your sins, which were many, have been washed away by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. And you are now so perfectly reconciled to God that nothing can separate you from his love. not death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature. You see, the world that Paul is describing in Colossians 1 is not Ayn Rand's objective reality. It's God's reality. There's not even a comparison between the two. Now Rand's objectivism, as I mentioned at the beginning tonight, is behind a lot of present-day conservative political talk. Some people recognize this and perhaps even pride themselves on being her disciples. I suppose that more people than that are oblivious to her influence in this area. But what I want you to see here as we compare her ideas with scripture is that objectivism is not a solid foundation for anything. It doesn't offer a viable view of reality, knowledge, ethics, or politics. It is a very weak substitute for the Christian faith, especially the faith that moved many of our nation's founders, and in the end, Objectivism will always turn around and bite the heads off of those who follow after it. And why is that? It's because it is atheistic to the core. It's hatred of God. It's hatred of the church must come out. And what it calls freedom will inevitably become lawlessness and or bondage. Colossians is a book that's written to teach you not to put your trust in the ideas of men. It doesn't matter whether they're on the so-called liberal side of things or the conservative side of things. The only safe refuge that we have is Jesus Christ. He is everything that you need. Run to him today. Because you see, it's not Atlas who shrugged that matters. but rather Jesus Christ, who never shrugs. The one who carries the world on his shoulders is your God and your Savior. He is the unchangeable I AM, the great Jehovah and the King of his people. Amen. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your word. We thank you that Paul gives us such a glorious picture of Jesus Christ, showing him as he is in relation to you being all having all the fullness of the Godhead in him bodily and also in relation to the world, being the creator, sustainer and the one who provides meaning and purpose to things. And we ask our God that we might never be taken captive by the philosophies and ideas of men. May we always go to your word and search the scriptures and find in them everlasting life. We pray, our God, that you would bless us in this and help us to serve you and help us to be faithful and true. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.