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It must be September, people are returning from, it's still hot here, I warned you about that. You know, but it's probably sometime toward the end of this week I have a feeling that moisture is going to drop, at least looking at the, it's normally second week of September, somewhere in that time frame is where the humidity breaks and it doesn't get cool, but who cares if it's 103 degrees when the dew point's below 50, that's nice, so looking forward to that.
I don't know what it's going to be like, two weeks from today I'll be in London, two weeks from tomorrow night I leave for South Africa and Josh was lamenting the fact that when I mentioned this, it's the nighttime flight, so I'll fly over the entire continent of Africa in the dark, so I won't see any of that stuff.
You won't see the Sahara, well I'd rather not land in the Sahara personally, 32 ,000 feet over top it would be fine with me, but I'm not sure what the temperature, I'm not sure what to expect down there in South Africa, it's, you know, October is that transitionary period for everybody and so it's going to be moving towards summer there, so it's going to be getting warmer, you know, obviously December would be probably pretty warm down there, even though since it's right on the Cape, you know, I don't know, we'll see, we'll see, I'm not really concerned about that, I am concerned about the fact that they sent me my final itinerary and it has six debates and 12 lectures or sermons in one week, that's about three a day approximately, so don't know how that's going to work, don't know how that's going to work and of course the last two that I had was Shabir Ali, so, you know, it's going to be, it's going to be interesting, no two ways about it, but we appreciate your prayers for that.
We are in John Chapter 15 and you going to be around next week brother, because I'm preaching next week, so, okay, all right, yeah, as far as either one of us know, I may not be here next week either, as far as the Lord will allow, we plan.
We have been trying to pick up some speed, but of course it doesn't help when I'm off and out and about, I was in Atlanta last weekend, well, they call everything within 50 miles of Atlanta, Atlanta, it's really not Atlanta, I was in Suwannee, Suwannee, Georgia and I was at Thad and Summer's church and once Summer got there with Clementine, I just grabbed her and I start walking around and everybody's like, hi Clementine, hi, she is the most popular baby in that church, everybody knows Clementine's name, she is just as cute as a button, I know, I'm grandpa, so I'm totally and completely biased, but on a completely unbiased level, I mean, if Summer wanted to do the, you know, baby modeling thing, she'd be perfect, I mean, she's just, when she smiles, it's just from ear to ear, it's incredible and so when it came time for me to go up to speak, I was speaking on his phone, I just took her with me, so I just go up there and I've got her in my arms and they're all sort of smiling and she starts smiling at everybody and they're all smiling back, that's how you get, it's just putty in your hands, I mean, you know, it's just great, so I said this is a grandpa privilege and so I had her up there for a while and then I handed her back off to Summer and it was great to get to see her, she's pulling herself up on stuff and if you're holding her on a couch, she'll climb right over you, you have to hold on to her ankles or she's off the other side and doing the, crawling all over the place, she's mobile now and it's amazing, so that is how it's supposed to happen, I do realize that, but it's happening awful fast, so they're going to be out for Christmas, so for her, around her first birthday, that'll be neat.
Anyhow, we need to finish up John chapter 15, we're looking, especially this section because of its testimony to the work of the Holy Spirit and the role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life and you'll recall that last time we were together, we were looking at Jesus' warning to us that the world would hate us because it hated him, so in other words, the more consistently we live as Christians, the more we reflect the spirit of Christ, the teachings of Christ, the life of Christ, the more we can expect animosity from the world, unfortunately there are many today who figure the best way to avoid that is to look as much like the world as possible, that is not what Christ has in mind in any way, but this warning comes within the context of again the promise of the Holy Spirit, which we saw in chapter 14, now chapter, the end of chapter 15, and again, somewhat unfortunate chapter division numbers, but we again have the promise of the coming of the spirit, verse 26, but when the helper comes, again, that's parakletos, the paraclete, the advocate, the helper, but when the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me, and you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning, so in speaking directly to the disciples in the context of the animosity that is going to face them, certainly these would have been some of the words that come back to their mind, that the spirit brings back to their mind, when that animosity of the world comes, and it is an animosity that is based upon the fundamental nature of the rebelliousness of the world, the fact the world knows that God exists, suppresses that knowledge, and at times the restraining power of the spirit minimizes the expression of that hatred, and at other times the spirit allows that hatred to be expressed very openly and vociferously.
Just last week, the man who I've worked with in the United Kingdom, a fellow by the name of Robbie Hughes, when we would go out and do street ministry in London at Leicester Square, he would be the one who would begin the street preaching, and then as people would gather around, the rest of the team, when Muslims would come, they would sort of shuttle the Muslims over to me, and so I would take care of the Muslim witnessing while he continued street preaching.
Well, Robbie was arrested a week before last on a specifically false charge. A lesbian came out of, I think, the tube or something like that. I saw he was preaching, and they know that in England today, you can simply go to a cop and say, I'm offended by what that person's saying.
That person will end up in jail, and he did for seven hours, wasn't released till midnight. No charges were pressed because in reality he hadn't said anything, but interestingly enough, when they interviewed him, what the street preachers said, well, actually we hadn't gotten to that subject this evening, but if we had, we would have said something, and the hatred of the world toward the Gospel message is becoming more and more clear.
I'm reminded over and over again of Psalm 12 .8, the wicked strut about when that which is vile is honored amongst men, and that's what's taking place in our world today. So, the disciples encounter this tremendous opposition, first from the Jews and then eventually from the Romans.
This opposition would last literally for centuries. Certainly would have had brought to their mind the words of Jesus, but when the Helper comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds in the Father, he will bear witness about me.
Now, I suppose very briefly, and some people would say I should spend a great deal of time upon this, I am not trying to minimize the applications you can make of this, but at the same time from a biblical perspective, I'm just not sure that it's an issue that's, it certainly I don't think is an issue worthy of the divisions that have been created by it.
But, if I just off the top of my head wrote this, how many of you know what that refers to? One, two, anybody else? Everybody behind you can't see, it's here on the end. Just kidding. This is, it's a Latin phrase, and the Son, and the filioque clause is one of, and I would argue it probably would never in of itself have caused the division that happened in 1054 between the East and the West.
There were much more practical reasons for the split between the East and the West, and they were primarily political. But, it was one of the primary theological grounds for the great schism between the Eastern and Western Church in 1054 AD, leading to what we have in the West, eventually developing into what we see in the Papacy, and in the East, the various Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Russian Orthodox Church, you know, Greek Orthodox Church, etc, etc.
The division is based upon the admittedly Western historical insertion of this phrase into the Nicene symbol, the Nicene Creed. In speaking of the person of the Holy Spirit, the East says that the Spirit proceeds only from the Father, and the West says the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Now, as you see in verse 26, this is probably the classicus locus, the classical text for the discussion of this. Jesus speaks of the Helper, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father.
He will bear witness about me. So, the East would say, this is as far as you can go. They would, both East and West, would agree that there are certain relationships between the divine persons that mark them off from one another, not just what they do.
That's the economic trinity, that's the fact that the different persons take different roles in the accomplishment of God's purposes and creation, especially in the doctrine of working out of salvation.
But there are certain attributes of each that mark them off from one another, and that procession marks the Spirit off. He proceeds from, in the East, the Father, in the West, the Father and the Son, just as the Father begets and the Son is begotten, even though that is not a time reference, it's not something that takes place in time, it's a relationship issue.
So, these are all relationship issues. Now, the West would argue, yes, it specifically says, who proceeds from the Father, but who is he sent by? Whom I will send you from the Father. And so, the argument would be that when you look at John 14, 15 and 16 together, Jesus' role in the sending of the Spirit is not merely, what is that role?
I mean, this is one of the issues, for example, that I raise with my Muslim friends, and that is, remember, they think the parakletos is Muhammad. Well, aside from all of the things we've already seen that preclude the possibility that this actually refers to Muhammad, there's also something else to consider, and that is, in Islamic thought, a prophet is only sent by Allah.
The parakletos is sent by Jesus. So, if Jesus sent Muhammad, and Muhammad said he was sent by Allah, then who does that make Jesus? So, it causes somewhat of a problem in the Islamic interpretation, but that's what happens when you have, in the Quran, two different places where it is said that Muhammad is prophesied in the Bible, but it doesn't tell you where in the Bible.
And that's because the author of the Quran didn't know what was in the Bible, and so early generations tried to find something for a fulfillment, and in the process, they had to grab onto things that really didn't have anything to do with Muhammad at all, and that puts them in a rather inconsistent position.
But anyway, from the Western perspective, the role of Jesus, especially in light of John 7, where the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. You may recall, years ago, when we covered that, that I talked briefly about the fact that one of the Pentecostals will look at that, and they will actually say, it should be translated, the Spirit was not, for Jesus had not yet been glorified.
They would actually say the Spirit did not exist, because remember, from their perspective, they're Unitarians, and so the role of the Spirit has to wait for Jesus' glorification, because it's all one person.
It's the actor playing different roles, holding a mask in front of his face. But again, when the glorification of Jesus, ascension of Jesus, sending of Jesus, all these things are intimately ascribed to Christ specifically, to the Son specifically, then the West would say that is sufficient basis for the addition of the Filioque clause, and the assertion that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, because the Spirit cannot come unless sent by the Son.
And so you can see the grounds for this, as I said, if it were not for other issues, and the other issues had to do with clerical celibacy, the iconoclastic controversy, you know, you can have icons in Eastern Orthodoxy, but you can't have statues, and y 'all know what the test for the difference between an icon and a statue is.
Mr. Callahan knows. I can tell. It's just amazing how he communicated that way, just a slight movement. It's just fantastic. You're all going, what? He went like this. If you can pinch the nose of the figure, it's a statue.
If it's too flat to pinch the nose, it's an icon. You're looking at me like, back me up here, Mr. C. Am I not right there? That's right. So, it could have texture to it. It can have a little texture to it, but once it gets to the point where you can pinch the nose, it's no longer an icon.
It's a statue, and therefore, bad. So, anyways, you had that, but the main thing, honestly, the main reason for the split of 10th before, it was political. I mean, it really was. The fact that in the East, you have multiple patriarchs, multiple sources of authority, versus in the West, you got one.
There was only one city in the West that claimed to have been founded by an apostle. It was Rome. You had five, at least, in the East that claimed to be founded by apostles. So, even to this day, while there's one primary patriarch, that's a position of honor, really.
There are these particular patriarchs over their particular, primarily, sadly, ethnic groups. It's very ethnically divided, and anybody who's moved that direction finds out pretty quickly that unless you're one of those ethnic groups, you're really sort of a second-class citizen.
It's a shame, but anyway, that's a little church history thrown in there, and one of the main texts that is relevant to that particular subject, and the divide between the East and the West. But notice the role of the spirit.
One of the reasons that, well, I was going to say most cult groups, but I try to be careful in utilization of those terms. I've not done a study as to the relative proportions, but there are many Unitarian groups, groups that deny the doctrine of the Trinity, that also deny not only the deity of the spirit, but the personality of the spirit.
The spirit becomes, well, you know, the biggest group we know is Jehovah's Witnesses. They believe the spirit is God's impersonal active force, similar to rushing water, moving air, electricity, and a light bulb, etc., etc.
It's a power, but it's an it. There are numerous texts that contradict that. The spirit does as he wills. He gives the gifts as he wills. The spirit speaks, so on and so forth, but I think the primary reason that people adopt that perspective is because of the role that the spirit takes in the economy of salvation.
Notice here, he will bear witness about me. He will not bear witness about himself. His role is to bear witness about me. He convicts the world of sin. He guides the disciples in remembrance of Jesus' teachings and in the enunciation of those teachings, and he bears witness about Christ.
It is not his role to bear witness about himself. One of the things I think we have seen, certainly in our day, and of course I'm using that over a number of decades now for myself, in my lifetime, in especially the most egregious examples of Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement, is a massive imbalance swinging off.
One could say that every group, you could accuse them of having some kind of imbalance. Too much emphasis on one person versus... But you need to look at what the scriptures say, where the scripture says that the balance needs to be.
One of the things about the spirit is the spirit doesn't bear witness about himself. He bears witness about Jesus. So, he's really pointing to the incarnate one, and as a result, I think people see less about the spirit in the pages of scripture and therefore minimize the spirit's role.
Now, I would argue personally that a balanced and biblical reformed theology really, in many ways, presents a significantly higher view of the spirit than what you have in both an Arminian viewpoint and in a charismatic viewpoint.
Having said that, you're probably going, uh, why do you say that? Especially because there are probably people sitting in front of me that go, hmm, holidays are coming up and you don't know my Uncle Bob, or my Aunt Lolo, or whatever else it might be, and we're going to be having that yearly conversation we have around this time of year, and I'd like to know why you just said that, because I might want to steal what you're saying for that conversation for once.
I might actually get to enjoy the turkey and dressing for once in my lifetime. What I refer to in that is, in essence, in regards to our belief, when you think of the doctrine of irresistible grace, which is nothing more than efficacious grace, it's simply the confession that when God chooses to regenerate one of his elect people at the time of his choosing from eternity past, there is no power in heaven or earth that can stop that.
Well, what is the means by which that takes place? It's the work of the spirit. And so what we're saying is, the spirit is absolutely sovereign, sovereign in bringing about regeneration, absolutely sovereign in the giving of gifts, the spiritual gifts, and so what we're saying is that the spirit is not just simply a power that is dependent upon our synergistic cooperation for success, but that the spirit, as the one who is enacting God's grace, the avenue through which that grace becomes operational, is truly sovereign and truly powerful in a way that, because of theology, many of these other groups cannot affirm that because their doctrine of salvation is deficient.
It has got the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable, and so as a result, the spirit becomes one who tries repeatedly, maybe even tries with everyone, but it's up to our cooperation as to whether he's going to be successful.
Well, I would argue that that is a deficient view of the role of the spirit, and that while we are frequently, I've certainly had charismatic friends who have made the argument that Reformed people are, in reality, afraid of the Holy Spirit.
Well, I try, as best I can, to try to see the truth in what someone says I realize that we're never, you know, if we actually do believe in semper reformanda, always reforming, that we should listen to criticism, and I don't think we should be afraid of the fact that the Spirit of God can do amazing things, but at the same time, that Spirit has given us his revelation as the means by which we are to judge what is and what is not a work of the Spirit of God, and so to say that we're afraid of the Spirit of God, I sort of turn around and say, well, to be honest with you, you're the one that develops hives when I'm the one that says the Spirit of God can raise a sinner from spiritual life, from spiritual death to spiritual life, without having to ask that sinner's permission in the process.
I mean, you lose it when we say that, and go crazy in denouncing that as turning us into robots and all the rest of the stuff, but the reality is, you're the one saying the Spirit is limited in what he can do to what we give him permission to do, and so who has spiritophobia here anyways?
I hate that phrase. It's just so massively abused, and not spiritophobia, I'd never even heard about it before personally, but you know what I mean, tacking a phobia on the end of something just to beat somebody over the head, really.
Is that a cramp or a question? Oh, okay, all right. Oh, you're in a minion? Good, okay, all right. Well, we knew we had some issues with you, but talking about now and not then? Now. Okay, so in other words, you're talking about you have a recognition of the fact that your heart is deceitful, and that you would not be the first person to have experienced determining, the Spirit told me to do it, when in point of fact, that new set of golf clubs had nothing to do with the Spirit at all.
Yeah, and we all recognize that reality in our lives far too often, which is why when you go back to the Reformation, there was such an emphasis upon the Spirit and the Word, and the intimate union that exists between them, because it's that Word then that gives us the means by which we recognize the Spirit over against our own sinful lusts and desires that so often masquerade and dress themselves up in the costume of godly desires, when in reality, they're just fleshly desires, and we all probably can look back over this past week and point to situations like that.
Who would tell you? And they baptized you in the name of... Oh, good, I'm glad. No, no, I'm not sure what the background of that group would have been, but amongst, for example, Assemblies of God, lies the UPCI, the United Pentecostal Church International, which is the primary oneness denomination in the United States, an anti-Trinitarian oneness nomination split off from the Assemblies of God at the beginning of the 20th century, and so as a result, they've always had this fighting going on, and so the Assemblies of God are pretty strong and emphasizing the Trinitarian formula at the end of Matthew chapter 28.
What the oneness folks emphasize is, well, frequently they'll attack the validity of that text. There's really no grounds to do so textually or historically. There are people who just will say, well, I don't think that any first century Jew could have ever said these things, therefore it must have been added later.
There's people throughout the theories, but the argument of the oneness folks is that when you get to Acts, it's always in Jesus' name, assuming that when it says they're baptized in Jesus' name, that that gives the actual formula by which they were baptized, and that's where I think the problem lies.
I don't think Acts is trying to say when they went down the water, they're baptized only in Jesus' name. The point was they received specifically Christian baptism, and when it says you're baptized into the name singular of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is specifically Christian baptism, and the Son, of course, is the one who has been the primary revelation in flesh of that divine truth.
So they're assuming that when it says it's baptized in Jesus' name, that that actually gives you the words that were used, but only once in Scripture are we given the actual words you're supposed to use.
They can't allow that to stand, because if receiving specifically Christian baptism is we baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, then their entire theology is obviously wrong.
So when UPCI goes after that, they have theological reasons for so doing. They may have been referring to the Jesus-only move. Yeah, Jesus-only is one of the Pentecostals. So they were trying to say we're Trinitarians.
They may not have said it as clearly or explained it to you, but Jesus-only baptism is what UPCI does, and they reject baptism in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So if they thought you were asking for that, they probably were wondering whether you were a Trinitarian.
So you are a Trinitarian, right? Okay, good. All right. Wanted to make sure about that. I will be talking about to Pastor Fry a little bit later. Anyway, yeah, but hey, it doesn't matter if you're Arminian or Reformed, you need to be Trinitarian first, okay?
That's sort of before that in the order of things. So yeah, yes, we can do church discipline real fast around here if we need to. Don't worry about it. It's okay. Yeah, anyway, so what was I talking about?
Oh, yes, there is some information there concerning the fact that the Spirit will bear witness about me, the emphasis upon the Spirit's role in testifying to Christ rather than to himself, and you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning, so specifically the disciples.
This promise is for them, and then by extension, it is given to us as well. Now, this has been followed, Chapter 16, these things I have spoken in order that you may not be... Now, some translations say, to keep you from falling away.
I'm not sure that I like that. The term is scandalizo, and a scandal, we have transliterated that from the Greek and unfortunately have missed some of its application because of that. It is something that causes someone to stumble or to fall, at least it was in that particular time period.
It could obviously develop over time, I'd assume, but is that still pretty much its meaning today, brother, a scandalizo, to sort of still stand firm? I asked the brother. He's a Greek speaker, a modern Greek speaker.
So, Jesus is called the Scandalon because of the fact that he is a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense to the Jews in Paul's language, and so what Jesus is saying, these things I have spoken to you in order that you not be scandalized, you not be caused to stumble.
Obviously, if there wasn't any warning of the coming opposition of the world, if there wasn't any warning of Jesus's departure from them, there could be all sorts of thoughts that would cross their mind.
I mean, this is how God's going to found the Christian movement, the Christian church, by abandoning us and leaving us alone in the face of the hatred of the world. This would be very, very difficult, and yet Jesus warned them ahead of time so that they will not be caused to stumble.
They will, and it's interesting in the Greek, it's just one word, they will put you out of the synagogue. They will de-synagogue you, in essence, and to us that just sounds like you got kicked out of your church for a while, but you need to realize the synagogue was a, it wasn't just some place you went once in a while.
It was part of your very cultural identity, and in a world where the economy was so very fragile and there were so many more people at the fringes on the very edge of life and death, food-wise and sustenance-wise, to be separated from your cultural people was much more of an issue than it would be in our context.
We sort of don't, we're pretty much loners in that sense, especially in the United States where there is so little cultural identity in comparison to most countries. So when it says they will put you out of the synagogues, it means you will be cut off from your ancestral people, you'll be cut off from your culture.
Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God, and the amazing thing is there, the term for service there is latreuo, latrine, which is the highest level, I mean it's the level of worship described as taking place in the temple.
And so it's the idea that people will be so given over in their hatred for the Christian faith that whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God, and I'm sure that's exactly what Paul had in mind when he was Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus.
I'm sure that's what was in his mind as he heard the thickening sound of the thuds of the rocks pounding on Stephen's body and breaking his bones and depriving him of life, that this was an offering of service to God.
These were people who were corrupting God's people, and that continues sadly in our world today, that there are people who do that to Christians who think that they are offering service to God. So, Jesus warned of this before it took place, and they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me.
Now, again, the conjunction of the Father and the Son in this fashion does not strike us with the weight that it should because of familiarity on our part with the text and with the truths of the Christian faith, but you must always be trying to step back from that level of familiarity and see the text as it would have been heard by those to whom those words were originally spoken.
There's a lot there. He's saying they will do this because they do not know God. Now, is that a contradiction to Romans 1, that all men know God? No. Obviously, these people know about the existence of God.
He's not saying they're atheists, but the scariest people in the world are the people who think they know God but actually have never been humbled in bowing the knee before him and becoming servants of his and knowing him in that way.
The only people that God knows in that way are the people who he, by grace, has befriended, and the ones who claim to know God but actually have not encountered him in that way are really some of the scariest and frequently most evil people in the world.
I mean, we have to recognize that when Christopher Hitchens wrote his book, and the subtitle was, How Religion Poisons Everything, he was about 96 right. It's the 4 that made him eternally wrong. What I mean by that is, well, from a biblical perspective, the vast majority of religion in the world is false religion.
It is part and parcel of the means by which sinful men mute the testimony of the conscience and silence the very speaking of God in their hearts by covering it over with religiosity. And so, we'd have to agree that the vast majority of man's religions does poison everything.
And of course, we would then throw into that mass of man's religions, scientism, humanism, atheism, and everything else because they are all worldview issues where you are replacing your creator with some other ultimate authority.
They don't ever want to see it that way. They don't want to be put on that level because then they have to be judged by similar standards. I did not know this, by the way, but maybe you knew this, Mr. Callahan, but we have one of the up and rising atheist stars right here in the valley at ASU.
There was a series of debates in Australia last month, William Legg Craig versus Dr. Krauss of ASU, Arizona State University. And this guy is a number. I mean, in their first encounter, I guess they went Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne.
And he brought a buzzer with him so that while Craig was speaking, every time Craig said something he disagreed with, he, to interrupt him and to say, no, that's wrong. I mean, he was incredibly aggressive, incredibly nasty, incredibly childish, but he's a professor at ASU.
And Lawrence Krauss is his name. And I'm going to play some of the interaction on the dividing line this week if I have time to, but I'm going to try to. Anyway, I'm not sure what brought that up, but he's right here locally.
And it's funny, you don't hear much of that kind of discussion going on here locally. You know, I mean, like I've hardly ever had debates or anything like that around here. You know, it's always happened someplace else.
And it seems that he travels other places to promulgate his viewpoints as well. So if any of you are going to ASU, watch it if you end up in a class with Lawrence Krauss, because he's going to do everything he can to pull out the atheist sword and run you straight through in front of everybody else, I assure you.
So just be warned of that should you head that direction. Well, with that, we're pretty much out of time for this morning. We will continue. And whenever, I mean, next time I think that I'll be able to speak with you will be on the 13th of October.
And that's assuming that I don't have 47 different diseases that I've dragged back with me after spending 22 ,000 to 23 ,000 miles in a pressurized metal tube with all sorts of other people breathing on me.
So we will see how that all works out. So let's close our time with a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, the preservation of it and the warnings that it gives us, the insight it gives us into the life that we live today and the pressures we face and the opposition we face.
We ask that we would indeed look to the Spirit of God as the one to give us guidance as to how we might honor and glorify you. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.