Becoming Better Theologians: Quiz 2

Bethlehem Bible Church iconBethlehem Bible Church

1 view

0 comments

00:00
Father in heaven we come before you this morning having had the last few days to just enjoy our families for most of us to reflect on your goodness to us.
00:13
Father I pray that as we gather here this morning that you would be pleased with our attitudes, with our mindset, with our desire to worship you, with our desire to serve one another.
00:24
Father would you bless our time as we look to your word, what it says about you, what it says about us, what it says about our responsibilities towards others.
00:34
Father we pray for these things in Christ's name. Amen. Well last week we started a quiz or we were finishing a quiz and we never got to the one that I handed out so we're gonna finish the other one and then we'll get started on this one and we'll see how we do.
00:47
But I had a little interaction on Facebook. What is the purpose of Facebook anyway?
00:55
Anybody know? That's what I thought. Yeah good question. Is there one?
01:03
You don't have to spend time with anyone that's good. Well you know it also gives you the opportunity for people that you don't meet all the time or you don't see all the time.
01:11
People that maybe you went to high school with and you tried to avoid and now they get to hunt you down. All those people you never wondered where they were and now they they're back in your life.
01:23
Anyway somebody posted something on Facebook and I just responded with like I think two words.
01:32
One word period, another word question mark. And it had to do with the subject of tolerance.
01:39
And I think I've developed what I think is a fairly good definition of tolerance.
01:44
Let me read this to you and see what you think. Tolerance. Being fully supportive and accepting of people who agree with your positions.
01:58
I think that's what tolerance means. At least that's the way I understand it. Because if you don't agree with them fully you are a bigot.
02:05
So it must be tolerance means that you agree with someone who says that homosexual marriage is okay and all that stuff.
02:11
If you don't then you're intolerant I guess. They're allowed to be intolerant you're not. Okay sorry.
02:19
We were talking about last week about God and his creation and about nature and we're going to develop that.
02:28
We were talking about the Godhead but we're going to develop this a little bit more concerning a lot of the things that we say.
02:35
And I mean we as in Christians a lot of things that we do that are just kind of cultural maybe just kind of habits that we have.
02:43
I mean I want to like grab a lucky rabbit's foot. But a lot of these things that we do we don't even think about.
02:51
Where do they have their roots? Where do they come from? And last week I think we were looking at a question number 15 on the first quiz.
03:02
True or false it implies nothing when we use the term mother nature. Well it does imply something. I mean mother nature is a very biblical term.
03:12
No it's not. I mean it you know it's it's something that we just use as kind of like a placeholder.
03:19
I think it's kind of a polite don't you think it's just kind of a polite way of not offending anyone by saying something like what would be another word we could use instead of mother nature?
03:31
Creation. Well we could use Gaia but that would be worse than mother nature. I think
03:38
Gaia being what? Yeah it's like the the really the personification of Mother Earth.
03:49
You know the goddess of the earth sort of thing. The false goddess of the earth Gaia. Yeah that would be bad.
03:58
What I mean what's something else that we can use that maybe might be offensive to someone? Imagine if you said this instead of you if you said to someone that was an unbeliever if you said instead of good luck what if you said this how about good
04:10
Providence? How do you think that would be you know accepted?
04:19
I think this is what they do they go what are you talking to me about a town in Rhode Island for?
04:26
Good Providence? Why don't you say good Boston? It doesn't they would have no idea what Providence is.
04:33
But Providence being what? What is Providence? It's God and it's the unseen hand of God.
04:41
It's God's design and everything. It's God's purpose and everything. God pushing everything towards a single end.
04:47
So if you said that everybody would kind of freak out. Culver says this about this idea of mother nature.
04:55
He says nature knows nothing in the sense of rational knowledge.
05:00
In other words there is no mother nature. You know we had a debate about which margarine that was that you know it's not nice to fool mother nature for those of you.
05:12
Old enough to remember those commercials? I hear parquet but parquet was the one remember when you open up the little thing and it would say parquet but oh it's butter parquet butter okay fun stuff.
05:30
Commercials just aren't that much fun anymore. Another commercial just popped in my head.
05:36
We'll skip over that. Okay we often speak of birds or fish as if they were knowing subjects.
05:43
I watched a movie a couple years ago about penguins you know about how they march around and they have the little you know eggs on their feet and all the different things that they do.
05:54
But you know how many have ever seen the the salmon swimming upstream? You know we see those movies
06:01
I think they showed those in sixth grade. I think that's what used to pass for sex ed. But they they would swim upstream and what do we hear when they do that?
06:17
You know they're going to the spawning grounds or whatever and what do we hear? Well they die but what do we hear though during the course of them?
06:25
Instinctive, it's their nature, it's you know isn't it amazing how mother nature leads them to do all these kind of things.
06:35
Culver says this he says when we say the migratory salmon knows how to return to the place of their hatching in order to lay and fertilize their own eggs he says we use it to say that it's their nature but he says this is an anthropomorphism.
06:50
Now usually when we use the word anthropomorphism which is if we take if we divide it up Anthropos being man and morphism form of man so then we would have this idea that we're using form of man language language that we would understand you know the unseen hand of God well
07:11
God doesn't really have a hand so we're using that kind of language to sort of explain a concept.
07:18
So when we talk about salmon we're using anthropomorphic language as if they know something when they're just they're just doing what they're programmed to do.
07:30
They don't know anything. Salmon don't you know wake up in the morning go you know I think it's time to head upstream and kind of set up camp.
07:39
That's just not they don't have that kind of rationality. Let's look at Proverbs chapter 3 verses 19 and 20.
07:54
I mean it is amazing all the things that people want to ascribe to chance to you know some kind of impersonal design.
08:06
Isn't it a wonder how this impersonal unknowing kind of mother nature sort of thing just makes things work exactly the way they should.
08:21
Isn't it awesome? Not. Proverbs 3 verses 19 and 20.
08:32
Who would read that please? Bruce. And what we're gonna see over the next week or two is really the the the handprints of God anthropomorphic language.
08:56
The fingerprints of God just in everything how he designs things how he holds things together and how when we really look at it there is no room for some kind of impersonal processes behind the scenes sort of running things.
09:12
You know when you have how many of you have personal computers? Most of us do.
09:21
How many of us know anything about personal computers? For those of you who have a
09:29
Macintosh this won't make any sense because you I don't know how you do this on a Mac. I guess you probably can but you know if you if you bring up if you hit ctrl alt delete it brings up a window right?
09:42
And if you click on things you can see what programs are open you can also see what processes are running and even what things are running in the background that you would never know anything about.
09:53
And so this idea similar to a PC that there are background processes that we know nothing about that are just some kind of how somehow sort of running together to run everything that's just wrong.
10:07
God is actively in control of everything. God is characterized in Scripture as a
10:14
God of knowledge. That's 1st
10:19
Samuel 1 3. His spirit is the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of knowledge.
10:25
That's Isaiah 11 2. A person when he impudently speaks of God's character in ways without consulting what
10:32
God has said about the subject first is one who darkens counsel by words without knowledge.
10:39
Where does that appear? I think the question comes about something like this. Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
10:49
Does that sound like anything you've heard before? Let's look at Job 38 right before Psalms.
11:10
Job 38 and listen
11:19
Job 38 verse 1. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, what's the problem in Job?
11:28
What's been going on for 37 chapters? Job suffered.
11:34
Okay and then what? He's questioning
11:41
God's motive and faithfulness and so is everybody else, everybody around him. You know his wife said, hey
11:47
Job why don't you just curse God and die? This is what's going on here and you know this is a great book for our lives
11:55
I think. Why? Because we all come at points where we say God why are you allowing this to happen or I don't understand how this could be any good or people ask you well how can
12:05
God allow that to happen? Well worse things have happened. But he so he says he says this he after all this nonsense has gone on and some good stuff has gone on but God answers and says the then the
12:24
Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said verse 2 who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
12:33
That's a mild rebuke and then verse 3 dress your dress for action like a man.
12:40
I will question you and you make it known to me. In other words you know you've said all these things about me now
12:46
I'm gonna ask you some questions and we'll see what you actually know. This is this is
12:53
God. Culver says this the end of Job's debate when the free -living acting personal knowing
13:00
God simply overwhelmed him by knowledge of nature and mankind's ignorance of it in Job 38 through 41 the only proper response to this was the one that Job made he repented in dust and ashes so it should be with today's scientists which
13:19
Culver points out is Latin for knowledgists those who have you know massive knowledge they're the brains they study knowledge who challenged
13:30
God's rightful place in nature beneath nature and above it then he quotes
13:37
Isaiah 29 verse 16 shall the thing say of its maker he did not make me or the thing formed say of him who formed it he has no understanding and isn't that what scientists are doing these days shall the thing say of its maker he did not make me right
13:56
I'm the product of random chance I'm the product of natural processes and then what else they say they say this or the thing form say of him who formed it he has no understanding he has no knowledge
14:14
God is nothing he knows nothing so and then finally number 16 the last question on our first quiz true or false
14:25
God's most amazing creation is the church of course referring to the building no yes of course that's true why is it amazing
14:41
I'll give you a hint we're gonna look at Ephesians a couple of I mean we could look at several different places but we're going to look at Ephesians first chapter 2 starting in verse 11
15:05
I mean we all know Ephesians chapter 2 well chapter 1 the great doxology chapter 2 starts with you know and when you were dead and trespasses and sins and then he goes on to say but God made you alive together in Christ and then talking about that we were created before or that we were created we're brought to new life so that we can do the things that God created beforehand for us to walk in them and now we come to verse 11 therefore remember that at one time you
15:42
Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision what what is that referring to the
15:52
Jews okay the Jews would call the Gentiles the uncircumcised you know like the uncircumcised
16:00
Philistines which meant that they the the Philistines and the other Gentiles did not what they did not belong to God they did not recognize
16:09
God by what is called the circumcision which is made in the flesh by hands remember that you were at that time separated from Christ alienated from the
16:22
Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise having no hope having no hope and without God in the world so they were just unsaved
16:34
Gentiles or Gentiles generally speaking before Christ were outside the promise they had no hope they knew didn't know about God other than what
16:43
God revealed to them but they didn't have a specific revelation and they weren't in Christ they weren't saved but verse 13 but now in Christ Jesus you who are once far off strangers alienated outside the covenants have been brought near by the blood of Christ for he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of the commandments expressed in ordinances that he might and create himself create in himself one new man in place of the two so making peace
17:22
Paul tells us what the dividing wall of hostility was between the Jews and the
17:28
Gentiles here it was the wall of Jericho no what the temple wall it was what's the wall what's the the line of hostility what created enmity between the
17:45
Jews and the Gentiles the law and that really was one of the purposes of the law we talk about the law all the time in terms of it convicts of sin it lets us know what
17:56
God's holy standard is and that we can't live up to it but the other thing it did was it made the
18:02
Jews completely different than everyone around them not only were they not allowed to eat certain foods which all the
18:08
Gentiles ate they weren't allowed to wear some clothing that the Gentiles were there all manner of differences between the
18:15
Jews and the Gentiles brought about by this law so what did the Gentiles think of the Jews what's that they hated him because this is a really weird group of people they won't wear polyester they're just completely different polyester being big in the
18:39
Gentile world world back in those days but Christ abolished that enmity that hatred why it tells us right there in verse 15 that he might create in himself that is in Christ one new man in place of the two one new man again the idea of the church being a single entity out of two groups that hated one another now we have
19:12
Jew and Gentile together in the church the enmity of the law has been put aside fulfilled in Christ and so now we have the church which is an amazing proposition in light of you know if you lived 500 years before Christ you never would have said to yourself
19:31
I can see the day where Jew and Gentile can really get together wouldn't have happened unless you thought the
19:37
Jews were going to lay down spiritual arms as it were let's look at Ephesians 3 verses 7 to 11 and what somebody read that please
19:46
Ephesians 3 verses 7 to 11 please not everybody raise your hand at one time it makes it very difficult for me
19:59
Bob Andrzejczyk so Paul says that it's his job his calling his
20:44
I guess his blessing we can even say to preach to the
20:49
Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for the ages mystery that word in the
21:05
New Testament often refers to what you know some kind of CSI thing that they have to search for all the clues and all that it means something that that was not known in the
21:18
Old Testament was not clear in the Old Testament and now has been revealed in the New Testament we can understand it now
21:24
Jesus Christ is referred to as a mystery why because all these prophecies of him might have been unclear that is certainly would have known exactly who it was and then he's revealed same thing with the church here cover says this he says it is not in nature however that God's wisdom shall be most fully revealed the
21:48
Church of Christ the household of belief in the one true living God is yet to be the scene of the manifestation that wisdom in spite of all her failures here below in spite of all her detractors so I mean here we see the manifold wisdom of God the unsearchable riches of God on display why because he's able to do what seems to be impossible to bring together
22:14
I mean what do we see you know when we talk about equality at the foot of the cross we're talking about male female
22:22
Jew Gentile it doesn't matter what your station in life is when we come to the cross we're all equal cover says this earlier comments in this chapter on the will of God spoke of God's purpose and purposes as later chapters will speak of his plan or decree for all creation the living
22:42
God who is a person should have purpose in being alive and he says that's not a anthropomorphism in other words
22:50
God is a purposeful God not a random or purposeless
22:55
God we know in ourselves that life without purpose is life without meaning
23:01
I mean how many people do you know that like that I mean I know of one young man that I'm very sad for that I Facebook friends with and when
23:11
I read his postings I just think here he is he is a man without a purpose and his post reflect the life without meaning he is
23:21
I mean if you read him I would unfriend him it except he means too much to me it's it's just so sad to see you know basically every post is my life is terrible nobody likes me
23:37
I wish I could do something you know besides live kind of thing and you just go it's it's it's sad and if we have no purpose in other words if there's no reason in our head that we are getting up in the morning no reason that we have that we're going to work there's no reason to do any of the things that we do then we live a life without meaning and I mean basically it reminds me of like some kind of science fiction book you know like 1984 or living in the
24:09
Soviet Union you just go I'm just surviving that's all I'm doing I have no bigger purpose and so the idea of God just existing just surviving just getting along and having no greater purpose is irrational we wouldn't think that way at all in fact we know that God has a purpose let's look at Isaiah chapter 14
24:30
Isaiah chapter 14 verses 26 and 27 and who would read that please
24:46
I think somebody was at the door breaking arms this morning
24:54
Casey because nobody could raise them I mean to be who will turn it back
25:21
I mean this gives us what this is a clear picture that God has a purpose so the idea that perhaps there is some deistic
25:30
God I mean even if you want to be Thomas Jefferson and cut huge sections out of the New Testament to eliminate all the miracles and everything else you can't look at a passage like that and say well you know there is a
25:40
God but he's just kind of an observer God is intimately involved in the details he has a purpose and he's going to work it out finally
25:52
Culver says this let us close this consideration of features of the spiritual nature of God with Paul's ecstatic exclamation
25:59
God created all things so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places this was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized now in Christ Jesus our
26:14
Lord that was Ephesians 3 again he has a purpose and his purpose has now been made manifest it's shown to us we see it right now we're going to go to the unity of God of the
26:25
Godhead quiz we've been talking about the Godhead in the spiritual nature of it now we're going to talk about its unity and we'll get into a bunch of rabbit trails as well first note the quote there from Deuteronomy 439 the
26:42
Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath there is no other there is one
26:48
God and that is so central to Christianity to our explanation of the gospel there is one
26:55
God number one true or false God is both revealed and concealed now listen to this this is going to take some unpacking here but Culver says this one might suppose the
27:11
Trinity of the Godhead to be more difficult to explain than God's unity how do you explain the
27:17
Trinity the Father Son and Holy Spirit are all
27:24
God okay then there's three gods no there's one
27:30
God okay you just told me that the Father's the Son the Holy Spirit are all
27:35
God how can there just be one God because there is so that seems difficult he says you might think it's more difficult to explain that than God's unity but I he gets to something else here moreover it is correct to say that the
27:54
Trinity like the two natures of Christ posed a severe problem for the early Christians to formulate in a manner true to scripture and at least amenable to reason even if not fully explicable in other words it's hard to explain yet such is not entirely correct one theologian
28:17
Wolfhardt Pannenberg I just like saying the name Wolfhardt that's gonna be in my next child for one for one has deli delineated sorry how the
28:31
New Testament clearly represents God the forever invisible dwelling in accessible light
28:37
God where do we find that that he is dwelling in inaccessible light or that he is first Timothy 616 made known by the
28:50
Son who is visible in the flesh he cites Matthew 1127 but we go to John 1 2 and he says here that Pannenberg cites
29:00
Luther's famous formula listen to this formula God is both God revealed deus revelatus that's the
29:10
Latin for those of you who want to be impressed by Latin is both God revealed and God concealed or deus absconded this of course even even it my my latins a little rusty even in Luke and Christ says
29:29
Luther God is revealed and still concealed well how's that how is it that Christ is is
29:37
God revealed and yet still concealed it's by no means exhaustive we don't know everything about Jesus we just don't even
30:02
John say he wrote John 2031 that he wrote these things 21 that we that we might know him but he said before that he goes what that all these things written in these book in this book if all the things written about Jesus were contained in one book it would feel like you know there's just not enough paper to write down everything that Jesus didn't said there just isn't so a lot of things we don't know
30:27
I mean how do we know that we don't know everything about God again Deuteronomy 2929 the secret things belong to the
30:33
Lord but the things revealed belong to us and to our children we don't know everything about God we won't know everything about God and even as Charlie was saying in eternity we won't know everything will be learning and will be growing in knowledge but we will never come to the end where we go okay you know it's kind of like you know those commercials kind of mocking the idea of coming to the end of the
30:57
Internet well I mean how much more the infinite knowledge and wisdom of God and we will never fully get it
31:09
Pam we don't know everything about anything I mean I keep and that's right I mean
31:14
I just keep going back you know to how brilliant these scientists are and I've said this before but I really think that you know the only thing that's kind of keeps them just grasping on to evolution is that they don't have something better to throw out there they know there are holes in the theory but they can't get rid of it until they have something better to put out in front of it and I mentioned this a few weeks ago but it cracks me up this idea that believing in God is dumb okay that's the scientific theory that's dumb but it's smart to believe that the earth was too hot billions and billions of years ago to have any water and so in order to cool it down and for there to be water they had it had to wait till asteroids carrying water you know conveniently dropped significant amounts of water on it and then it cooled off funny thing is though we don't get hit by those asteroids anymore with all that water it was just a one -shot deal you know a couple of nicely timed silly okay it's very silly he says here
32:20
Christians have difficulty have had difficulty explain the oneness of the Trinitarian God to adamantly monotheistic
32:28
Jews from the beginning and forever afterwards to Muslims when I talked to when I preached through John chapter 1 or as I've been preaching through there you know
32:37
John goes to great pains to say that there's one God but he makes it very clear that Jesus Christ is
32:43
God he's trying to essentially witness to Jews not trying to he's saying look
32:51
I'm a monotheist too I believe in one God but let me tell you about this other person of the
32:57
Godhead what and you know I've mentioned before when you witness to a
33:02
Muslim they're gonna say what Jesus never said and and you better get ready to witness to Muslims because they're coming to your city yeah
33:15
Jesus never claimed to be God which is false he did claim to be that and the original audience understood that but they will say that as if it were an absolutely irrefutable fact why because that's what
33:26
Muhammad said panaberg comments
33:34
I think this is a good comment the theology of the early church realize that the incomprehensibility of God applies to the essence and qualities of the living
33:42
God and not merely to the statements of the doctrine of the Trinity what he's saying here is listen even in God's holiness even in God's wisdom even in God's justice even in God's how whatever attribute of God you want to talk about there is there are no adequate words to fully express and to make clear the various attributes of God we there are language restrains us it constrains us it and our minds constrain us we don't have enough time we don't have enough words we don't have enough brainpower to sort all that out we get just enough to believe right and that that is the essence of faith we we believe
34:44
God said it we believe it and that is faith it doesn't settle it
34:49
I like what Pastor Mike said you know the the bumper sticker should be what you know
34:55
God the old bumper sticker you say God said it I believe it that settles it and it should just you know have a line through the
35:01
I believe it so it just says God said it that settles it that would be a lot more accurate well
35:12
I'm gonna get into Cappadocia here number two where is Cappadocia let's all turn to our
35:17
Bible atlases where is
35:25
Cappadocia I'm gonna see if I can find it in one of my maps here probably not or maybe it should be here oh wait wait
35:33
I think I see it mm -hmm who has it you have a
35:40
Bob yeah it's in Asia Minor it's in Turkey I'm looking to see if I can find it here in the oh yeah there it is yeah yeah it's just north of Syria and a little bit inland there yeah and you know it's interesting
35:59
I mentioned this a long time ago so none of you will remember it Cappadocia is pretty interesting it was
36:06
I saw this on a like a History Channel special sometimes those things are actually pretty good and they went into these mountains in they're not really mountains they're just kind of hard rock formations that the
36:19
Cappadocians lived in and so they had these intricate caves and it was pretty cool because they the archaeologists have gone in there and they've discovered that they have these basically like air conditioning systems
36:32
I mean you know they didn't have generators or anything like that hooked up but how they designed it so the air would move through there and run over like cool water and stuff before it went in there to keep the caves and everything cool but what
36:47
I of course my favorite part was inside the church they had what baptismal fonts you know for the early church which kind of goes hmm
36:59
I don't know that infant baptism really took a you know took some lumps on those archaeological things but it was interesting because the
37:09
Cappadocians lived in these caves because they were persecuted by all the people around them who would and you know these caves were pretty defensible so they would come and you know the people of Cappadocia would just melt into those caves where they would be pretty much you couldn't get them out they didn't have tear gas or any of the cool stuff that we use in the jails so but I bring that all that up just so we have some kind of idea where Cappadocia is and because they were somewhat isolated and all that I think that's one of the reasons why they tended to get some pretty good theologians and they they wrote a lot some of the early
37:52
Cappadocian Christians wrote some of the the more foundational biblical truths for example it was the fundamental argument of the
38:06
Cappadocian case for Nicene Trinitarianism in other words the
38:11
Council of Nicaea that authentic monotheism was the rejection of the many in other words of polytheism for the sake of the one there were three gods there was one god there weren't you know there let alone twelve gods or fifteen gods or a hundred million gods just one
38:32
God the ground of that argument was founded by Basil who was a Cappadocian who said this the terms one and only are predicated predicated of God not to mark a distinction from the
38:45
Sun and the unreal gods falsely so -called so what's he saying there he's saying that one and only refer to God period and they don't make a distinction between Jesus Christ and every other false
39:00
God they're talking about the triune God the Cappadocians were the first to explain and defend at length that every attribute properly assigned by scripture or sanctified reason to God was fully shared qualitatively and infinitely by the
39:18
Sun and the Spirit no less than the Father in other words everything that we could say that is true every attribute that is true of God the
39:25
Father is also true equally true of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit you know we tend to think of you know like and I'm gonna use an anthropomorphic language here we tend to think of the
39:43
Trinity is like the president the vice president and the Secretary of State is that correct no it's not now they have different functions in other words if we were to think of God the
39:59
Father basically setting up the framework that would be mostly true but he did it in conjunction or in coordination with the
40:07
Father and with or with the Sun and with the Spirit we don't see for example
40:12
God the Father dying for the sins of the world in other words they all have different roles we don't see
40:18
God the Father acting as the seal we see the Holy Spirit doing that we don't see
40:24
I I mean we can go on and on they have different roles sometimes they overlap but they have different roles but they're all equally
40:33
God and have all the same attributes in all the same quantity and quality and there's no difference between them cover goes on to say this is an emphasis of their doctrine and ours today as believing
40:50
Orthodox Christians when we affirm the unity of God it's interesting because some people are getting away from that these days in terms of and still calling themselves
41:01
Christians number three will close your number three true or false comparative religion classes are helpful in understanding the nature of God I'm gonna give a false or true you know depending on how you because that's really just a lame question so it can be helpful and we're gonna see how but ultimately you know those classes don't tell us anything about the nature of the true
41:30
God because they don't really study the Bible cover says is the scientific study of religions practice around the world has produced a large number of special terms helpful in any study so he says those terms themselves are helpful their insights maybe not but he says listen these terms are often employed in such a manner as to indicate stages in a supposed evolutionary development of religion
41:57
I mentioned this a long time before a long time ago and this is something the culvert kind of develops here it's this idea that scientists have which is what you know evolution is somehow miraculously
42:13
I remember this since we have we're gonna close here anyway Star Trek movie you know where they go back to the beginning of Star Trek episode whatever it was they go back to the very beginning of create not creation but of life you know they're staring at this little puddle and you know something happens where this inanimate mass of goo somehow brings forth life and you know that's the eye that's the worldview and that's again very scientific very smart very intelligent to bring it to believe that out of no life came life and then that that life spread you know from a single cell to then dividing itself etc etc etc until finally we're all here building buildings you know etc that's very sensible but he says they take that same process and they apply it to ever to religion and they say well in the beginning man was somehow you know wanted to worship something bigger than himself and so he looked at different things and he began to worship whether it was earth wind and fire that 70s group you know the the elements things like that and that over time as we got more sophisticated our religion became more sophisticated and that's the kind of the idea that what these comparative religions do is they say well you know what
43:40
Christianity is all well and good but you know what it's just kind of a more sophisticated version of Zoroastrianism really
43:51
I mean this is the kind of idea that comes out he says such such an idea however is not necessarily the case thank you any more than a classification of forms of life past and present on this earth necessarily implies organic evolution in other words religious evolution doesn't mean anything
44:14
I it has no basis in reality any classification inevitably moves from simplicity to complexity so that's what they try to convince you just like single -cell life eventually became whatever you know dinosaurs who then died during the ice age whatever but that's how they try to do that and so we're gonna develop that in the weeks to come
44:38
I mean it's interesting just to give you a little preview how about this there are people who were see if you've even seen infomercials like this charms amulets or other objects to bring good luck to the bearer or to ward off bad luck the belief prompting the practice is known as dynamism from the
45:01
Greek word dynamis or power some sort of non -material but impersonal power is thought to pervade everything
45:09
I love these little bracelets that you can buy you know that have this magnetic frequency that instantly heals everything that's wrong with your body
45:17
I've been want one of those start playing basketball again or something I don't know but but this is you know there are there are ancient false religious ideas that still pervade our world today and so we see that these things a lot of these things that we're gonna look at are just things that seem kind of harmless kind of meaningless but at their roots they have an anti -god anti -christ worldview you know under undergirding them so anyway let's let's pray we're closer father in heaven we thank you that there is a purpose to everything that we are not an accident that life didn't spring forth on its own that you are in charge that you created from the beginning with a purpose that you are bringing that purpose to fulfillment that all your good pleasure will come to pass
46:18
God that is just such a comfort to those who believe when we go through various trials
46:25
I think of the Garcia family just so many who are undergoing
46:30
Kim Westcott's mom so many that are undergoing physical trials even watching their loved ones get older and weaker think of Maureen Copper's mom to so many fathers we look at it we just think oh
46:45
I I don't know if I can bear that when we understand that everything as painful as it is is not only for our good but according to your good purpose father