Becoming Better Theologians (part 37)

Father in heaven, we just come before you this morning Mindful of what a great

God you are how blessed we are to be your people To be called by your voice to be known by you to be redeemed by you

That you would send your son Jesus Christ to die for us father as we gather together.

Would you bless our time? Would you bless our minds? Would you bless our fellowship this morning and father, would you just Guard our hearts as we look to your word and we see what you've told us about yourself and about ourselves

And about why we need such a great Savior. Would you bless us again in Christ's name? Amen well

Can I see a? Just a real a show of hands a true confession time.

How many of you are on the TBN mailing list? Come on nobody else

I Cannot get off the that's the Trinity broadcasting network. I can't get off. Although I haven't really asked

But you know you do one stupid thing early in your life, and you're just marked forever. I Don't think

I've mentioned this before but actually it it was hard getting off the The Mormon Church rolls, but I think it's harder to get off the

TBN mailing list I mean, they just don't you don't send them a four -day address. They track you down. It just doesn't matter

I Would invite you to open your Bibles to Isaiah 42 verse 9

Isaiah 42 verse 9 I Just want to start out with our you know make me

I should have a little word for this segment. We'll call it the hermeneutic moments of the day

Isaiah 42 verse 9 I have the New King James here. I guess I can read that it's fine I mean

I said you know typically the great theologian Paul Crouch uses the Bible speaks today or some other bogus

Format but anyway New King James behold the former things have come to pass, but new things I now declare before they spring forth

I tell you of them The ESV says behold the former things have come to pass and new things.

I now declare before they spring forth I tell you of them okay, so What's the what's the meaning of that well clearly?

Clearly It has to do with the new TBN mobile iPhone app

There is another new thing the Lord gave us in 2011 I TBN our new internet

TV station It's actually more than a station etc. Etc. Etc. And he goes on. He's just in the

Isaiah 42, you know almost verse by verse I Let the wilderness in this city sing

This is verse 11 lift up their voice let the inhabitants of the rock sing let them shout for from the top of the mountains

What are the new things are happening in 2011 etc. Etc. Anyway the point of all that is

And I'm gonna be speaking for a moment about that tonight in the message about Isaiah 40, you know

You can use any verse Janet and I were talking about this on the way over you can use any verse

Taken out of context to support whatever you want it to be, you know, including your new

ITVN app But in context if we go back to Isaiah chapter 40 the context is

Isaiah the prophet via the Holy Spirit Telling the people of Israel that they are going to be

That they're going to have hope Which is an odd concept because they were still in their own land

But this is for a future time where they would not be in the land where they would be under persecution They would be in in Babylon.

They would be under they would be in slavery basically and so this whole section of scripture is written written to encourage them and Isaiah 42 is

Really kind of it's one of the servant Psalms and it talks about The Lord about the

Lord himself coming I mean if we look at Isaiah 42 verse 1 behold my servant whom

I uphold my chosen and whom my soul delights I've put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations

He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the streets and listen

You'll recognize this a bruised reed. He will not break and a faintly burning wick. He will not quench He will faithfully bring forth justice, etc, etc, etc talking about this servant

Who would be the Messiah and I'm like again? You can you ought not but you can make the

Bible say whatever you want, but you shouldn't You shouldn't do that. So anyway,

I digress Just start a little hermeneutic moment of the morning

We've been talking about the unity of the Trinity or about the unity of the

Godhood Talking about different aspects of it doing this quiz and we're gonna conclude this this morning and We'll be moving on and I think in another week or two

We're gonna be doing a series and I'm excited about this one We're gonna be doing what we've talked about doing in the evening and I'm gonna move it to the morning

We're gonna do a little series on Money what the Bible says about it how we should view it

How we should handle things and we're gonna get us some practicalities On Budgeting and things like that because I just am increasingly concerned as a pastor the number of people who honestly just don't

I Mean we've we've lost I think 50 years ago the things that we do now and don't even think about People would have been shocked and appalled that we would ever consider doing them and now we just think they're

They're the right thing to do. So we're gonna be talking about what the Bible says about money How we ought to view it how we ought to handle it how we ought to go about Handling on a daily basis our finances

Okay, so we've been talking about we had this quiz format talking about I think we're on number 11

It is possible that a general religious sense in man developed into monotheism this idea of evolution

Even being the way that we should understand religion that religion developed from these kind of Backward ideas, you know that the wind is powerful.

We can't understand it Therefore there must be a God behind it fire is powerful.

We can't understand it. We can't control it although we can't control it to some extent because we've made steel and other things that are iron and other things, but Therefore it must be a

God water must be a God and that all these ideas kind of over time the

Jews You know being religious geniuses as they're portrayed

Developed this idea of monotheism and this is exactly backwards What happens is what in the

Bible we know that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth So there was one

God there has always been one God and that it was D evolution it devolved into this idea of monotheism and even atheism

It's not evolution it's devolution However, you say it it's D evolution

Just to note about evolution. I post this on Facebook this week. I thought those are pretty interesting Dogs it turns out how many how many like dogs

I'll be praying for the rest of you the It turns out that dogs every major, you know purebred that we know about right now developed

What over the last couple thousand years? How about the last 300 years?

All the variety of dogs that we have now are just they're purebred, but they're bred. They were selectively bred out of different Groups of dogs and so they got exactly what they wanted in 300 years

It's pretty stunning. But here was an even more stunning thing that I read. This was from the answers in Genesis people someone did this experiment where they took foxes and They took the ones that were least man averse and they bred those together and over nine generations

Guess what they did They had just a what do you call it?

Where they're at home and it? Domesticated thank you. They had a domesticated Fox and I was like, that's pretty amazing

It didn't take millions and billions of years it just took what maybe 15 10 whatever it was nine generations probably less than that because dogs don't have gestation periods of Nine months.

What is the just I don't know what it is, but but it didn't take very long Didn't take very long and so I mean, it's just amazing when you actually study, you know this millions and billions of years

I've talked before about how water got here through these asteroids and all these things that are

Scientifically true and then you start analyzing me to go. They're just not as smart as they thought. So anyway, we're looking at that We talked about the idea that the

Bible does refer to other gods And we're gonna develop that a little bit but let's look at first Kings 18

And this is just a classic classic passage of the Bible Kings Kings Chronicles Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah Sir, Joe that was one of the things

I learned while I was in seminary and Not in master seminary, but in seminary and the

Mormon Church when I was a kid We had a little song we learned all the Bible books in order

Okay, first Kings, that's all we learned about the Bible, but I digress first Kings Chapter 18 and we're gonna start reading in verse 17.

I'm gonna read it because it's kind of long 17 to 29 When Ahab saw

Elijah Ahab said to him Is it you a have been the king troubler of Israel?

And he answered I have not troubled Israel But you have and your father's house because you have abandoned the commandments of the

Lord and followed the Baal's the false gods the idols now therefore send and gather all

Israel to me at Mount Carmel and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah Who eat at Jezebel's table another false god

Asherah or a generic name for false gods Ashtaroth Verse 20 so Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel remember their strength in numbers and Elijah came near to all the people and said how long will you go limping between two opinions?

In other words, you have two minds If the Lord is God follow him, but if Baal then follow him and The people did not answer him a word

Then Elijah said to the people I Even I only am left a prophet of the

Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men Let two bowls be given to us and let them choose one bowl for themselves and cut it into pieces and lay it on the wood

But put no fire on fire to it and I will prepare the other bowl and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it and You call upon the name of your

God and I will call upon the name of the Lord and the God who answers by fire He is God now. Let me ask you this.

Is this descriptive or prescriptive In other words, this is a description of a historical event or something we should do today

Obviously, it's descriptive but I mean, you know And the reason I bring this up is again hermeneutics people want to take things out of the

Old Testament and say well If Elijah can do this and certainly I can do it, too Don't try this at home kids

Verse 23 Let me move on 24 and you call upon the name of your

God and I will call upon the name of the Lord and the God who answers by Fire he is God and all the people answered it is well spoken.

Okay, bring it on Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal choose for yourselves one bowl and prepare prepare it first for you are many and Call upon the name of your

God but put no fire to it and they took the bowl that was given to them and they prepared It upon the name of Baal Or called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon saying

Oh Baal answer us But there was no voice and no one answered and they limped around the altar

They're gonna get his attention You know, they're they're gonna hurt themselves and show them that they're serious

They limped around the altar that they had made and at noon Elijah mocked them saying cry aloud for he is a

God either he is musing thinking or as he is relieving himself or he's on a journey or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened and they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances until Blood gushed out upon them why to show again to show

Baal that they're serious to show them how much they adore him They're willing to hurt themselves on his behalf and as midday passed

They raved on until the the time of the offering of the ablation, but there was no voice.

No one answered No one paid attention. I'll just keep reading here.

Then Elijah said to all the people Come near to me and the people came near to him and he repaired the altar of the

Lord that had been thrown down Elijah took twelve stones according the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob to whom the

Lord Word of the Lord came saying Israel shall be your name and with the stones He built an altar in the name of the

Lord and he made a trench about the altar as great as would contain two seas of seed and he put the wood in order and cut the bull and pieces and laid it on the wood and he said pour or Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood and he said do it a second time

Obviously he did that why to show that this wood should not burn and They did it a second time and he said do it a third time and they did it a third time

So this what this wood is water soaked and the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water in other words

It's overflowing with water and at the time of the offering of the ablation Elijah the

Prophet came near and said Oh Lord God of Abraham Isaac in Israel Let it be known this day that you are

God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these Things at your word answer me. Oh Lord answer me that this people may know that you

Oh Lord are God and that you have turned their hearts back then the fire of the

Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and Licked up the water that was in the trench

And when the people saw it they fell on their faces and said the Lord. He is God the Lord He is God and Elijah said to them

Seize the prophets of Baal let not one of them escape and they seized them. Of course, they did why why do you suppose?

They seized them Not only because it was the right thing to do, but they were scared they would do whatever he said

So this is this is the issue the Bible does refer to other gods But it always demonstrates that they are no

God at all one way or the other and this this is a particularly Emphatic demonstration of that that there's one

God But the prophets of the Old Testament Isaiah in particular had a striking way of asserting the sole existence of the

God of Israel with their assertions They provided proofs Derived from his knowledge of the future and power to communicate it to his servants

We've talked about Isaiah specifically Chapter 44 where this is read

Thus says the Lord the King of Israel and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts I am the first and I am the last besides me.

There is no God who is like me. Let him proclaim it In other words if there is another

God let him come forward and speak And that's never gonna happen

Culver goes on to note that the passage Continues through or this theme through Isaiah 45 verses 1 to 6 in it the coming of the king of Persia Cyrus 150 years later is

Is predicted in other words God before? while Israel is in captivity

He says there is going to be one Cyrus who is going to Basically send the people of Israel back to their land so that they can rebuild the temple

Let's In John 5 44 Jesus refers to Deity or to God as the only

God and in his high priestly prayer as the only true God In other words the

Bible never denies that there are other things called God small G It just says that there's only one true

God Then we're gonna get to why that is in just a moment, but four citations from Paul Display much of the religious and moral meaning of the sole existence of one

God since God is one Here are Culver's four points since God is one

God There is only one way of salvation for all classes of people Can you think of some verses that would say that that there is only one way of salvation?

Okay, John 146 acts 4 is it 412 under heaven by which men may be saved

Okay, there's one mediator between God and men the men Christ Jesus 1st

Timothy chapter 2 verse 5 What else it is 412?

Okay? How about let's go to a couple of verses that he cites here.

How about Romans chapter 3? Verse 19 now listen to this you may not have thought about this in this way before Paul writes now we know

That whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law So that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world

May be held accountable to God Everyone is accountable to the one true living

God not a multiplicity of gods He goes on he says Romans 3 verse 30 also since God is one and That's a reference to Deuteronomy 6 4

Who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith in other words?

That's an application of the Shema of Israel that there is one God So that's one that there's only one way of salvation, and you know what what does that really cut against these days?

Multiculturalism you know how many times do we have to hear politicians say that there are great Several great religions in the world

What does that even mean? There are several great religions, and you know what if I were a president.

This is why I can't be president I would say there are many great religions in the world. There's one true, and then many that lead to hell

Right I mean if there are one point two one point three one point four billion

Muslims That makes it a great religion in terms of its massive It's big

But it can't save a single person if there are 1 billion Hindus well that makes it a great religion

Doesn't make it true in fact. It is not true Let's look at 1st

Corinthians 8 Versus 4 and 5 and what somebody read that place while I get a drink of water 1st

Corinthians 8 4 and 5 Yes, Bruce Okay so What is what is

Paul saying here? I think

I'm getting email even as we speak Turn off your cell phone boys and girls okay that I have no explanation for Do the microphone just play pong or what that's what it sounded like If there are many so -called gods, what are they they're bogus their counterfeits?

I don't care what you call them. They are absolute falsehoods Falsehoods and really what are they

I mean if we were to study through 1st Timothy 2nd Corinthians other places what will we ultimately see that all these?

gods small G are their demons We're talking about doctrines of demons.

We're talking about Satanic powers that would desire To lead people astray, and you know it really gets down to what

Jesus says in Matthew 7 right he says what that narrow is the way and Broad is the road that leads to hell and many are those on it

But you know I heard one pastor say this you probably heard this too Then what the people who are on the broad way did they think they're going to hell some people do

I? Mean I I talked to some people are pretty happy with the idea that they're going to hell because they think hell is a joke

But most people think what they're going to heaven. They're a good person 1 billion

Roman Catholics do they think they're going to hell? No why because it's that broad road and Here's what it.

Here's what it looks like I'm on the broad road that leads to heaven and above that road You know the sign doesn't say five miles to hell it says you're on the way to heaven pal.

You're all set You're good to go You're gonna get there and Peter's gonna give you a great big hug at the gate

And he's gonna say we are so lucky to have you in heaven welcome, and that's wrong

But that is what why is that? Why would Satan? Why would demons be behind all these false gods?

Why would Satan create so many counterfeits? Charlie It and that's exactly right

It's easier to deceive people to soothe their conscience to make them feel that they're all right by giving them

I'll use some Arminian terminology here for the sake of illustration by filling that hole in their hearts

Well think about it this way it is true right that we are created to worship We are created to worship

God and we're going to worship something Pastor Mike often says the question is what will we worship if there's some kind of deity or something that will salve our

Conscience and get us to think that we're all right. We'd rather have that than nothing at all And so people will be blissfully marching off to hell and part of a religion that tells them that they're okay

They're doing the right thing That's why Satan does that go ahead

Pam. Yeah Yeah Yeah, what passage is that okay?

That's first Thessalonians 1 9 says you've turned from a You know from idols to worship the true living

God and that that is that is correct And they're the first thing.

Oh, yeah, Satan knows that our default position Pam said is to Think more highly of ourselves than we ought right to think that we're good to compare ourselves to other people and our other default position is to deceive ourselves by thinking that Getting to heaven is what?

Right is by doing things. I mean I watched I posted this on Facebook this week to a really active

Facebook week. I must say I Watched something that somebody posted this week, and it was it was interesting to me because it was people who'd come out of the

Mormon Church And what was what was most interesting to me was these were not just regular people

They were returned missionaries who actually while they were on their missions like my brother

Started reading the Bible and going This isn't right. Here's one example that I pulled out of the movie

The guy says the Mormon Church says that to get to the highest degree of heaven you have to be married in the temple

But he goes I'm reading through the epistles and Paul says it's better not to be married He goes

I'm reading that going Paul. You don't know what you're talking about I can't get to the celestial kingdom if I'm not married in the temple And things like that keep coming up and you start going wait a minute

Here's what the church says. Here's what the Bible says. Here's what the church says. Here's what the Bible says But we have this idea

Even this week in counseling with somebody we have this idea that It's on us that we are responsible to get ourselves up to a level where we

Merit heaven where we earn heaven where we feel good enough about ourselves where we go. Well, okay now

I belong I'm in the heavenly club And that is so wrong

I talked about it a few weeks ago, you know to on the flip side this idea that we're going to Flagellate ourselves so to speak we're gonna beat ourselves down because we've sinned we

I Think maybe the classic illustration David and Bathsheba David sins with Bathsheba kills

Uriah commits adultery and Ultimately, he's told by Nathan what that his baby as a result is going to die

Now David I drink has told you are the man. I think from that time until the baby dies. I think there is

Genuine remorse there is sorrow and there is prayer that God will spare the life of this baby

And then what does he do? after the baby dies He says, you know, basically dust himself off and he goes

Okay, bring me something to eat I'm done I've done fasting I've done with all this stuff why Because he recognized that it wasn't up to him to make himself right he knew he'd go see his son again

I mean, that's the that's the key point. He knew he would see his son again But the other aspect of it was he knew that there was no effort.

He could make to make himself right with God He either was right with God because he believed in God or he wasn't

You know because he didn't believe in God there is no but even now as Christians, what do we do we sin?

We feel terrible. We feel the separation from God and we assume that there's something we can do to make it right

And I'm just I I told this person I said you might as well go to the confessional booth and ask how many our fathers

And hail Mary's you need to say? Okay, and it's not that you shouldn't feel remorse It's not that you shouldn't repent those things are all right

But you need to understand that you cannot read Romans 8 again because it says you cannot

Separate yourself from the love of God in Christ Bruce. That's exactly right.

And and and yet it's it's it's so ingrained in us We would literally demolish the work of the cross if there were some way that we could make up for our sin

If there were some way that we could you know, okay Well, I I owe God X number of dollars or whatever for what

I've done. We just can't do that Charlie Well, and that's a great illustration

Charlie says, you know, it's like if we owed a hundred thousand dollars on our mortgage We were really upside down We couldn't do anything and somebody else came in and paid that hundred thousand dollars

And then we were still frantically running around trying to find extra work trying to pay off the hundred thousand dollars what would the person who paid the bill think and And we ourselves would never do that if we had that kind of debt and somebody paid it for us

We would never think well now I've got to figure out how to pay that debt and yet That's how we kind of live our

Christian life I Don't mean always I don't mean all of us, but I mean we just have to think about how great

The work of the cross was and so, you know, some people will immediately say well, then that means you can do whatever you want and And the answer the answer to that is when you think when when you realize

I've been forgiven much What did Jesus say if you've been forgiven much then you love much?

So when you recognize how much you've been forgiven It doesn't drive you away from the cross in the sense that you want to sin more brings you closer to the cross in the sense

That you want to love more you want to obey more We've got it.

We've got to understand that rightly We've got to think rightly and and I think it's certainly right to grieve over your sin

And that's what it means to confess your sin. It doesn't mean to go to You know father

Steve or father Mike or father Pradeep father Scott We have no confession booth

Although we are putting one in the new building It means to agree with God and so it's to have that same view of sin that God does and if we have that same

View a will hate it be will understand what? That it's dealt with That doesn't mean we just go it's dealt with Again the more we understand how

How much we've been forgiven? The more we'll think that cross was a great thing

That cross is central to my life. I need to be closer to the cross I need to think more highly of Jesus Christ and his work

And I need to love him by obeying him. Okay, so covers other points here he says that God in 1st

Timothy 117 Let's look at that 1st Timothy 117. Let's see if Culver knows what he's talking about.

I don't really know if he does or not If he ever listens to these I hope he won't be offended. All I could tell you is there's somebody here.

Well, he's not here yet There's somebody Who regularly attends this building and preaches most

Sundays? Who put together some fundamentals of the faith stuff and I would use and sometimes I'd look at the reference

You know during my class and I'd go I have no idea why he listed that moving on, you know, so, okay first Usually they were typos first Timothy 117 to the

King of Ages immortal Invisible the only God be glory

Be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen now this is

Obviously Talks about his attributes and whatnot. I don't know how he gets the only source

I guess me I'd have to look at it. Oh, he says it is the the benediction here. So maybe that's it

Oh, well, there we go. I mean when if we even Let's back up a little bit to verse 15.

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. That means that he's about to To give us a truism that is an axiom of the faith and some people even think they're hymns ancient hymns

That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost But I received mercy for this reason that in me as the foremost

Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to follow or as an example to those

Who were to believe in him for eternal life to the King of Ages? Immortal invisible the only

God be honor and glory forever and ever Amen now when Paul writes that he's not thinking, you know

Christianity is dull and dreary and boring. He's thinking Christianity is such a blessing.

It is such a joy to me. I can't believe that Jesus Christ would sacrifice himself for me

Culver goes on to say he says that Paul Employs the same doctrine to appeal for steadfastness and Christian duties and first Timothy 616.

We're not gonna look at that But again, you know, what is it as we love

Christ? We want to serve him more. We want to obey him more Okay Move on a little bit.

Let us guard against several common Misunderstandings of the biblical statements. This is important.

God is one Not in the sense of a generic name And then he cites a couple of Greek words that I'll bless you with equus for horses or homo for all members of the human race

Sameness of gods in other words that God is one that they're all just the same. That's not what it means.

God is one Nor does do any of those statements mean that there is merely a moral or Intellectual agreement of entities into one in other words that all the gods in the universe are of one mind on something

That's not what God is one means Nor does the affirmation mean a sense of union?

Just that they're of one purpose or of one mind He goes on to say he says there is

Numerically one indivisible Undistributed living God it is God's inherent nature to be one

He is one there's no getting around that three persons one God, excuse me

Biblical doctrine of motto theism Does not exclude the possibility of the certain other objects of human discourse real or supposed maybe gods we talked about that Idols, etc, etc, etc

I want us to just quickly look at 2nd Corinthians chapter 10 Because this really does drive to the heart of false ideas about God or idols

Starting in verse 3 For though we walk in the flesh

We are not waging war according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh

But have divine power to destroy strongholds Where are the weapons of our warfare?

Well, I think we're gonna read on and get it Verse 5 we destroy arguments in every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey

Christ What are those things? What are every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God knowledge of God comes through Scripture?

lofty opinions are false teachings doctrines of demons

And what Paul's suggesting here is that? What we do is we compare everything to Scripture We look at what different religions say what different men say we compare them to Scripture We take these thoughts captive to the truth

We put down strongholds the the the dominion of Satan and demons these

False gods these idols we destroy them what by the Word of God what weapon do we have?

We have this What else do we need I mean, it's like it's like I said you watch that Mormon documentary

It's really interesting because I mean there was one man. This won't mean much to you. I'll try to explain it

Let's say that this is a ward of the Mormon Church a local congregation There's a man who was essentially the pastor of a congregation, but he wasn't just the pastor of a congregation.

He became the kind of the Archbishop over ten congregations known as a stake president, and he's one of these men in this movie

Who gets saved and it all comes about why? Because they realize that their religion is dopey because Joseph Smith was a false prophet etc.

Etc. Etc No, because they start studying the Bible and the Bible dissuades them from all these false doctrines

They go well if this is true now the Mormon Church says I think it's in the eighth article of faith that the

Bible is True as much as it is translated correctly insofar as it is translated correctly

And so you know they like to say well that must be wrong. They'd never specify. What's wrong, and what's not?

But when you see conflict after conflict after conflict eventually you have to either say well

I don't believe the Bible in which case you wouldn't be a Mormon or you say I believe the Bible And I can't be a Mormon anymore, but we take every thought captive.

We hold it up. We examine it by the Word of God Okay biblical proofs of monotheism the

Bible has its own methods of proof Where are the methods of proof in the

Bible that there's one God? We just saw one of them a little bit earlier and Was that first Kings?

What are the proofs in the Bible Peggy And see that's something that Culver kind of scoops over, but I like that you know starting at the towards the end of Job I think maybe it's

Yeah, I think it starts a little bit earlier, but 38 and then goes through 41 or something like that, but just where God basically dresses down Job and Tells him you know where were you when

I did thus and such and where were you and you know answer me this and just tells him how the cow eats the cabbage is one of my old friends used to say and And So that's one thing it does

But the other thing it does is it presents what miracle after miracle after miracle and he specifically cites here

Moses and and and what

Moses and Aaron were enabled to do specifically talks about how

Moses was able to change his Rod his staff into a serpent and then his hand into a leprous one.

I mean That must be kind of cool, you know leprous

Healed leprous healed leprous healed that would be a little unnerving to see that I mean, it's one thing to just you know kind of stick it into some kind of chemical and go

Ooh, look, but another to go. It's clean dirty clean dirty clean. I mean that that's pretty good and then the

He takes water from the Nile and and turns into blood all these kind of things if you've seen the movie you see, you know, you've seen a lot of this, but this is

This is how the Bible again and again and again establishes the power of God by Both miracles and then what by prophecy

What referred to that earlier? He says in Isaiah. He says look I'm going to tell you what's gonna happen and then he makes it happen

That's pretty good No other God can do that And we're gonna close here religious values of monotheism

Listen what he says here. I like this believers are delivered from the frustration of not knowing whom to please as in a non monotheist system

In other words, we don't have to worry about out of the pantheon of gods. Who is the most powerful God?

Who's the one you know to whom we have to fear or whatever? We know that there's one God and is him alone that we are answerable to And he says

I like this we now notice this confusion in current efforts to placate the demigods of a cultism an

Over emphasis on the personality and alleged powers of Satan and his minions has produced superstitious fears even among some uninformed

Orthodox Christians You say what's he talking about here, you know, one of the things that fascinated me while I was in Southern, California Maybe some of you have heard of this.

Have you ever heard of a deliverance ministry? Some are shaking your head some are gasping.

What is it? What is the deliverance ministry and it has nothing to do with banjos? What is the deliverance ministry?

Brian from Believers You know, why did you sin well, you must have the demon of spending too much

Why did you sin you must have the demon of lust you must have it And so what they do is they cast these demons out of believers

And we all know, you know, we would find that if we went if we read our Bibles consistently We would find that in first Timothy 7

Where Paul instructs Timothy on how to cast demons out? I did that once to somebody they said where would we find the

Bible? Da -da -da -da and it was some made -up doctrine. I said all that's in first Timothy 7 and he writes back and he goes

There is no first Timothy 7 a little slow on the uptake there pal

But this is going on inside inside the church, it's just it's craziness and you know

I remember once somebody saying that they were so thrilled by the doctrine of the sovereignty of God because they had lived under The doctrine of the sovereignty of Satan and that's what happens in so many charismatic churches.

They're so Obsessed with this idea that Satan is doing this and Satan is doing that and you know

The Bible Bible tells us what to do about Satan. What does it say? Resist him and flee.

I mean, it doesn't say Cast him out. It doesn't say, you know, all these things that people want to do because they again what our

Default mode is to want to solve problems So if we believe that demons or Satan or something can take up residence in us

Of course, there is that problem where the whole we are the residents of the Holy Spirit We are you know, we believe that the the

God of the universe resides in us and I and I like to say this I don't think that God just you know,

God the Holy Spirit just somehow slides over and lets Satan take up residence, too You know, oh sure pal.

I could scoot over for you It's just foolishness if you belong to Christ you are

Christ and he doesn't he doesn't share Yeah, Pam raises a good point.

These were instantaneous things. They were You know, they were not they didn't have Deliverance meeting on Wednesday night show up and have all your demons cast out.

They were instantaneous things and not only that there's a matter There's a question of authority We don't have any

Apostles today And even if we study the lives of the Apostles the history of the New Testament We would see that these kind of things the healings and whatnot diminished as time went went on I like to say that who was it trophy miss

Paul left sick at Troas and I'm like, I guess he didn't like that guy much. Why didn't he just heal him? Charlie well,

I mean think about it if you're able to You know cast out demons. Well, first of all, you know if you have to go back for that sort of thing

I have to wonder how how good it was in the first place if you know if demons are cast out of you and Few weeks later.

I have to come back and get them cast out again. I don't know how that works Is there an expiration date on it but yeah,

I mean it really is kind of Appropriating to yourself a power that only belongs to God himself

Anyway, we have to we have to close in prayer and we'll move on next week Our Father in heaven

God we just we're we love you so much and so thankful that you would save us that you would condescend

To come and to live among us to live a perfect life to die in the place of sinners that we might be reconciled to the

Father and Lord, would you just bless each one here that we would be mindful of what a great

God you are of the truths of the cross how much you have Fixed your love upon us father.

Let us not be moved either by Sin by false teaching by anything else from just marveling

That the God of the universe the creator and sustainer of all life would love us