God Cares About Our Theology

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I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Exodus and go to chapter 32.
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Every so often in the life of the church, an issue is raised which has the potential for causing great division within the body of Christ.
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Many churches avoid those subjects in an attempt to maintain a type of unity.
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Some of them even go as far as to say it doesn't really matter what people believe about certain issues.
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And they pride themselves on having a sort of theological liberalism.
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And that has become very popular in a lot of modern churches, particularly in the traditional Protestant movement churches.
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A lot of what would be called traditional Methodism and some forms of Presbyterianism and Episcopalian.
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They've really prided themselves on, well we just let people believe what they want.
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There's theological liberalism and it's okay if you believe one thing about Jesus and if you believe something else about Jesus and if you believe something else about Jesus.
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It doesn't really matter so long as we all come under the unity of this roof or whatever.
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However, the reality is that more often than not, these issues are vital to the health and life of a church.
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And simply ignoring them eventually leads to the church being less of a place for genuine worship in the glory of God.
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And more like a semi-religious social club.
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That's what a lot of churches have become.
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Rather than being a place for the glorifying and worship of God, they have become a semi-religious social club.
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They come together, they have a prayer and social time, but they never concern themselves with the weightier things of the word of God.
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And today there are many issues which have been raised and are causing these divisions.
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Many of them are social issues.
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I talked last week about the subject of marriage and the family.
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And we know that that's one thing that's causing great divisions within the body of Christ because there are so many who do not want to accept the Bible's teaching on this area.
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Whole church denominations have been formed around beliefs about social agendas.
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However, there are many issues which have been raised and have begun causing, rather there are also major theological issues which are causing divisions in the church.
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And that's what we're going to be talking about today.
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Theological issues, not just social issues, but issues of theology.
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A few years ago, a theological issue actually became a problem at this church.
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And many of you were here and you went through that time of difficulty.
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And it resulted in what I can only describe as a small ripple in the body.
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And the reason why I describe it as a small ripple is because I know of other churches wherein that same subject has caused tsunami-sized waves.
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Tsunami-sized waves, that's hard to say.
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So what was a ripple for us has literally divided other churches.
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Pastors have been fired.
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Churches have split.
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Entire conferences have been formed to engage the subjects of this theological debate.
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And of course, many of you know that the theological issue of which I am referring is called Reformed Theology.
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And Reformed Theology can be a very divisive subject.
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It has become so, especially in recent years.
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And I had somebody ask me, why do you think it's only in the last ten years or so that this has really become a major divisive subject in the church? And it really has.
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And the reason why I believe that it has is because there are so many young ministers who have been awakened to the truths of Reformed Theology.
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They're coming out of seminary knowing these things have not been taught to the last two and three generations of people in the church.
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And they want to know why.
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So they start teaching them.
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And immediately the traditional response is, we don't want to hear it.
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That's why it's such an issue today.
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Guys who are coming out from underneath men like R.C.
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Sproul and John MacArthur and Al Mohler, who is a huge influence.
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They're coming out of seminary ready to discuss the weightier things of Scripture which have been suppressed for well over a century.
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And that's why it's become an issue.
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It's not an issue if you just don't talk about it.
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If you just stay quiet, we won't deal with Romans 9 and Ephesians 1 and John 6.
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We'll just preach right through those.
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I know a church where one of my friends was teaching it.
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They were doing Sunday school and the Sunday school all had to do the same thing.
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They said he had one Sunday to give an explanation of Romans 9, 10 and 11.
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One Sunday to deal with one of the most difficult and divisive sections of the entire book of Romans.
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One week.
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We don't want to deal with it in many areas.
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We don't want to deal with the difficult subjects.
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And again, since it does not align with many of the traditional understandings which have long been held, especially in the American church.
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It has been met with a great deal of rejection and vilification.
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In fact, the pushback against this quote unquote reformed resurgence.
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That's what it's called.
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The reformed resurgence or the or the young, restless and reformed.
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That's the name of a movement.
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The YRR, the young, restless and reformed.
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The pushback against this reformed resurgence is the reason why the elders and I have decided that this series was necessary.
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As you know, I've been preaching to the book of Romans.
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Why would I stop and deal with this topic? Well, there's a great deal of discussion going on online and in Christian media about reformed theology.
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And we believe and I say this, not just me, but we as the elders had a meeting, talked about this.
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And we believe that it is important that since we actually advertise reformed theology on our cards and on our Web site, that we should all understand and be prepared for the type of response and opposition which we might face from those who call themselves our brothers and sisters in Christ.
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I know this has happened to me on several occasions.
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When somebody looks at the card, oh, you're one of those guys who believes in reformed theology.
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And we get into a conversation about it.
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I remember standing in Lifeway reading, looking at a book on the subject and had a guy, he had to have been a pastor because he was wearing the pastor uniform.
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He had the nice hair, the nice suit.
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I never do.
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And so he didn't think I was among his colleagues there.
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So I'm reading the book and he comes and approaches me and begins to at first question me, then berate me.
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And it got into somewhat of a long diatribe about why he didn't like reformed theology.
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And he's not alone.
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Reverend, let me take that back.
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A man who preaches by the name of Ed Young, Jr., took to his pulpit recently and decided to address the subject of reformed theology.
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And he took to calling it deformed theology.
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And he preached a 20 minute sermon on how he doesn't like reformed theology's approach to evangelism.
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That was his sermon.
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And I welcome any of you to listen to it, for it was not much more than a sad attempt at a sermon, to be honest with you.
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But again, that's what we're looking at.
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We're looking at insults.
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Deformed theology is just an insult.
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But the thing that most that crossed my desk recently, that most got the attention for the cause of this series, is a group of Southern Baptist ministers have begun to really address this subject vocally and publicly.
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A year ago or so, they had what was called the John 316 Conference.
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And it was an anti-reformed conference.
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It was headed up by some of the higher, the bigger heads of the SBC up at Jerry Vines' church, I think is where they did it, up in Woodstock.
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But earlier this year, a few months ago, there was a document that was produced called the Traditional Southern Baptist Statement on Salvation, which was written specifically to denounce reformed theology.
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And here is the irony of that.
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It was called the Traditional Statement of Southern Baptist Salvation.
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Here is the irony.
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The Southern Baptist Church was founded completely wholly and foundationally on reformed theology.
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This is not my opinion.
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This is history.
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And they know it.
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But the document says no matter where we began, this is not what people now believe.
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So this is the traditional understanding.
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Apparently, we redefined what traditional means.
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Furthermore, I visited Lifeway, which I tend to avoid, but I did go over there and looked at their theology section in preparation for this sermon.
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I just wanted to see because that's where I always go.
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It's a very small section of the bookstore.
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And I saw in their book, and there's at least five new books on the subject of reformed theology, the vast majority of which were in opposition to it.
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So it's a heavy deal.
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It's a big subject.
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And I'm spending more time than I normally do on my introduction because I want to impress upon you the importance of why we're doing this.
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The reality is this is a very important subject within the church and one that needs to be understood by us as a body.
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Not just because we use the term reformed theology, but because this subject is an important part of understanding who God is and what he has done in Christ.
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This subject is vital, beloved.
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And this morning we are going to begin with an introduction to reformed theology, which will set the stage for the next few weeks of study.
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I plan on doing five sermons on top of this one, so it will be six weeks of study.
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But today is about this subject.
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God cares about our theology.
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Let's stand and read the text together.
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God cares about our theology.
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We're going to read Exodus 32, verses 1 through 10.
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When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, Up, make us gods who shall go before us.
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As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.
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So Aaron said to them, Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them to me.
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So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.
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And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf.
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And they said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
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When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it.
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And Aaron made proclamation and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.
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And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings.
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And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
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And the Lord said to Moses, Go down, for your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.
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They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them.
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They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
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And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.
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Now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you.
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Father, I thank you for the opportunity to again be about the business of preaching your word.
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I pray that you would keep me from error.
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Keep me only in the truth.
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Keep my mind focused on your word.
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And I pray, O Lord, that you would open the people's hearts to understand it and keep the heads around their hearts of protection against any error.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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Before we get to the exposition of the text, I want to begin with an important question.
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What is Reformed Theology? Well, the designation Reformed Theology specifically refers to the teachings and the doctrines which were fought for during the Protestant Reformation.
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Notice I didn't just say they were taught or they were discovered or they were put into paper or put onto paper.
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No, they were fought for during the Protestant Reformation.
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Many lives were lost in the battle for these truths.
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These are the doctrines that the Church of Rome rejected and still do, by the way.
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As much as there is attempts in the Roman Church to try to make inroads and try to make unification and this whole idea of bringing together of everyone and sort of a unified hodgepodge.
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Everybody sort of believes what they want to believe.
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Don't think for a minute that that is really what is taught in Roman Catholicism.
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In Vatican I and Vatican II, it is very clear you are anathema.
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You are outside of the faith because you believe these things.
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It is not questioned.
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The ecumenical movements of today is not really the push of Rome.
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It is the push of the liberalism which is crept even into the Roman Catholic Communion.
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Yet despite the rejection of the Roman Catholic Church to these doctrines, to these truths, these truths were clearly biblical.
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And something that we need to realize from the outset is that when we talk about Reformed theology, we are talking about theology.
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We are not talking about religion.
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And what is the difference? Because that is a hugely important subject.
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What is the difference between theology and religion? Well, it is very simple.
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Theology is theocentric.
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Theology is God-centered and it is the study of God.
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Religion is the expression of human behavior based on a theology.
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Theology is the study of God.
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Religion is the expression of human behavior based on a theology.
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So one is theocentric, God-centered.
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The other is anthropocentric, man-centered.
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Theology is strictly about who God is and what God is and what He has done.
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And religion is focused on how people behave, how people pray, how people sing, how people sacrifice, how people worship.
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All expressions of human behavior.
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That is the study of religion.
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And many people are religious, yet they are void of sound theology.
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Let me say that again.
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Many people are very religious, yet they are void of sound theology.
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For instance, the Islamic people.
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The Islamic people, hugely religious culture.
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Very religious culture.
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They have an entire legal system based around their religious culture.
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And they are some of the most religious people in the world, willing to give their lives for what they believe in, jihad.
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Very religious people.
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Yet, because their religion is based on bad theology, it matters not how religious they are.
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So-so same with the Mormons.
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Oh, well, they are very religious people.
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They don't drink soda pop.
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They don't eat the bad things.
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And they don't smoke.
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And they don't drink.
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And they don't go out with the people that do.
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They are very religious people.
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But the expression of their religion is based on a false theology.
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And as such, it is worthless for salvation and for eternity.
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You see? So this is why when we talk about the difference between theology and religion, our religion must extend from a proper theology.
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And if it does not, it is not only worthless, it is heresy.
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It is dangerous.
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And it invokes the wrath of God, whether in this life or in the next.
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All humans are inescapably religious.
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You know who the most religious people I know are other than the Muslims? Atheists.
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Atheists are hugely religious.
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They promote their religion of non-belief.
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They promote their attitude of unbelief.
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And if you disagree with them, they have their own apologists who make arguments for their unbelief.
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They have conferences.
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The American Association of Atheism and all these different associations that come together.
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That is a religious movement.
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As much as they say, oh, well, we don't believe anything, so we're not religious.
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No, no, no.
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Human beings have been designated homo sapien.
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We know the thinking being.
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Human beings are also designated as homo religiosus, the religious being.
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We're the only being that ascribes worship and honor to a higher being than ourselves.
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Animals don't do that.
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Fish, birds, cows, they don't worship.
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But we are the worshiping being, the religious being.
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And every human being at some level is religious.
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But again, religion without a proper theology is heresy and dangerous.
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Some people say, well, it doesn't matter what people believe as long as they're sincere.
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I think that statement is criminal after 9-11.
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Because they were sincere.
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So with that thought, let's consider what is taught in Exodus 32.
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Moses had gone up onto the mountain.
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He had gone up to receive the law of God on Mount Sinai.
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And while he was gone, the people began to express impatience.
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Look at the text.
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When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain.
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He delayed to come down from the mountain.
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He's speaking to God.
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But yet, they were becoming impatient.
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He's having a conversation with the Lord of the Universe about His very law, which He is about to codify and give to His people so that they will have a standard by which to live that no other generation prior to them had.
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And we just can't wait.
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Because of their impatience, they gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him.
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And it's amazing.
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You've got to remember, folks, this is the people that saw the parting of the Red Sea.
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This is the people that saw the ten plagues.
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This is the people who saw God work miracles in their presence.
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This is why people say, I hear these foolish people.
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Well, if I could just see God work one miracle, then I would believe in Him.
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These people saw miracles after miracles.
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And their faith was yet intact.
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Not yet intact.
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For they were willing to jettison the worship of God for the worship of gold formed into a god.
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It says, up, make us gods who shall go before us.
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As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.
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So Aaron said to them, take off the rings of gold that are in your ears of your wives, your sons, your daughters, and bring them to me.
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Aaron would later argue about not being an active participant in this situation.
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He certainly, if not an active participant, was certainly not one to stand as the minister of God, as he should have stood as the one who had called to be a leader among his people.
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He should have stood and rejected their call to idol worship.
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But no, he, like many ministers today, would rather satisfy the masses than stand for truth.
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Beloved, that is what is damaging so many bodies today.
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I know ministers, and Lord bless them, they've told me, Pastor Keith, I wish I could preach what you preach.
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I'm not lying.
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I've had people say, how do you get away with that? God is good.
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That's the only reason.
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God has been gracious to me.
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It's not because I'm smarter, wiser, tougher than anybody else.
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But we did a long time ago draw a line in the sand and we said, this is the word of God and we will preach it.
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And that's the difference.
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He said, well, I can't preach that because Sister So-and-So will get upset if I were to say something like that in church.
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Well, are you there to please God or Sister So-and-So? That's the question, and I don't mean that to sound harsh, but this is Aaron's problem.
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Aaron is surrounded by a group of people to which he should stand against, and instead he acquiesces.
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Bring me the gold and we'll do what you want to do.
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Bring me the gold and we'll get on with it.
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Take off your rings of gold that are in your ears, your wives, your sons, your daughters.
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Bring them to me.
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So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.
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And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden cap.
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And they said, oh boy, this one always gets me every time I read it because it's so amazing.
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These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
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Notice what they did.
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This thing that we just made is the God that brought us out of Egypt.
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This thing that didn't even exist a few minutes ago.
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We've just melted the gold down and we've formed it into this cap.
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This thing that didn't even have form just a few minutes ago.
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This is the God who brought you out of Egypt.
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I can't believe in the millions of people that were out there.
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And if you number it, it could be around three million.
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We don't know.
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It was 603,550 fighting men, which would have been anywhere from 20 to probably 40 years old.
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You figure maybe a little older than that.
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But you have the older people, the younger people and all the women would have counted somewhere two, three million people.
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No one in the group said, that's not the God that did it.
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We just created that.
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How quick though, how quick will people adopt a lie when it's more comfortable than the truth? Hear that again.
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People are very quick to adopt a lie when it is more comfortable than the truth.
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That's one of the things that government relies upon.
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By the way, that's a whole other sermon.
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But if the lie is more comfortable, people are more willing to accept it than when the truth is horrifying.
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This is the God who brought you out of Egypt.
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No, it's not.
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This is the God you just created out of gold that came off of our fingers and out of our ears.
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No, no.
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This is the God who created.
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And it goes on.
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When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it.
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And Aaron made proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.
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Not to the Lord to whom Moses is speaking, but to the calf.
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Homo religiosus.
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The religious being.
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Man is looking for something to worship.
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And Aaron gave it to them.
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And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings.
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And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
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They had merry time.
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They had a good time.
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They had a celebratory time.
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They're excited.
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They're happy.
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Here is God.
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People said to Moses or rather in the Lord said to Moses.
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This is the part of the story I find to be most important for us.
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And the Lord said to Moses, go down for your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.
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They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them.
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They have made themselves golden.
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Have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, these are your gods.
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Oh, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
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By the way.
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Just on a quick note.
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The first commandment is have no other gods before the Lord.
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The second commandment is thou shall make no graven image.
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What's the difference between those two? Have you ever thought about it? What's the difference between commandment one and commandment two? Number one is have no other gods before the Lord.
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Number two is do not make any graven images or idols.
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What's the difference between number one and number two? The difference is this and it's very simple but subtle.
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God says in number one, don't bring any other gods into this.
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Know that I'm the only one.
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And the second one is don't make anything and say it's me.
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And that's what they did.
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They made this calf and they said this is the God who brought you out of Egypt.
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This is, that's the difference between one and two.
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One is God said don't bring any more gods in.
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And number two is don't bring anything in and say it's God.
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There's a subtle difference but a major difference here.
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But that's what they've done.
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They've broken the second commandment.
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They have created this golden calf and they have taken the works of the God of Heaven and they've ascribed it to this false God, this idol.
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And this is the part where God demonstrates His feelings towards idols.
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He says this, And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.
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Stiff-necked means that they are difficult, immovable, that they are hard-headed.
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Maybe in more modern vernacular, they're hard-headed people.
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Now, therefore, let me alone.
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God is speaking to Moses.
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He's saying go away that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you.
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Now, what I don't want to get into today is the interaction between God and Moses because there is an interaction there and there's a long discussion that can go along with how Moses and God interacted on this subject.
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And Moses offered himself up.
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He said if you're going to take them, take me as well.
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And there's this long interaction.
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I don't want to get into that.
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My focus this morning in this text is God's response to idol worship.
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God's response to idol worship is one word, wrath.
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His wrath burned hot against His people because they had exchanged the truth about Him and replaced it with a lie.
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They had ascribed His works to something else.
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And that brings the wrath of God.
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For anyone to say what we believe doesn't matter.
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I've heard people say it.
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I've heard people in the church.
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Brother Foskey, theology is so complicated.
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And what we believe really doesn't matter.
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You would have to ignore this Scripture.
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If what we believe doesn't matter, then the golden calf has no significance.
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But the very fact that the creation and worship of a golden calf brought the wrath of God has innumerable significances, the most of which is that God hates idols.
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He wants us to believe what is right about Him.
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And He does not want us to believe a lie.
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Proper worship comes only from proper theology.
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If you notice, they did a lot of good things for the calf.
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They celebrated a meal.
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That's an expression of worship.
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Eating and feasting is an expression of worship in Scripture.
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They sang and they had a good time and they fellowshiped around the calf.
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All of those good things if they're ascribed to God.
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But when their theology was askew, everything else was wrong.
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Genuine and true worship of God requires right understanding of who He is and what He requires.
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And proper theology is the foundation of this.
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Without a proper biblical theology, we are worshipping a false understanding of God and essentially we are bowing down to a golden calf.
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Let me say it again, just to make sure that didn't fly over anyone's head.
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When we are worshipping a false understanding of God, we are bowing down to a golden calf.
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Because we have created an idol in our own mind.
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We've created an idol that we are worshipping.
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I don't believe in a God who would send people to hell.
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That's good because God isn't that way.
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And the God you think of is an idol.
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You have created a God in your mind that fits with your sensibilities.
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You've created a God that fits with your attitude and your behavior and what you think God should be.
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And that's true.
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I don't believe in that God either.
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Because your God doesn't exist.
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Oh, and now you're just being mean.
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It's the truth, beloved, that when somebody creates a God that is different than the God who is in here, whether they have created Him in gold or stone or they have created Him in their mind, it is still idol worship.
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And that is why proper theology is so important.
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Proper theology precedes proper worship.
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And without proper theology, we are worshipping a God that we created in our mind.
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And as such, we are worshipping an idol.
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So what is Reformed theology? Reformed theology is Biblical theology.
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Don't let anybody ever tell you any different.
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All it is, is the theology which is derived from the Bible.
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It is based on five battle cries.
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And yeah, it's the battle cries.
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There were five battle cries that were used during the Reformation.
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Five things upon which we will not budge.
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Number one, sola scriptura.
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The Bible alone is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice.
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That's it.
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The Bible alone is the sole infallible rule for faith and practice.
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Sola scriptura is the first battle cry.
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And everything else proceeds from that.
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Apart from Scripture, I had a conversation with a guy in my house one time.
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And he said, and I quote, Well, I don't think the whole Bible comes from God.
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I don't think it's all relevant to today.
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And my exact response, and know this because if you ever say this to me, it will be the same.
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You need to find another church.
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Because you will not be happy here.
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I said, if your contention is that the Bible is not the word of God, you will be miserable at this church.
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I wasn't being ugly.
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I was being honest.
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It's truth.
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Sola scriptura.
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The Bible.
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That's the battle cry of the Reformation.
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The first and foremost.
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Because the Scripture had been replaced during the Reformation, beloved.
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The Scripture had been replaced with the theology of the clergy.
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The Scripture had been replaced with the papacy and the magisterial authority of the church.
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The Scripture was lost in many churches.
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The priest didn't even speak Latin.
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And the Bible at that time wasn't even in English for them to read.
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So there was no foundation.
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Sola scriptura, number one.
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Number two.
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Sola gratia.
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Why am I using the Latin? Well, I'm using the Latin because this is the terms that were used.
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Sola gratia means, in short, grace alone.
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But this is what it means in its extended version.
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Salvation is by grace alone.
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And here is the even further extended version.
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Grace is not only necessary for salvation.
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Grace is sufficient for salvation.
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Here's why that's important.
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Everybody believes grace is necessary.
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Except for maybe the Pelagians.
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But even the Roman Catholics excommunicated Pelagius because he believed grace was not necessary.
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Roman Catholics, oh yeah, we believe in the necessity of grace.
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Armenians, yeah, we believe in the necessity of grace.
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Nobody questions the necessity of grace, beloved.
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The question is, is grace enough? Is it sufficient? Does grace do it all? The Arminian would say no.
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The Roman Catholic would say absolutely not.
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Reformed theology says grace alone is sufficient.
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Even our faith is a result of God's grace.
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You see, that's why it is a battle cry.
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The third thing, the third battle cry of the Reformation.
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Sola fide.
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Justification is by faith alone.
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Justification by faith alone.
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Why is that important? Because it reminds us that we are justified not by what we do.
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We are justified by what Christ has done.
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And it is faith in what He has done and not what we have done that ultimately brings our justification.
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Number four, solus Christus.
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Salvation is in Christ alone.
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Oh, every Christian believes salvation is in Christ alone.
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A major, major study was done.
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And I think it came back 30%.
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30%, a very high number of confessing conservative evangelicals.
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Notice I didn't put in there a lot of Roman Catholics.
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This is people who we would probably say are similar to us.
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30% of confessing conservative evangelicals said that Jesus Christ was not the only way to be saved.
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Huge study.
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30%.
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Wow.
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And like I said, I'm not including in that liberals and Catholics.
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I'm saying confessing conservative evangelicals, 30%.
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Solus Scriptura, Solus Gratia, Solus Fide, Solus Christus, the last one, Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone be the glory.
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Why was that a battle cry of the Reformation? Because during the Reformation, the Pope had been getting the glory.
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The priests had been getting the glory.
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The church had been getting the glory.
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And the Reformers argued back and said, no, to God alone be the glory.
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And I point you back to our original text, which we read at the very beginning of service this morning.
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Ephesians 1.
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What does it say God did? He did all these things to the glory of His grace.
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He did all these things for His glory.
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Why do you go to heaven? Is it because God loves you? You go to heaven to glorify God.
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Now, does He love you? Yes.
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But your reason for going is to glorify His name.
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Everything God does is to the extent of His glory.
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Why does somebody go to hell? Because ultimately, their punishment glorifies the justice of God as much as your going to heaven glorifies the grace of God.
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Beloved, this is a radically different look at God than most people have.
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But, beloved, it is the biblical look at God that most people never stop to take.
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And obviously, it's something about which I am very passionate.
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I believe that the theologians of the past were passionate about this because they saw their day the same thing I see.
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And that is a complacency in the body of Christ about who God is and what the Bible says.
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An apathy towards who God is and what the Bible says.
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And an allowance for, well, you do what you do and I do what I do.
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And we'll all be merry and happy and everybody go their own way.
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Beloved, God cares about your theology.
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Because theology matters.
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What you believe about God will determine how you live, worship, live and worship.
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Now, in the coming weeks, we are going to be addressing what are called the doctrines of grace.
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And the doctrines of grace are five specific things in Reformed theology which tend to bring up the most questions.
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I encourage you this week to be praying for what you're going to be learning.
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Because as we study the doctrines of grace, there are five things.
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Some people call them the tulip.
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I don't know if anybody ever heard that.
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But the tulip stands for total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints.
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Those five things are difficult.
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But, beloved, I promise you, you will see the biblical nature of each one.
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And my prayer is that not only will you be more educated at the end of this study, but that your view of God and of man will be enhanced.
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And that you will see more clearly who God is, more clearly who you are, and ultimately that your worship will be fixed on a right theology.
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For if it is not, then it's not true worship.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for this opportunity to again address this subject and to begin this series.
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And I pray, Lord, that over the next five weeks that you would encourage us towards a very deep and meaningful understanding of the Word.
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And I pray, Lord, that we would not come in with an attitude that we are unwilling to learn.
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But, Lord, that we would come in tabula rasa, that we would come in with our minds as an empty slate ready to be written on by your Word.
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I pray, Lord, that I would be honest with all of the texts which we are going to go over.
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And that you would keep me from error throughout the rest of this series.
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I pray today, Lord, that everyone under the sound of my voice understands that the antecedent to proper worship is proper theology.
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And I pray, Lord, that we would all seek to have a proper and biblical theology.
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As this is the most important and vital aspect of a strong Christ-centered walk.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.
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Beloved, we come now to our time for singing.
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I invite you to stand.
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If you have a need for prayer, please come as we sing.