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Our Father in heaven what a blessing it is to be here this morning to be able to worship you
to be able to reflect on your goodness to us on Your goodness to us
through the work of your son the Lord Jesus Christ as he has over the centuries built
his church against all Obstacles and opposition.
Lord as we look to your word as we look to Church history, we just pray that we'd be both encouraged and
informed knowing that There really is nothing new under the Sun,
but that Satan continues to recycle the same old fabrications again and again and
again hoping to Certainly lead astray the world.
But if possible also to lead astray even the elect of God.
Father we thank you that that's not possible that you keep us.
That your son keeps us that your spirit keeps us Father that we are secure.
Encourage us again.
Remind us of the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ in his name.
We pray Amen.
Well, so last week we were we've been talking about early church history second century
early second century we were talking about polycarp and some different people and Their sad
endings, but how they responded Even to their own
death.
I like what polycarp says as You know, he's threatened with
fire and his last words were, you know, why why are you waiting?
Why do you Terry bring forth what you will?
Bold so we're talking about persecution that The world
brought against the church, but there's another element That would seem to stop
the spread of Christianity and that is false teaching and
really, it is remarkable if you think about it, and I probably said this before but I like to You
know boggle my Mormon friends minds with this Jesus said Matthew
16 18 basically the scripture I think I started this whole series with which is Jesus saying upon this
rock I will build my church and he says To straighten out
a little bit not that it needs training and he says, you know
Nothing will stop me and he says even the gates of death or hell or Hades will not
stop the the building of his church.
What did he mean by that?
Basically, it's this idea that it's not gonna be on a post.
This isn't like building your own house or something where you know I mean just imagine that you're trying to
add on to your house or something like that and your and your neighbors are like Shooting flaming arrows at your house.
And that's that's the idea, right?
Jesus says I'm gonna build my church and guess what?
Satan isn't gonna like that.
The world system isn't gonna like that.
They're gonna bring things against the church to try to stop me from building my church.
So Opposition Persecution false teaching
and my message to the Mormons is Jesus said he would build his church and nothing would stop him the Mormons say.
Well, wait a minute after the Apostles died out the truth died out and there was
You know a vacuum the church did not exist for 1 ,700 years.
Until Joseph Smith came along.
So if you have any Mormon friends, here's the question for them Who's lying
Joseph Smith or Jesus that's a
pretty tough one and you know, my cousin the returned missionary who's a fervent
Mormon says I Don't know
let me get back to you on that I mean, you know There is no answer for it and ultimately what they'll say is something along the lines of
well I all I know is I had a burning I had an experience and nobody can take that experience away from me.
So Take that for what it's worth.
All right false teaching and we'll get to this
quiz here in just a moment.
In fact, I can start handing it out.
Anybody know what did we talk about syncretism last week?
I don't know if we mentioned I don't think we did.
I'll just give you the whole stack and you can do with it what you will syncretism.
What is syncretism?
We mentioned it.
Okay, we probably stopped right about there Gary.
Okay.
At different religions different things kind of put together, you know at almost absorbing we talked to I remember
we talked.
We did talk about the Borg and I said I wanted to write my thesis on you know.
Compare and contrast the Roman Catholic Church and the Borg.
Because there really is no difference.
Sorry.
And Sinclair Ferguson said talking about well, let
me just back up a little bit.
I mentioned that the Roman Catholic Church has a different flavor depending on where you are, you know, if you're in Cuba They've taken
some of the Cuban Culture the the Cuban gods and they've mashed that
into Roman Catholicism if you're in Japan, they sort of mash that into Roman Catholicism
depending on where you are.
It's a little bit different but ultimately what we
don't want to do is we don't want to be guilty of taking Kind of a worldly
understanding or letting the culture impact us.
I read I Think it was last Sunday morning.
There's a particular church in Dallas where the pastor is really well known as a
conservative Evangelical he'll appear on TV and different things like that.
And what he was going to do was interview a political figure about
her testimony.
And that was gonna be their Sunday morning service and I thought who would do that?
We're not gonna preach the word.
We're gonna have an interview an interview show.
I I don't I don't get that.
Really odd so we don't want to be people who take the culture and absorb it into the church.
But anyway Gnosticism.
This was maybe the number one False teaching going around, you know, I mean you've got
the pagan church, but they don't pretend or the pagan people.
They don't pretend to be Christians these Gnostics to some degree Claim to be Christians.
Oh, and I do have I do have a quiz over here for me.
Okay, number one Gnosticism is You have to
let me read them.
It's like it's like a TV show that we watch sometimes if you answer the question before.
The question is read you're disqualified.
So Number one Gnosticism is
a an alternative view of Christianity be a thick kind of pasta.
I knew that would get a woohoo.
Okay, or see a melding of Christianity and Greek philosophy.
I
mean some people will say How many want to say a
nobody wants to say?
Because there are a lot of scholars who would say a.
Why do you suppose there are scholars who would want to say a?
I'm sorry, Larry.
They have a low view of scripture ding ding ding ding.
That's about a thousand dollar answer right there.
You can see the clerk afterwards.
But the correct answer is see.
It's a melding, you know a joining together of Christianity and pagan philosophy.
Greek philosophy.
You know the fancy schmancy term for it is platonic dualism
and we'll Develop that a little bit more, but it's this idea of The spiritual
world being good and the physical world being bad.
So the answer to number one for those of you keeping score is C.
And that's where we get, you know, ultimately syncretism.
It's this idea of blending.
So we're gonna blend together the Greek Worldview along with
Christianity and we wind up with Gnosticism.
Okay, number two true or false there seems to be a difference between the God of the New Testament and
the Old Testament.
It's kind of a tricky way of phrasing it who wrote this thing.
Anyway, there seems to be a difference between the
God of the Old Testament And the God of the New Testament true or false.
Well, doesn't it seem like there is?
See that's you got to think about it a little bit more true or false.
Pastor Bob says that's the complaint of the current.
What did you say?
Spear -throwing.
Atheists, okay.
Javelin throwing.
Yes, okay.
I Mean that is right because the God of the Old Testament is what?
Sure, he is.
Come on.
He just Sodom and Gomorrah.
He just sees him and he just like lets him have it.
And what about the whole flood thing and all that stuff
all the judgment wrath?
Is there any difference between the God of the Old Testament the New Testament?
Atheists unbelievers look at it or even.
Some professing believers look at it and say the God of the New Testament is much nicer.
There's some there's a problem with that.
What are some of the problems with it?
Actually, there's several problems with it, but.
What are some problems with it Cory?
Book of Revelation.
There's a lot of judgment in there a lot of fury a lot of people dying, right?
John.
Yeah, I know.
I'm just calling on you.
Anyway,
okay.
God doesn't change if and and you know, here's it here's the thing and
everybody should just write this down what John just said God doesn't change and
Everyone has a problem if he does.
Why?
Why do we all have a problem if God changes?
What's he gonna do next?
We don't know.
Right, he could be unjust tomorrow.
He could be a lot of different things if God changes.
You know, we don't have a God of the Bible anymore.
We've got a God of the Quran.
One who's capricious one who changes mind one who could be loving and kind today and then say, you know what enough of that?
We've got essentially a Greek God, you know one who's a lot like us and if there's one thing we don't
want.
It's a God like us I Tell people all the time.
I'm not God and we all should be thankful.
I'm not right.
Yeah, good point.
It's assumed that the object of the Old Testament God's wrath didn't deserve it, which
was False they absolutely did deserve it.
You know, there are other things in the New Testament that would indicate to us that there's a problem with that.
One would be of course Ananias and Sapphira.
They get judged pretty swiftly and pretty catastrophically for lying to the Holy Spirit.
Here's another problem.
I mean even as we're reading through the book of Hebrews, what do we find out?
We found out that a lot of those Old Testament Saints who really weren't very Faithful
and yet God saves them anyway by Faith
right, I Mean I I just love to go back to the the story of Samson because you study.
You know, if you go home and read Judges 13 through 16, it's a challenge to figure out where Samson gets
saved.
It's a real challenge.
Like it's a cliffhanger.
In fact, I think that'd be a good title for this sermon.
You know, it's a it's a cliffhanger because when does he get saved does he get saved?
We know he gets saved but only because the Bible tells us so otherwise we just think no way
okay, so Number two there seems to be a difference between the God of the New Testament.
The Old Testament is false ultimately, you know that word seems.
Whoever wrote it should be fired number three.
The idea that God could become flesh is a Incongruent.
I've always just wanted to say that in Sunday school.
So there it is Incongruence with a neoplatonic worldview.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Of course really should it be neoplatonic because we're talking about kind of more platonic.
But I but I digress incongruent with a neoplatonic worldview.
B historical Christianity.
C patent folly or D both a and B.
I think the correct answer is D, you know, I like that.
Because it is congruent incongruent with a neoplatonic worldview, which means what?
Everybody's like I have no idea.
Right, they don't like this whole idea of the spiritual and the physical being together because the
spiritual is good.
The physical is inherently evil.
And so if you put those world two together, it's like, you know.
Can you can you mix fire and ice?
Can you you know, there are a lot of things that just don't go together and that's what they would think.
And so it doesn't it doesn't go together.
It's incongruent.
It doesn't jive with the whole idea of the Platonist worldview.
But it's also historical Christianity, right this is this is what happened Jesus became.
You know flesh he took on flesh for us questions thoughts.
Confusion.
Okay, Corey, you're getting ahead of us.
I like dealing and you know, I Was talking on Facebook with yes a who's in I don't know what to call him.
You know, I I guess I could call him a Wannabe
Gnostic but these kind of ermine ites that sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
I Mean Bart Ehrman who's down in North Carolina believe University of North Carolina used to be an
evangelical scholar and so now that he is a
Neoplatonic Gnostic Scholar, you know people are he wrote
and I have it in my notes.
So I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.
We'll get to him later.
Number four.
Is it Christianity or Gnosticism?
Which insists on a class of people who are saved no matter what they do from birth to death.
Okay, here's our first really opportunity to be a Gnostic Gary
Boy, howdy, that's a good answer.
It's Gnosticism.
Why isn't that Christianity?
Okay, it doesn't depend on them, right?
It's not up to the man who runs or the man who wills but I'm God who has mercy,
right?
It's not what Romans 10. Sorry 9 says.
It's not up to us, but we do have to exercise faith.
And how do we exercise faith because
God gives it to us, right?
I mean anybody who exercises faith on their own Has got a little island
of righteousness that we need we need to investigate.
So here's the thing about Gnosticism though Gnosticism has this idea.
And let me I better go to my Notes here for a moment.
Listen to this three kinds of people in Gnosticism not the elect, you know, the
non elect and the whatever anti -elect.
There are the material People and these people cannot be saved.
They're so vile.
They cannot be saved then there is a classification of people they call the animal a
Mix of material and spiritual they have to do good works to be saved.
This is the church.
This is what they say.
This is what people are here to do to get Saved they have to work work work work and then there are
other spiritual.
These are saved by their very nature.
They can do whatever they want.
And they're going to be saved now.
What's interesting about these people is Well, again, it's a
I'm remembering now it is a quiz question, so I don't want to get I Don't want to ruin my own quiz.
Okay Number five is a Christianity or Gnosticism which
most closely resembles the ancient mythologies of Rome and Greece.
Okay Gnosticism unless You're Roman Catholic in which case I
think you can You can make the argument that you know, it's Christian.
Why do I say that?
I think there's there's a certain element in which Roman Catholicism talking about
syncretism.
What do you I mean, where do you think the prayers to the Saints came from?
I mean, I I think what they did was Consistent with what they do now, right?
They took the deities and they said well, you know can't have people praying to All these
strange, you know the God of speed or the God of war or the God of love or the God of
but What if they were praying to?
Saints.
That'd be okay.
You know, yeah the patrons patron saint of love of you know.
That's a big difference between praying to that and praying to the God of Whatever
sure.
Yeah.
I mean it ultimately doesn't matter if that was by design or somehow, you know.
They just kind of stumbled upon it.
It winds up being Almost a form of polytheism, right?
So it's just absorbing the culture and Putting it into your religious
system.
Number six Biblically speaking spiritual warfare refers to the behind -the -scenes
battles of angels and demons which we influenced by our prayers and or our sin and or our
sin.
Be the relationships among the eons the Pleroma and the Demiurge or
see truth and error.
Pastor Bob's trying to go Gnostic on us.
Right.
If you're feeling a little Demiurge we have something I'll clear that right up.
Nobody's going for number one or a.
It's the longest answer a lot of times the longest answers are true.
What is what is a did you say karate John.
Oh.
Very nicely done.
Yes Frank Peretti you know how many of you have a Pretty book one and
pretty book two in the back of your Bibles.
Tell the truth shame the devil.
There we go.
Yeah, you wrote a couple books and they were you know true confessions they were one of the first books I read.
I Mean they were they were kind of interesting fiction, but they really aren't what the.
But what does the Bible say about spiritual warfare?
What is it?
I mean obviously C is the correct answer.
How do we know that?
I mean, is there anything that says spiritual warfare is what's that?
Process of elimination.
Which I think is somewhere in Revelations book two.
Okay in Ephesians right spiritual warfare there.
Right, and what's it all about in there?
It's to protect us against.
Yeah, which are well, let.
What are some of the wiles of the devil and you know here?
Let me just shortcut it here, and we'll just go to Second Corinthians.
Ephesians 6 gives us a good idea what we need to do in that case.
But I think the really maybe the best description is 2nd Corinthians chapter 10
verses 3 to 5.
For though we walk in the flesh and by the way when he says that he's not talking about we walk in sin.
He's talking about we walk in you know the physical world.
We are not waging war according to the flesh in other words.
This isn't a physical war that we're engaged in as Christians for the weapons of our warfare are
not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds and.
Listen if you want to know what strongholds are we destroy arguments and
Every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to
obey Christ.
So here's the idea the idea is that Satan and
Demons aren't you know trying to bring darkness into the world?
Except in this sense.
They're bringing spiritual darkness that is to say false religions false religious systems
and How do we combat those?
By knowing the truth and by proclaiming the truth right people want to tell us all kinds
of insights they have or even.
That they know things are true because they've had an experience and
again, I was just dealing with a man who's Homosexual here a few days
ago, and it's convinced that he's become a Christian because of an experience he had.
But wants to deny the Bible well those
two things don't go together.
You know so what do we do we apply the truth of Scripture, and if they reject that well, then they reject it.
Thoughts or questions?
Spiritual warfare.
Yeah, I mean that the whole idea.
And let me be let me just be clear you know if somebody says.
You know well, I don't a Christian says I don't have a problem with homosexuals.
Okay, I would say this.
I don't have any problem with homosexuals that I don't have with self -identifying
fornicators or Bank robbers, or you know what I have a problem with all those
things.
Because the truth says the Bible says those things are sins right and if you are
if your lifestyle is such that you can be marked out as.
You know one of these sins because this is just what you do.
Then there's a problem and the problem is you're outside the kingdom of God.
You know you need to believe and repent so.
Yeah, that's it.
That's the problem.
I mean, I'm no more interested and and that's part of what we talked about last week is this idea.
You know we don't want to get in the habit of telling people.
To reform their life, right?
If they come to Christ Jesus will reform their life, and I think of my my
friend Han you know who at one point he would describe himself in college as a
Communist right he gets out of College goes to law school, and that's when life
really took a bad turn for him because he wasn't comments.
They made it came a lawyer.
Sorry sorry.
You know and and he just went on his merry way living his life.
And then you know the Lord saves him in his mid -30s and guess what?
Nobody had to tell him to stop committing the sins.
He was committing.
And.
And I'm not saying by the way being a lawyer is a sin.
It's close, but it's not.
But.
But what happens is as the Holy Spirit takes resonance in you and you start.
You know reading the word and Renewing your mind by the reading of God's Word your
life changes.
Not because you want to reform it so people will think more highly of you.
But because out of gratitude for what the Lord has done for you and saving you from your sins.
You you change you know you just think well, I can't live that away anymore.
I get no joy out of that.
It's like I said a couple Sunday nights ago.
You know you realize that The world that you're living in
The sinful world is not your home you don't like sin anymore you want to be free from it.
And that's you know the difference between living a life of death and a life of life
so.
Okay number seven.
True or false Gnosticism means secret knowledge.
Close enough for government work.
I mean Gnosticism is from the Greek word which means
To know knowledge.
Yep.
So this idea of you know hidden knowledge or secret knowledge if you're Gnostic.
You know things that other people don't know so
true.
Number eight true or false Gnosticism is the teaching of the doctrine that things made of
spirit is good because my grammar is not.
Things of the spirit are good.
But everything fleshly earthly or material is intrinsically evil or bad.
That is true.
You know again kind of a
Synonym basically the same sort of thing as you know docetism this dualistic
worldview.
Very similar to Gnosticism or another name for it.
Number nine true or false the early Christian Church was chaotic and Filled with all manner
of opposing beliefs.
Okay, and Jude jumped on that case and all the Peter jumped on I mean they
they had a whole bunch of people.
It was like the FBI of the early church.
Yeah, I mean some people infiltrated the church.
That's right.
That's true, but I mean if I if I Let's put it this way if I say
That not everybody who will be here today is a Christian.
Does that mean that there You know am I talking about there are different belief systems here
today, and the end I don't think the answer is true, but here's the here's the thing the early Here here's
kind of the worldview that says this.
The early church was chaotic filled with all manner of opposing beliefs because what they want you to believe is
the early church had Christians and it had Gnostics and They
would meet together, and they would you know worship the Lord together, and then one day the Christians got really kind of and
Decided those Gnostics had to go right and they then started persecuting and throwing out those
Gnostics because the Christians ultimately Were not very nice people.
That's the idea.
Not true of course, but you know that that's that's the the basic premise and
That's the idea behind things like lost Christianities.
Which we'll talk about here in a second number 10.
True or false history is written by the winners and this has implications for the Bible.
So what do you do with that okay?
The first part of the statement is History is written by the winners true right
because who cares what the losers think right?
Yeah, the losers are usually dead or they're in prison or whatever.
You know I mean like would we would we call?
You know George, Washington the father of our country if they'd lost the revolution.
No, we call him the biggest traitor in American history or British history.
God God save the Queen our flag would be a little bit different etc. Etc. Etc.
So that first part is true.
History is written by the winners here's the tricky part and Christina knows this and
That's a conjunction right, thank you.
Conjunction conjunction what's your function in this case the function is to tie the first statement with the second statement?
They both have to be true for the whole statement to be true if any part of it is false and the whole statement is
false.
History is written by the winners true, and this has implications for the Bible.
Why not.
How can you say that unless you don't believe the Bible is a book of history.
Why isn't it true?
Okay, the Bible isn't only a book of History although it is a historical book.
It is God's Word Bible isn't written by man,
so here's the thing you have people
like Bart Ehrman here's a description
here from Amazon .com always a reliable source know that because this is the description of the book
lost Christianity's now what does that title even imply?
Here's my book lost Christianity's.
What does that imply?
Well that he has secret knowledge.
Yeah, he understands the real truth that there were
Christianity's Plural there is no
one truth of Christianity right and some of those truths
Were lost let's say a prayer
light a candle for the lost Christianity's.
Yes, it is interesting right because if if What Bob was saying there
is if that is correct?
You know the history is written by the winners.
Well.
What did the Christians become the winners right?
Because they're getting run it they're getting lit up and You know run out of town and imprisoned and beheaded and fed to
animals and all these kind of things are going on.
So when exactly did they become the you know persecuting majority?
When did that happen right and that wasn't going to happen for at least a couple hundred years?
And even then it really wasn't Christianity that one it was a political system sort of imposed again this whole
Syncretistic idea when you have a man who was Probably I mean we
could see him in heaven, but Constantine was he a Christian.
I don't know you know.
But you know he decides he's gonna make Christianity the official religion and a lot of things happen as a
result of that.
But that's not till 325 AD.
Okay Bob did read the end of the book pastor Bob did and we win in the end and that's true.
We win in Christ, but Anyway, let me let me finish this lost Christianity's the early Christian
Church was.
Listen a chaos of contending beliefs now what?
Even as I read that in the in the question contending beliefs.
The whole idea that a church of Christians would have
Contending that is to say opposing ideas.
There's a problem with that.
We don't have any unity in there.
Jesus prays for the unity of the church.
And then we have you know we get together on Sunday morning and somebody says well I believe in this and somebody over there says well.
I don't that's wrong.
How could you believe that?
That that's not what a church is.
He goes on to say some groups of Christians claimed that there was not one God.
But two or twelve or thirty.
Some believe that the world had not been created by God, but by a lesser
ignorant deity.
Certain sects maintained that Jesus was human.
But not divine while others said that he was divine, but not human.
That's Bart Ehrman.
That's why I want somebody cites him as you know their authority or I I'm sorry, but you're talking
about.
You know what's the problem when an unbeliever looks at the Bible and concludes that the Bible is wrong.
He can't understand the Bible.
How did we know that?
The Bible says that in 1st Corinthians 2 right.
Says unless you have the Holy Spirit you can like I'm certain that you can understand the grammar.
That you can understand some of the implications.
But unless your mind is illumined by the Holy Spirit you do not understand the spiritual
implications of what is written.
Cory.
Yeah, how does that work exactly you know that that the church is divided right and it's being
persecuted.
And people are being dragged off for a variety of apparently of beliefs how do they
stay together and It and you know it becomes like.
You have to be extremely gullible to buy this whole premise here, yeah.
Yeah, I mean who's doing their persecuting and based on what and it's it's just a whole big mess right.
So the description of Amazon goes on to say all these groups Insisted that they upheld the teachings of Jesus and
his apostles and they all possessed writings that bore out their claims books reputedly
produced by Jesus own followers.
Well, what's the problem with that?
I mean, it's like I you know if you look at the Gnostic books.
Even the most liberal lunatic professor will not tell you that any of them are written by the
Apostles.
None of them will say that modern archaeological work
has Recovered a number of key texts and as Ehrman shows these spectacular
Discoveries reveal religious diversity that says much about the ways in which history gets
written by the winners.
Ehrman's discussion ranges from considerations of various lost scriptures.
Including listen these lost scriptures how they're just described here in this neutral Forged
Gospels.
Okay, I think the church is really missing out because it doesn't have forged Gospels.
Forged Gospels supposedly written by Simon Peter Jesus closest disciple.
Which way I guess would be John the way it's common here and Judas Thomas Judas alleges
or Jesus Alleged twin brother.
I mean, why would we put any value at all in these things?
And And he calls he calls what we would call our brothers and sisters in Christ
he calls them Proto -orthodox Christians,
you know, they were the prototypes for the Orthodox Christians and I'm like, okay, well, whatever
and then he says those that the proto -orthodox Christians those who eventually compiled compiled the
canonical books of the New Testament and standardized Christian belief
Scrupulously researched and lucidly written lost Christianities is an eye -opening or some might say
eye -rolling account of politics power and the clash of ideas among Christians
in the decades before one group Came to see its views prevail.
Dun -dun -dun -dun.
I mean it makes me want to sing, you know onward Christian soldiers.
You knew they were right when they said diversity Sharon.
Yes I.
Yeah, Kenan is see.
I mean the the objective is to You know deconstruct Christianity and you do that by
deconstructing the Bible.
Yeah, even though even though yeah, we have we have written lists basically the Canon I think going back to about
180 or something like that.
So, you know the the idea that somehow That this was a
legitimate battle is just is absolute rubbish, but yeah, that's that's The idea yeah, David
was he I Think he I you know, I think you have to go
Area by area, but here but here's what I would say to Athanasius is later, right?
But with all due respect to Corey, I don't know that it was like I
Don't know that I would compare like for example Evangelicalism today
and you know Against maybe the the watchtower let's say, you know in terms of
numbers I don't know that that sort of comparison would hold up when we're talking about fringy groups
but certainly the Gnostics were Infiltrating as our brother said here
Infiltrating the church.
And we would see that even in some of the New Testament writings where they're warning against these kind of things, right?
So, you know how big of an a movement was it?
I don't know but it was I think in the early early church probably not that significant.
Because they didn't have the writings that they would develop I think their earliest Gnostic writings that I that I remember off the top of my head or
maybe about 120 130, you know around that area and then they kind of ramp up and
The issue with that is you know, we've got they've already got they've had the Gospels and other writings in
Circulation for quite some time and then these Fake Gospels and other things pop
up.
So but Sharon's point was really right on the money, you know.
Those people then didn't know but now we have this kind of insight 2 ,000 years later where we
can debunk You know and deconstruct and do no we don't you know, this is just again
and here was my point and Going back to 1st Corinthians 2 14 when unbelievers go to scripture and they're
looking for a reason not to believe it.
Guess what?
They find it why because they go in with a presupposition.
This is a book of myths put together by men.
Which is remarkable, you know, we know there are at least 40 or so authors Over a couple thousand years
and so the idea that these men without the aid of computers or anything else could somehow put together a coherent Book,
what a job they did.
That's really amazing or You can think to yourself.
Well, what if just for a moment?
There was a supernatural being who superintended the authorship of the entire book
who Instructed breathe into however you want to phrase it.
You know these men so that they wrote according to their own knowledge and their own personalities what God wanted them to write.
Which is more credible and I you know History doesn't
write the Bible.
God wrote the Bible.
Maybe just one more.
Any other comments or questions about that one?
Yeah, the the the condemnations of the Gnostics appealed to the writings of the Apostles and
to the authority of writings of Scripture and so it's Kind of natural that things would go that way
for us as Christians, right?
Number.
Okay, number 11.
Is that where we're at?
Yeah, number 11 true or false the Christians used their power to ensure the various Gnostic
groups were relegated to the dustbin of history.
Again, I've always wanted to say the dustbin of history in Sunday school.
So yeah, you have I'm just looking for ways to get kind of cool phrases and do
you know?
What what a silly idea like we were saying, you know, how did they have the power to do these things?
They're running for their lives.
I remember reading and I'll have to look it up.
I think I actually saw it on a History channel thing like eight ten years ago.
But then I looked it up to see if it was true.
You know the Christians when Peter writes to those who are In
Asia minor, you know in first Peter and they're scattered well, they're scattered because of
persecution and coming persecution one of the places you mentioned was Cappadocia and
You know.
They they went and they did these kind of they went in they filmed these caves in Cappadocia where the Christians
were hiding while they were persecuting the Gnostics.
But They showed these these caves and they talked about how
they were engineered so that they almost had like a kind of air conditioning because the water would or the air
would come in and go over water, you know, and they had these kind of.
All this what's word circulation kind of stuff because caves, you know being what they are.
And they had churches they had worship centers and all this stuff, you know carved out into all the stone in there and
I was like, okay, but did they have baptismal fonts?
And yes, they did and guess what?
They were dunkers and I'm like, yes.
It just goes to show.
But yeah.
The idea that somehow you know.
The Christians went around crushing their up.
Not not not yet.
That won't happen for you know a long time, but.
Yeah, that's just a silly idea.
Anyway, any other questions or comments before we close because we're a little over time.
All right, and we'll finish this up and keep going next week.
Father thank you, even as we we look at The amazing
Work that you've done we just praise you and thank you and father we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ who not only
Delivered us from our Greatest opposition that is to say our sin
what we do how we sin against you Paid the price for that went willingly to the cross
in our place and then rose victoriously on the third day but not only did that but Preserve
the truth continues to draw people today and build his church against
enormous opposition political Religious and in just every way
how the world scoffs at the gospel and He
continues to build his church.
We thank you for that.
And we just pray that you continue to bless our day here at Jesus at Bethlehem Bible Church in Jesus name.
We pray.