Brainwashing

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Mind games? Brain washing? Soul cleansing?  Colossians 3:16? 

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. Mike Abrams here. Today is
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March 5th. March 5th. Beware the
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Ides of March. That's not today. That's coming up. Today's March 5th. I think it's
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Shepherds Conference. I'm not at the Shepherds Conference this year. I think I've probably been to 30
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Shepherds Conferences. Shepherds Conferences. And I have some friends that are there.
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I miss seeing my friends. Last year I didn't go to one session. The year before I don't think
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I went to one session. Who would I go to? If Sinclair Ferguson was there,
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I'd listen to him. I think Michael Reeves is there. I'd listen to him. Conrad Mbewe.
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I'd listen to Conrad. I do find it fascinating to think
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H .B. Charles, forget the Shepherds Conference. I know why he's at the Shepherds Conference. But now for Ligonier, he's a key speaker.
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And somewhere else, some other reformed place, and I'm thinking H .B.'s not really that reformed.
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So maybe you just have to have a Baptist at these places. I'm not exactly sure. But nonetheless, no
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Shepherds Conference this year. Sorry to miss all my friends. I don't know if I would have gotten run out of Dodge.
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But I am on the Nine Marks Church Finder and I am on the Founders Church Finder. So we have those two.
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That's good. Mike Habenroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. You can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.
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Law and Gospel a Primer. I've been getting quite a few orders for 10 or more. If you want 10 or more, they are 40 % off.
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And we just drop ship them to you. You can email me and then you can send me money via Zelle or Venmo.
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And off we go. Let's see. I found something the other day.
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And I'm just going to start reading this without telling you much about it.
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All right. So here we go. You can hear it's actually paper. There are many definitions of brainwashing, but only a few really describe it well.
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Brainwashing is a colloquial term used to describe the systematic efforts of communists to persuade or suggest nonbelievers to accept communist allegiance, commands and doctrine.
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More generally applied to any technique designed to manipulate human thought or action against the desire, will or knowledge of the individual concerned.
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Brainwashing is most appropriately used in reference to Chinese communist thought reform or ideological remolding, a program of political indoctrination based on the conception that persons who have not been educated in a communist society have incorrect bourgeois attitudes and beliefs.
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And these persons must be reeducated before they can take their place in such a society. All right.
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Kind of boring so far. A little bit more about the Communist Party, mainland
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China. And then I thought this is interesting. Brainwashing has revealed, was revealed as a political strategy for expansion and control made up of two processes.
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One is a conditioning or the softening up for primarily control purposes. The second is indoctrination or conversion.
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It can be inducted simultaneously, I think conducted, with a conditioning or before it.
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The communists practice these communists practice these coldly with nothing in mind but results.
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The long range objective of brainwashing is to win converts who can depend on, who can be depended on to react as desired at any time anywhere.
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So partly I can't read very well today. And partly this thing is not written very well at all.
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So it's actually hard to read bad writing. Did you know that? It's hard to read bad writing.
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Some of the things that they do with brainwashing, this author goes on to say, hunger, fatigue, tenseness, threats, violence, and in more intense cases where the
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Reds have specialists available on the brainwashing panels, drugs and hypnotism. Trying to get the person's mind in a fog, this author goes on to say.
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In brainwashing, a fog settles over the patient's mind until he loses touch with reality facts and fancy world around and change places like a phantasmagoria.
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The subject hallucinates in his mind. Mind does strange things. They say the same thing over and over the interrogators until your eyes swim and you feel as if you've been dancing a waltz and cannot stop.
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Yeah, I know what waltz is like. You learn the box that you can't go anywhere.
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So how do you get around the dance floor? Line a dance with the waltz. Oh, there's a way to do it, but that's for, that's not bronze level.
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That's silver level. Violence was an additional element in brainwashing.
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Bloody violence range from head smashing and a kick in the groin. Many ways to torture such as ice bath and the tiger's chair.
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In the diamond mine treatment, the prisoners forced to crawl back and forth on a plank covered with bits of broken glass, sharp nails, political prisons, social pressures, freedom was taken away, humiliation, revilement, and more.
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The depth and permanence of these changes in attitude and point of view depend on the personality of the individual, his degree of motivation to be reformed, and the degree to which the environment continues to coerce his behavior and support.
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In any case, brainwashing is very damaging to one's mind. And you say after six and a half minutes, what in the world is going on?
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Why would you read such a thing? Does it have anything to do with anything on No Compromise Radio?
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And the answer is, of course, this is going to be one of my most highly rated shows.
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I'm certain of that. This was written
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October 17th, 1977. It was a research paper for psychology,
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Miss Robinette. Miss Robinette's psychology, 1977.
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And I wrote it. Oh, I can't believe
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I wrote that. I'm sure I copied a bunch of it. There are some references in the back here.
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I was going through some old boxes and found some of my old papers that I had written.
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The brain benders, the fight for Korea, brainwashing in Red China, thought reform, and the psychology of totalitism.
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Anyway, I don't know. Why would I want to write on brainwashing? And I don't even know who Miss Robinette was, but that was
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Northwest High School. You can tell I'm public school graduate. Pat Avendroth of the
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Pactom, he also went there. So you can't just blame me. Brainwashing, the
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Pactom, and No Compromise Radio. I think you could sign up for the
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Pactom's conference coming up this October. I'll be there, Lord willing. I don't know what in the world
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I'm going to talk about. Something to do with the gospel. I'm going to have to research that. You thought that was coming from the
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Book of Useless Information, did you not? Just kidding. What in the world does that have to do with anything spiritual for No Compromise Radio ministry?
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Well, here is the tie -in. Are you ready? Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God, and whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the
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Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
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Letting the word of Christ dwell in you richly. And that comes from what book of the Bible? Colossians chapter 3.
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The brainwashing that we think of is negative, coercive, manipulative.
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I'm not trying to say anything negative about Colossians 3, obviously.
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What I am trying to say is that the Word of God washes and cleanses and informs and convicts and guides and teaches.
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I will say those things. The word of Christ dwelling in you richly. The ESV study
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Bible note says, the word of Christ probably refers to the teaching about Christ as well as the words of Christ himself, which were part of the oral traditions passed on to believers in the early years after Christ ascended to heaven, before the gospels had been written.
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What do we do? We want the word of Christ to dwell in us richly.
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That's what we want. Now, back to the brainwashing part.
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For those of us that got saved later in life, I got saved in 1989. I was 29 years old.
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I'll be 65 in two months. That is weird. Weirdsmobile.
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You think certain ways. You're conformed to the world's thinking. Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2.
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You ought not to be, of course, but you are. And as some commentators talk about jello molds, and we're mindless in one sense because we're not thinking, and then we're captive to do
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Satan's will, 2 Timothy 2, and then the world just conforms our mind.
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It's reminiscent of jello molds. As a matter of fact, when I was a kid, we had incredible edibles.
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There was another kind of goop that you could put in a metal mold and then bake it and then pull them out.
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I don't know what they were, but then they had another version. It was called incredible edibles. You'd put them in the mold, and it was a sugary, gooey substance that was edible.
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Then you could eat the spider or scorpion or whatever was in the mold.
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You have these jello molds. Of course, the jello conforms to the mold, and then you cool the jello down, and then you flip it upside down, and it can still conform to that same mold.
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The world gets us and molds us and shapes us. We begin to think about things through the lens of the world.
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You're living in water, and you never really think about it as a fish. That's just the water you breathe as the air we breathe is the world system.
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Of course, we shouldn't be doing that. Friendship with the world is enmity against God, and we don't want to be spiritual adulterers or adulteresses as James talks about, but we're just thinking in certain ways.
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Your knee -jerk, your automatic reaction to certain things is really just ungodly.
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It's not informed by Scripture, and then God saves you. Of course, we could go through all the steps of salvation in the history of salvation.
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A historical salute is the order there or logically or the order, but certainly, you are regenerated.
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You're made alive. You immediately respond with faith, and things are different.
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Many things are radically different, 180 different. You were dead, and now you're alive.
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You're blind, but now you see these spiritual things. You had
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Satan as a father, the father of lies, and now you have God the father.
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You were bound to do Satan's will, and now you have the Spirit of God dwelling in you, and he's producing fruit like love, joy, peace, and even self -control.
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So many things have changed your status before God has changed. Instead of condemned, it's justified.
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God is sanctifying you, and you're responding with killing sin, living for righteousness, walking by faith.
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Glorification is as good as settled. You will be glorified. Lots of things change, and this is a show not talking about all those things, but there are still things that you struggle with because we have the sin hangover, the hermeneutological hangover, and therefore, we need the
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Word of God for many reasons, and we need that Word to dwell in us richly.
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Now, before we talk about Bible reading, we're going to especially need means of grace,
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Sunday morning, Lord's Day preaching, worship service, law gospel, sacraments, and that's what we need.
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We need to begin to think differently, and so what
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I process in my mind about brainwashing is, again, it's just something to talk about when you're running out of other ideas for the show.
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My solar pope isn't poping anymore. Is the pope still alive? Someone said that he's got it all set up, so he's got the progressive pope to take over for him.
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Who knows? All that to say, to wash your mind, to read your
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Bibles. Is Bible reading good? I mean, I think we can go so far on the other side and say, well, the
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New Testament, people, they didn't have their Bibles, and just Sunday morning, and means of grace, and Sunday only.
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Oh, I get that, but you have a Bible, so why wouldn't you want to read it? You have the words of life.
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Why wouldn't you want to read it? And to have the Word dwell in you richly.
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So, my point today is simply this. I am thankful for the
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Word of God because it's teaching me to think rightly about God, and rightly about myself, and rightly about others.
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See Calvin's Institute first sentence. I want to wash my mind of the world system,
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Satan's lies, my own lusts, my own thinking. That was an amazing thing when
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I first got saved, is I would read something in the Bible or hear something from the pulpit and realize
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I've got this all wrong. I'm completely wrong when it comes to whatever subject it is.
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And then when I first was saved especially, I had no problem saying,
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I repent, I change my mind, I don't want to think that way anymore, Lord, please forgive me.
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I mean, it was wonderful. Now, those are fewer and farther in between now because a lot of the things
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I've already processed mentally, but I needed to have the word wash me. I needed to have the word wash me.
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Now, you know where I'm going with this about the word washing? Now, remember Colossians 3 .16,
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the word of Christ dwelling in you richly, and then there's singing and thanking and other things.
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Now, in Ephesians chapter 5, it's got something very similar.
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Does it not? Ephesians chapter 5. Now, before I read the similar part, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the what?
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With the word. Washing, cleansing, helping me think the right way,
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God's way. That is good. Here, the ESV study Bible says washing of water.
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This might be a reference to baptism since it is common in the Bible to speak of invisible spiritual things.
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In this case, spiritual cleansing by pointing to an outward physical sign of them. See Romans 6.
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There may also be a link here to Ezekiel 16, where the Lord washes infant
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Israel, raises her, and eventually elevates her to royalty and marries her, which could correspond to presenting the church to himself in splendor at his marriage supper.
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Washing with water, cleansing. Now, richly having the word of Christ dwell in you leads to singing and thanking and submitting.
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Now, let me read to you Ephesians. Be filled with the spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the
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Lord with your heart, giving thanks always for everything to God, the Father, in the name of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence. Hey, did you see that?
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Did you catch that? When the word of Christ dwells in you richly, Colossians 3, well, you sing, you thank, you submit.
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Huh. When you're filled with the spirit in Ephesians 5, you sing, you give thanks, and you submit.
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Well, if I was doing algebraic equations and what equals what, that's pretty amazing.
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Did you know the Spirit of God uses the word of God to wash, to cleanse, to conform?
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And as he does that, using the word, things happen.
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You sing, you address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. You're making melody to the
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Lord with your heart and thanking him, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, general submission.
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And then there's even specific things that go on in a marriage, the wives are submitting, the husbands are loving.
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People say, I want to be Spirit -led, I want to be Spirit -filled.
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I don't want to go to your church because you never talk about the Spirit. It's always Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. We are charismatics and we are holy ghost people and we are
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Holy Spirit people. And where is the Spirit of God in your church?
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What's going on? It is fair to say that with Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5, the word of God and the
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Spirit of God are inexorably linked. They are linked together.
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When I was a kid, we watched Lancelot Link. It's a show about chimpanzees, monkeys. If you're listening like Christian Harris today, you know about that show.
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We need the word. So, of course, go to church on Sunday, but read your Bible. Most every day,
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I mean, some days I don't because I have to get up early or I have to go pick somebody up from the airport or this, that, and the other. There's a flight to catch.
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Sometimes I don't immediately read it, but most days, I mean, in those times, I'll just read it later in the day.
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But most days I get up and read my Bible. It's the first thing I do. After I get my cup of coffee, I use the restroom, sit down with my
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Bible. Okay, brush my teeth too because I don't like to drink coffee if I haven't brushed my teeth. Yuck.
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So, my daughter's been putting creatine in her coffee. First, it was collagen, then creatine.
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I guess you just add everything you want in coffee. I remember when coffee used to work. It doesn't seem to work so much for me in the morning.
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If I drink it after 3 p .m., it really works. Like, I can't sleep at night works.
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Word of Christ dwells in you richly. Be filled with the Spirit. Both have the same outcome because the
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Spirit of God uses the Word. Don't tell me you're a Spirit -filled church and the guy's not preaching the
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Bible. It doesn't have to be expositional, but it better be biblical, textual, text that informed the topic that the guy's preaching.
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There's no Spirit -filled churches without the Bible. If you say Spirit -filled, you'll say Bible -filled. Bethlehem Bible Church.
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We had a guy here, he got really mad. His child was at Iwana and they have a group called, maybe they still have it,
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I don't know. I think they do Sparky's. I think S for Sparky's. The kids would memorize S, sin. We're sinners.
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And they'd go through the acronym of Sparky. And he got really mad at me. And he was causing a big stir in the hallway.
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So, I said, come into my office. This is over 20 years ago. And he said, I'm mad because you're telling my kid she's a sinner.
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And I thought, no, I think you're mad because now you think you're a sinner. Exclamation point hitting my microphone.
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I said, you know, the sign out there says Bethlehem Bible Church. And we teach the
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Bible. And the Bible teaches that we're all sinners. I'm a sinner, you're a sinner, your daughter's a sinner.
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And he calmed down some. He was one of those typical doofus dads, we'll call them, that, well,
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I'll let my kid figure out her own path of spirituality. Now, occasionally that works, right?
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If you've got a dad so sinful that they're not going to take their children to hear gospel, law gospel sermons,
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I'll just let you pick. And maybe that child's got a friend that goes to a decent church.
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Then, praise the Lord. But if the dad just knows better and doesn't do anything about it, ouch.
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I failed in a lot of ways. I continue to fail in a lot of ways. But my desire is certainly not to fail in that area.
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And I'm sure it's your desire not to fail in that area as well. So, back to the point, brainwashing.
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In this sense, I'm trying to wash not my brain. Here's the dumb moment on the show.
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I'm not trying to wash my brain. I'm trying to wash my mind. Mindwashing.
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And I like to wash my mind from all the sleaze and the slut and the immorality and the worldliness, the pride of life, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, hedonism, he with the most toys wins, pleasure -filled, distracted life that is me, myself, and I, how to just consume self.
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I don't want any of that. I mean, sometimes I act like I want it, but thinking straightly,
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I don't want any of that. I want my mind washed by the word and cleansed so I can think properly.
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And that's why it's good to read the Proverbs to guide us. Here's God's law for us to guide us as Christians.
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My son, my son, my son, my son, my son. And chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
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And then to say to ourselves, here's who Jesus is and to be reminded about this great
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God and Savior, merciful and full of compassion. Here's how God saved me and here's how
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I should respond. And I'm able to respond. I mean, Walter Marshall said in his book with a memorable title, like gospel sanctification.
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I can't remember Walter Marshall's book, the mystery of gospel sanctification, the mystery of gospel.
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Yeah, it's got to be mystery of gospel sanctification. You've got to know you're saved in order to be living a holy life.
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You've got to know that heaven is yours to live a holy life. You've got to know that you're never going to lose your salvation to live a holy life.
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Otherwise you're going to be focused on all those other things. We want our minds cleansed and washed. That's why you should read your
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Bible. That's why you should be more importantly at church every Sunday morning, listening, reading the passage before you get to church, saying,
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Lord, use this frail, sinful man to feed. I want to learn more about Jesus today.
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I want to learn more about your plan. I want to know more about who you are, your triune nature.
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Lord, help me. Sound good? I think that sounds pretty good. Brainwashing.
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I got that thing in my house, that little paper, and I thought, I think I can make a whole show out of this without any prep.
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And it probably showed, but you get what you pay for, right? You get what you pay for.