Becoming Better Theologians (part 33)

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Becoming Better Theologians (part 34)

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Well We've been talking about a multitude of things. We've been going through a quiz and just to kind of Catch us up where we are.
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I'd like you to first turn to Deuteronomy Which is where most
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Bible studies start. I mean if we're gonna be honest We immediately go to Deuteronomy. Well, we don't normally but listen
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Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4 a Verse that we should know well
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Here O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one Then verse 5 you shall love the
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Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might When we think about those two concepts first of all the
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Lord or the Lord our God the Lord is one God is one and then the devotion that we are called to Israel was called to we are called to today to Display to God and we understand the world around us and the different religions the different beliefs that take hold and The need there is for these people for the unbelievers all around us to understand and to know the one
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God Again if we go to Isaiah chapter 44 verse 6 we would read this thus says the
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Lord the King of Israel and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts I am the first and I am the last besides me.
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There is no God and It would go on and on and on throughout Isaiah through that particular section of Isaiah from 40 to 48
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I believe And so we we began talking about all these different Beliefs under the under the heading of the unity of the
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Godhead. We believe that the Godhead is unified We believe in the Trinity and yet there are various competing ideas out there
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That are wrong, but we need to bring them under a biblical Concept of biblical framework last week we covered three questions on this quiz just remarkable three
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Number one true or false God is both revealed and concealed that is true because there are many things about God that we do not yet Know and in fact things that we will never know even in heaven and we won't be able to fully comprehend
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God You know this idea that God is somehow just our buddy. He's just our friend That he's just like us only a little bit better.
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That is false Number two, where is Cappadocia? I just threw that in there because I like saying
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Cappadocia and Because it is kind of interesting it's in Asia Minor and some of the
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Cappadocians were Excellent theologians in the early church Number three true or false comparative religion classes are helpful in understanding the nature of God Not really helpful in understanding the nature of God, but they are helpful in Helping us understand helpful in helping us.
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Well, they're helpful in helping us kind of classify how other Religions view
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God and number four which we haven't covered so this is brand -new true or false
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Every religion has a God they worship Every religion has a
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God they worship. It's it's Yeah, it's false or true.
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I mean, you know, I mean, I mean Casey says Buddhism has no God, okay
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But who's the god of Buddhism? You you know, I mean ultimately so I don't think it's right to say that every religion has a
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God but every person has a God so You know So I say technically maybe
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Casey is right. All right Several terms are used or employed to describe what is usually thought of as the lowest forms of religion and this is kind of important and I and I think when he develops what
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Culver develops here is When we look around the world and this is true if you what well, let me just ask you guys
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What is kind of true of some of the more impoverished countries of the world?
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I? Mean we talked about the poor and the rich in the United States, you know this Occupy Wall Street and all that stuff
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We talked about the poor and the rich but if we look at the poor of the United States and We were to move them to you know
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We could take them exactly as they are right now and move them to some other places in the world They wouldn't seem quite so poor
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So what classifies or what? General characteristics might we see in poorer countries in places where real poverty exists
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Pin pins dropping is not correct Starvation, okay, but I mean sociologically culturally what sort of things might we see
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Pam? Okay degenerated
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I'm not even gonna say that we'd see really low forms of religion. We'd see voodooism or were some of the other things you mentioned
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Animism and we're gonna talk about some of those things. I mean, we're gonna see that as people become more
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Cultured more educated their form of religion tends to change
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And I think one of the things you know, I think one of the things that's endemic in the United States and endemic in Europe is that we see as people get smarter
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Right, you know more cut more scientific and everything else. What do they do with religion altogether? They shelve it.
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You know, I don't need this anymore because I Understand that I understand more than Religion could possibly teach me that's kind of the thinking they replace it
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That's right. I mean ultimately what it what is true that we are by nature
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Somebody sent me by the way that that commercial, you know on on YouTube you can look it up everything's on YouTube and you know, it's oh
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Some my some lovely bread with some of my wonderful. It's mother nature, you know when the with the marvelous
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Butter on it and the butter container says parquet, you know, she goes back and forth and then it's not nice to fool mother nature
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We are Created to be worshipers We worship because that's what we do and the question is as human beings who will we worship or what will we worship and there are a variety of things that people choose to worship and I wonder if sometimes we even think about Some of these things let me give you some examples here because he gives them there are people who wear charms amulets or Objects to bring good luck to the barren to ward off bad luck
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What are some things you might see in those kind of? Some things that people wear to ward off bad things rabbits foot
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Because it brings good luck to everyone except for the rabbit the scapula.
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I mean I was thinking on the way into church I'm just gonna think of all the all the powers. I mean how many of you have ever seen a horror movie?
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Don't raise your hand What are some of the things that we even see empowered in these movies, you know, if a if a vampire is after you
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What do you do? cross garlic You know, holy water if it's a werewolf silver bullets, where do these things come from?
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I mean if he wants, you know, stay up nights thinking now, what would be a good thing? Hmm, you know The old holy water what separates holy water from regular water, you know
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Well, I mean if you put out a fire with holy water what happens I don't know it's just it's just a strange concept
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But the belief prompting the practice is known as dynamism dynamism what
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What what does that sound like Dynamite because it's explosive. It just comes from the
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Greek word that means power You know, so we we attribute as human beings.
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I mean, I'm speaking generically we attribute certain objects to having power now you kind of refines that a little bit he says fetishism is a refinement of dynamism a
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Particular powerful spirit is thought to inhabit some material object Perhaps some beneficial incident seemed to take place in connection with a man -made object or some portable natural object
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You ever heard of anything like that? like a
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Ouija board, okay Divining rod. I like that one and it's close to my heart because Joseph Smith found something, you know using a divining rod.
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He used to do a lot of that. I say close to my heart That's feedback that's very powerful
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And I associate that now with this microphone Are there places in the world that people go
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Because they believe that they will receive some kind of special benefit from going to that place because something
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Mecca, okay Fatima the Vatican Lords, I mean there are all sorts of places that people go because they believe you know
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They're gonna receive some spiritual benefit. In fact, it's interesting You know one of the things that absolutely repulsed
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Luther on top of the Indulgences was what this whole idea that you could go and you could visit various objects and things like that and you could somehow
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Build up merit for yourselves. Well, what is that? you know, I mean now, you know as Protestants we go to Europe and we want to see
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Calvin's tooth or whatever, you know and Same kind of thing, but I was thinking, you know people even have objects what in their yard
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Why You know because it's supposed to bless this or bless that, you know, and you might carry around Why do people carry around medallions of different Saints?
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superstition, I mean, that's all these things as you As we think about them, you know, you can see how a lot of these things have crept into what is nominally
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Christianity, you know and I say nominally Christianity Now here's another interesting one and you'll recognize this
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Animism is a belief in nature in nature spirits many of them. They are thought to inhabit streams
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Springs trees waterfalls mountains and so on The phenomena of nature are thought to be caused by them
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Can you think of any examples of that? Old man winter
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I see I want to sing old man river, but that's wrong.
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Yeah, and I'll spare you this morning. I Think I learned that in grade school. Okay, uh
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How about how about this? Anybody ever see? Pocahontas So that movie and I just remember sitting there going this
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Really is uncomfortable because you know, we're talking about the spirits of the wind and I mean all these songs
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They're just going on. I'm like, hmm. Oh the movie with the blue people.
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I was like avatar blue people I Immediately thought
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Star Trek or something. Yes Smurfs. Yeah, the Smurfs naturally But it's all it's all that I you know, and really when you think about animism,
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I mean that is kind of one of the more base forms of religion because it really is it's a primitive idea that I'll use this word.
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You'll know what I mean that nature itself somehow is endowed with kind of these spirits
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Totemism is another one. He lists is a system wherein a family clan or tribe is grouped according to totems
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Totems are usually animals to which the family clan or tribe considers itself related by blood The coolie wolf pack, you know that sort of thing
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The totemism as a form of worship is very common among primitive primitive peoples
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He says then now here's an interesting one, too Which is is something that I would argue that even in the
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United States was practiced probably into the 1800s
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Maybe now taboo Taboo is a group prohibition Placed on certain people places and things rendering them untouchable and sometimes even unmentionable not to be looked at It is an accompaniment of dynamism.
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What are some examples you could think of of a taboo? What's that?
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She just knows the board game where you're not allowed to say a word. That is not a good example Well, how about anybody ever read forced to read the
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Scarlet Letter? I mean that would be one right where she was shunned Because of what she did, how about this has anybody ever heard of something called the mark of Cain?
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That was part of Mormonism until the late 70s, and it was also part of some forms of Christianity, especially in the south and what that was was the idea that People of dark skin were somehow cursed by God and so it was okay to discriminate against them
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In fact, I remember I as I said I was in the Mormon Church and I remember in the late 70s when it was announced that you know the
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Prophet Under pressure from the IRS. Oh That's not what they said.
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You know, it's just Received a revelation that you know now blacks could receive the priesthood and the
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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints but You know again, it's that kind of when we understand what the
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Bible says That we're all equal You know at the foot of the cross that we're all equal that there's no difference between Jew or Gentile and thereby implication black white etc
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So, how do you get around that if you're a prejudiced person you find some, you know arcane
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Unusual understanding of the Bible and you just apply that to people and that's what they did So I Think even in modern
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Christianity some of these things still lurk or have lurked until recently And he says all these beliefs
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Exist sometimes coexist in very low levels of culture as I said before. How about this one? This is something that I actually experienced in Japan ancestor worship
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Ancestor worship. I mean they actually have you know Of course, I guess they do this in Mexico where they have days of the dead
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But it's a different thing over there. But I mean, it's very Intriguing. I mean, it's very beautiful all the things that they do other than the music.
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I Don't really get because you know to our Western ears when you listen to Some of the
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Asian music you just go you guys are just like can I just tell you something? you need to learn to tune those guitars or whatever you're playing because it's
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It's not quite You know not quite on key sort of Wow but but very, you know, they venerate their ancestors and they believe what that somehow their ancestors are able to Help them or are with them and you know kind of the spirits sort of way
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All right number five What is it called when a religion seeks to universalize and I we talk this way all the time
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Universalize various types of phenomena and identify each with a particular deity such as a god of storms
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I Should have changed that to the god of thunder because that was a good movie
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What's that? What do you call that? What do you call it?
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When you when you're looking to attach a god with various things
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Greek mythology, okay Yeah, or more Generically because it's not just associated with the
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Greeks, but it'd be polytheism a multitude of gods and Culver says on a more advanced level of culture and presumably therefore a more advanced sort of thing and he says
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Let's move on here a little further. He does talk about Greek mythology Roman theology. Of course, there's
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Norse mythology all these different kinds of Ologies, but he says this form of worship of many gods polytheism is memorialized in several days of our week
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Thor in Thursday I'm gonna look at Thursday's different now be ducking hammers
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Whoa tan, I'm not familiar with whoa tan anybody know whoa tan whoa ton
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He's not too tan, but he's ton whoa ton in Wednesday We have
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June for January for June for Juno Janice for January that hits close to home
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Mars Mars for March Mars being the
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Greek God of or the Roman God of War, I think Ares was the
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Greek out of war and so on among monks of the year or months of the year Old Testament preserves ancient fragments of near ancient polytheism and the names of several gods and goddesses
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We read about Baal Moloch Ashereth Etc.
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Etc. Etc. So that's polytheism Now what tends to number six what tends to accompany a multi
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God system polytheism? What tends to accompany that? We're not there yet Anxiety and fear well, that's true, and we'll we'll talk more about that.
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I have a different word for it, but yes How about this? How about just idolatry?
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When you have a multitude of gods you you start creating images to these gods
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Cover says when an image of the God thought to be the actual local seat in other words his presence where that can be worshipped and really, this is kind of The view of gods is not that much different from us.
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How many of you have read Greek or Roman theology? Almost said Greek or Roman theology.
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I don't know what that would be Greek or Roman mythology, you know when I was a kid I used to go to the school library and there
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I don't even think they had Bibles, but they had these Greek No, why is that? Okay, you know they would have all this
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Greek mythology And I used to like to read it and what do you find about these Greek or Roman gods?
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They're just like us they're jealous they sin, I mean they do pretty horrible things
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So they're not that much different from us and we can see how you know, it really is a de -evolution a step down from God But he says and this is interesting.
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He says no informed Israelites Suppose that the Philistines for example had captured
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Jehovah when the Philistines took the ark of the testimony But when the idol Dagon fell off his pedestal in the presence of the ark the
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Philistines took Dagon and put him back in his place in other words, there's a difference in Perception the
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Israelites knew that God was not physically present in I mean he
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He wasn't he wasn't only there In other words the ark did not contain the whole of God and so when they took him or when they took the ark
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It wasn't like panic set in. I mean they were upset obviously because it symbolized something else
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But it wasn't quite the same as when Dagon falls over because then now they're like, well, wait a minute. That's our
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God We have to sit him back up All right, number seven and now we get into what was just Previewed for us
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What word means worship of a single false God and I have to admit now, this is a word that I had not heard before Shocking that somebody of dr.
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Culver's intellect would be able to find a word that I don't know I don't even know if I can say it right because it looks it looks easy
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Trust me. It looks easy model lottery Mon monolatry,
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I don't know it doesn't sound right. It's the worship of one God but it's a little bit different because it
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From monotheism because it is the idea that you worship out of a pantheon of gods you are particularly devoted to one
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And so he gives the example in ancient Egypt they worshipped
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Ra the Sun God, but they had other gods too who were in charge of different things. So that would be an example of Whatever that word is mono
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Monolatry, there you go easy All right number eight and I gave this one last week
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But I I just find this fascinating this this fact here in the 2001 because I looked it up online
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That's why I find it fascinating in the 2001 Australian census I mean, we know Australia is a lot like us a bunch of outcasts from England, right found their country
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In the 2001 Australian census 70 ,000 people claimed
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Jedi as their religion True It's just crazy, you know,
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I mean something that didn't exist until the 70s becomes your religion. I don't I don't know but it really represents
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It's it's kind of old religion, right What what why do I say that?
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Why do I say that? This is an old religion, you know, may the force be with you
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What's that How about this idea of bringing now how many of you have not seen
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Star Wars I mean,
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I I never clapped at Sunday school, but that's pretty amazing But this idea that's presented in Star Wars is not a new one.
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Why because they talk about bringing balance to the force Now what kind of ancient religion would that be any of them?
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I mean, it's it's this idea that The universe is impersonal
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That there are good forces battling against evil forces and that the ultimate Goal is what?
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For good to conquer evil. Well, not so much. It's really for there to be a balance there to be harmony
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Yeah, I'm putting out. I'm putting out good energy. That's why I'm being blessed, you know positive thinking positive the power of positive thinking
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Creating your own reality. These kind of things are all very new agey And and that's ancient religion.
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Did somebody else have a comment? Yeah, like the secret a very popular book.
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Yeah, so all these things are kind of related to that And he talks about he says
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He says dualism which is what it is regards matter and spirit or mind as Each and eternally real principle and orders life in relation to these two principles
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In each case matter is held to be evil spirit good So it really gets the
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Gnostics in the Bible era held this Greek Gnostics which means knowledge and they had this idea that matter was
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Evil and spirit good therefore they denied the actual coming of Jesus in the flesh
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Which is in part why John wrote first John to kind of get rid of that idea, but that that is a
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One of the more common old religions this has been recycled and come around and he talks about pantheism pantheism regards all that exists as Manifestation of a single and personal substance.
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That's what we're talking about or principle Hinduism Buddhism and several cults of oriental religion are pantheistic and so we can add, you know to to that list
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Jediism or you know the force or whatever. It's interesting. I was listening to the radio. I was driving back from Vermont a few weeks ago
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Listening to the radio and they were talking to Or they were talking about a new movie that was made about George Harrison George Harrison being one of the
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Beatles for those of you who are a little bit too young to know that and Harrison recently died of cancer.
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I think within not too long ago a few years But he was attacked in his home several years ago by just a nut who got into his house and started screaming and you know, they had this kind of balcony inside their house and the man is down on the
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You know on the on the first floor of the house and he starts screaming and so Harrison his wife come out
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You know to see this guy George Harrison didn't believe in force So he didn't have not the force but force period so he didn't have much in the way of security so this guy gets into his house and He's armed with a knife and he starts screaming
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Harrison going, you know why I'm here I told you I was coming and Harrison started doing the most natural thing he could do which was to say
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Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Like Like that was going to protect him because that was his
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Religious framework and he was nonviolent and this guy proceeded to stab him. I think it was like 15 times or something like that and he survived that but eventually died of cancer, but You just think okay now
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Harrison obviously believed what he believed and his you know He responded based on his beliefs, but how crazy was that?
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It didn't really work out all right, so Kind of let's just integrate that whole idea of there being a force
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But let's elevate it that there's some kind of universal force out there. That's You know in everything holding everything together
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But let's elevate it to where it has some sort of intellectual capacity and what will we wind up with?
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Well, we'll wind up with first. We'll wind up with something called deism Deism is
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Who are some of the famous deists of history Thomas Jefferson George Washington Although some people argue about George Washington.
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I don't really Ben Franklin And at least a couple of those men
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I think it was pretty obvious why they were deists instead of Christians because their morality was You know not so great.
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Listen what he says about deism deism affirms the sole existence of one Creator God holy transcendent
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But one who has no Relationship with creation in other words.
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You know he is the proverbial cosmic watchmaker. He made it He might like to take it out of his you know
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Drawer every once in a while and look at it, but he's not involved Why do you suppose people would like that sort of picture of God Peggy says because it involves no judgment
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Charlie it protects
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God from any challenge that he's in any way associated with evil So they probably like that too
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You know get it's not God's fault. I mean he's just up there watching he's not really you know involved getting his hands dirty as it were in all the details and Cover goes on to say he says it often is a phenomenon of advanced civilizations
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But then and I thought this was this was pretty keen insight here. He says there have been however few fully consistent deists
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Why? What's that Well for one thing yeah, they might pray, but what would be another reason?
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Why why would it be hard to be a consistent deist? What would be your guidebook? You wouldn't really have one
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I mean you could do what Jefferson did with the Bible which was you know you cut out all the things where God is actively involved in other words all the miracles anything supernatural to where you just wind up with a
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Bunch of sayings that what if you take all the supernatural of the Bible. What are you left with I mean other than Understanding that it's all supernatural because it's inspired by the
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Holy Spirit If you take all the supernatural out of the Bible, what do you wind up with an index and maps?
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stop What what do you wind up with? History true morality
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Okay, be good be a better person Do on others as you would have them do if you take all the
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Christianity out of it You know in other words It's easy to say well all the great religions say do unto others as you would have them do unto you
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But you can't do that apart from Christ you can't do that apart from the work of the
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Holy Spirit within you so did just say You know do what others as they would as you would have them do unto you can be turned into pure morality if you remove the supernatural from it
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Just be a better person and you know at the risk of bashing
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Reverend Bob Who just had to sell his church to the Roman Catholic Church? Bob Schuller he said
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I I've said this before but I think it bears repeating years ago on a radio interview
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He was asked What he would do if he knew if he would change things if he knew that after he died a
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Bunch of the people that went to his church Bob Schuller Crystal Cathedral formerly the Crystal Cathedral I guess they're now the crystal drive -in or something never mind
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But he was asked what he would do if if he knew that after he died a bunch of the people who went to his church became
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Muslim and he said well as Long as they were good people that would be okay
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So it's good to be good, and it's nice to be nice What happens when you remove all the supernatural out of the
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Bible you wind up with something like that Where the focus becomes just on being good?
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See he says as understood by Christian writers theism includes the idea that God is self -revealing and miracles and prophecy theism now
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We're not talking about deism, but theism. Oh, I skipped one. Sorry I skipped to the question How many monotheistic religions are there three that we that we know of I mean?
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I can only really think of three Christianity Judaism Islam in fact
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I saw somebody the other day write something like this. They said now think for a second
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When Christians pray to God this person said they are really praying to Allah Is that true or false?
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Why is that false? That's a bonus question by the way There is no
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Allah, okay, that's a But why are they not praying to Allah? Okay, the character of Allah is not remotely related to the character of Jesus or Jehovah Why would we say that because Allah if you read the
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Quran is? Capricious in other words he does what he wants to do regardless of You know someone here's a a really weird thing to think about you know
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Islam is a book of or is a religion of rules I mean they have religion or rules for everything including the most profane things in our
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Society you know ways to go to the bathroom and all this other stuff I mean they have rules for everything you want a religion of rules.
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That's your religion But you could obey all the rules all the rules in the hadith etc.
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Etc. Etc. And guess what? Allah does not have to let you into heaven he can or he might not
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It's entirely up to him That's not the God of the Bible. Why else are they not the same
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God? Right it's a complete fallacy to say just because they're both
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Designated as supremely you know all -powerful gods and that they're both monotheistic religions that there's a transference
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What is that that Mike likes to say the total transfer totality I forget it anyway It's a it's a falsehood.
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It's wrong thinking I mean there are a multitude of ways that we could show that Allah is nothing like The Christian God for example.
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He is not three persons Allah is Only one and he has no
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Son so that that would be completely false
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But he says as understood by Christian writers theism that is belief in God Carries the idea that God is self -revealing as in miracles and prophecy
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In terms of Jesus Christ our Lord usually Usually whether state or not
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Christian theism is the view of the deity of God Which the author employing the term theism thinks it means in other words.
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He says it can be Subjective I mean a lot of people call themselves Christians who are not
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Christians But listen as he says scholars inclined toward naturalistic that means unbiblical interpretations of all faiths
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Like to find examples of all these forms of religion in the growth of Israel's religion
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In other words when you get into these comparative religion classes and all these other things What do they like to do they like to trace a lot of them back to?
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Judaism and say look there's no difference between for example Rachel's evident reverence for the portable family idols and Israel's use of the portable ark of the covenants
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Which is this wrong? But Culver says he goes it must be acknowledged that far from manifesting some some
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Jews Even today will say that we that they have a certain genius for religion.
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Why? Because if you look at the big face in the world Christianity and Islam both over a billion people
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Is on I think like 1 .4 billion Maybe 1 .1 or 1 .2
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billion claiming to be Christians That's pretty significant Number of people and so the
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Jews like to say look both these other religions are ultimately Descendant from us and so we have a certain genius for religion as it were
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Listen what Culver says he says the Hebrews certainly were tardy in understanding their own religion
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The history and prophecy of their scriptures painfully relate this sad story, and it was consummated how?
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How what was the ultimate? Showing that they didn't understand their own religion
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They crucified their Messiah he says outside of Christianity and Judaism and To a lesser degree
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Islam peoples of the world have been aware of no inconsistency in holding Several religious views at the same time in other words
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Most religions of the world allow you to just add one I remember watching
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I Seen just a bunch of dopey things. I guess in my lifetime. I saw one of the leaders, and it wasn't
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L. Ron Hubbard because he he was disappeared and dead but the leader of Scientology on a
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TV show once and They asked him if it was a religion he said well
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It's more a philosophy in other words you can still be a Christian and a Scientologist Trust me you can't when the more you learn about that one
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But a lot of for a lot of religions around the world is fine. You know you can worship
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Jesus as long as you continue to worship other gods you can worship whoever you want all these other kind of lower religions whether it's animism or Polytheism whatever it's fine.
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Just add Jesus into your pantheon of gods, and that's fine now.
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Let's see What do you suppose ultimately there be? What is the ultimate outcome of a polytheistic worldview?
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In other words not just in terms of culture, but in terms of how you understand the world around you if you believe for example that Certain gods are at war with other gods then and that explains some of the things that you see around you then
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What do you wind up with a world of order or a world of chaos a? world of chaos
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You know where maybe? Certain gods don't cooperate with other ones so you might get
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Too much rain and not enough crops or you might wind up with Certain diseases and all these other things that can be blamed on certain gods not behaving rightly
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And you would wind up with an order of chaos whereas or a world of chaos whereas if you have one
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God Who is in control of all things and what do you have a? world of order
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Culver notes that the upper classes of literate people were particularly exposed to the new conditions of The Greek Civilizing influence
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Roman Empire everything like that and That among them among these upper classes faith in the polytheistic deities declined in other words
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All these superstitions everything were kind of left behind He says concluding here.
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He says consider the unlikelihood of the contrary development of history the growth of civilization education and mental culture toward a climax in Polytheism or animism is very unlikely in other words the idea that somehow we would go
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Let's see from or let's put it this way from launching something that lands on the moon
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To having a space station roam around you know the earth for years and years and years and that we would go from Christianity down to Animism is not very likely what has to happen and we see it in the
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Bible what happened they went from worshipping one God, right? Adam and Eve walked and talked with God Then what happened the fall they get kicked out, and then even still there there aren't
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That we see depicted in the Bible many competing religions until what happens
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What's that well he sends his son
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Jesus, but what happens that really kind of splits people up the memory of God is lost
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I mean we see if we follow Genesis chapter by chapter by chapter We would see you know like what happens when
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Cain kills Abel God shows up and Basically says hey
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Where's your brother Abel? What's going on? All right, and as time goes on we see less it direct interaction with people and God and then we get to the
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Tower of Babel and Languages are confused the people are split up why because they tried to Reach up to God in their own way and when that happens we see a real devolvement of culture and a multitude of False gods rise up So I think in part it has to do with that with that kind of culture and the language breakup and all that I forget exactly where I was gonna go so let's just put this this way just think about how
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God works in history We talked about Alexander the
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Great. What was the greatest achievement of Alexander the Great? Conquering you know and I used to think how great it would be to be
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Alexander the Great I mean he started very young and by 33. He basically conquered the known world
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Awesome, you know and then he dies. Here's his that here's his real problem Or not his problem.
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Here's his greatest contribution to the world Was the spreading of Greek language and Greek culture
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Because when Christ and the disciples come along in a very small unimportant area of the world
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It's the universality of the Greek language That allows for I mean obviously that's humanly speaking
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Divinely, it's the work of the Holy Spirit working through these men these fallen vessels the disciples who you know go from being
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Complete knuckleheads who can't really even follow Jesus to being just brave Devout preachers
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But humanly speaking It's the Greek culture. It's the universality of it the universality of the
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Greek language that allows a book written in Jerusalem or in Patmos or wherever to go everywhere in the known world and to be understood and It and that is what furthers the gospel
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When we think about that it's it's just amazing because it's so pervasive that in spite of the fact that the
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Romans come along later and You know, they have their own language and everything else But Greek is so universal that it really doesn't get messed with and so it's that universality language that Alexander gave us and then the relative peace of the
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Roman Empire also It allows it causes them to build roads to connect things and all this so God works in his
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Providence Through the sinful actions of men like Alexander the Great the
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Roman Empire To bring about the spread of the gospel in ways that no one could have possibly expected no human being could have possibly expected
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Anyway, we need to close here but I I just wanted to say it's just remarkable when we think about the
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Providence of God in doing these things and bringing these things about and taking Cultures that otherwise would not have known the gospel and spreading it by virtue of the sinful acts of men.
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Let's pray Father in heaven, you're a great God unlike all the other
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So -called gods who do not exist Who can neither speak nor can they act?
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Nor can they think because they are carved By the hands of man, they are manufactured gods.
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They have absolutely no power whatsoever But God you have created all things you sustain all things you order all things
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You bring all things to pass exactly as you would have them to be whether it's
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Alexander the Great For his own sinful desires Conquering the world and thereby bringing
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Greek culture with it or whether it's the Roman Emperors who were sinful in their own way
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Lord you use them all to bring about The preaching of the gospel the spread of the gospel
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Not by the point of a sword But at the point of a sword men and women dying for the faith proclaiming
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Christ and Working through your Holy Spirit to spread the truth and to convict of sin and to bring literally billions of people to the truth
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Father you are the only God who exists Even though the heart of sinful men rebels against you and creates his own gods
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Lord we worship you we praise you and we just pray that you would be with us the rest of this day as we worship You in Christ's name.