The Influence of Worldview

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Amen, and if you would open your Bibles and turn with me to the 14th chapter of Acts.
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Acts chapter 14, and make your way to verse 8.
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When we get to our time of Scripture reading, that's where we will begin.
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The title of today's message is, The Influence of Worldview.
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It is hard to overemphasize the value of a personal worldview.
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Now, what is a worldview? Well, the definition of worldview is, the overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
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It is a collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.
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It is what the Germans call Weltanschlag.
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Weltanschlag, the philosophy of life.
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A comprehensive view of humanity, life, and the world around us.
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That is our worldview.
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Everybody has one.
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Everyone has a philosophy of life.
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Sometimes a person can have a very simple worldview, almost a naive worldview.
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You ever met somebody with a naive worldview? I know I have.
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Just go on Twitter, you can find one in five minutes.
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Other times, a person can have a very complex and comprehensive worldview.
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And worldviews are influenced essentially by five elements.
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An explanation of the past, where did we come from? An explanation of the future, where are we going? An explanation of values or ethics, why should we do the things that we do? An explanation of our actions, how should we do the things that we do? And finally, an explanation of truth.
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How do we know what is right and wrong? That is sometimes called epistemology.
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How do we know what is and is not truth? And those things make up what we would typically call our worldview.
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Every weekday on the internet, there is a program called The Briefing.
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I have encouraged you in the past to listen to The Briefing.
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It is by Al Mohler, the president of Southern Seminary.
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And on The Briefing, he tags it as news and events from a Christian worldview.
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Now, having said that, I want to just point out that a Christian worldview is one of many.
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There are many worldviews that exist.
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Atheism is a worldview.
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It is a lens through which they see everything.
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Secularism is a worldview.
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Socialism is a worldview.
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It is more than just a political view, it is a worldview.
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Environmentalism is a worldview.
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Nationalism is a worldview.
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Racism is a worldview.
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Terrorism is a worldview.
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Think about what just happened with these men who are willing to take hundreds of innocent people, and by innocent I mean by virtue of the fact that they were not soldiers, neither were they criminals in the sense of having broken man's law to the point of being imprisoned.
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I don't mean they are innocent of sin.
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Just make sure we understand when I say someone is innocent.
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They are not innocent of sin, but they are certainly not guilty of a punishment, crime, due death, as far as man's laws are concerned.
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Neither are they soldiers on a battlefield having taken up arms against other soldiers.
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These are people watching a sporting event taken hostage and killed systematically.
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Why? Because of the worldview, the lens through which the men who perpetrated such an act see everything around them.
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They see it through that terroristic worldview.
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Very important.
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Our worldview is the lens, as I said, through which we interpret everything.
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The most basic of worldviews, by the way, is naturalism and supernaturalism.
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I only say this because it's going to lead us in our message today, but also I had to deal with this this week.
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My wife had a person ask a question.
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And she said, well, how do you answer when somebody says this question? And the question was, why do you believe the Bible? It talks about a talking snake and a talking donkey and a guy who took a ride and a fish.
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Right? This was the argument from the person.
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And this was my response.
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And I hope this is helpful to you because maybe one day you'll have somebody ask you that question.
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Or maybe you've asked that question yourself.
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It's hard to believe a book that talks about a talking snake, a talking donkey, and a guy who took a ride, and a fish.
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And here's my response.
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It's very simple.
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If you have a naturalistic worldview, then the Bible will not satisfy you.
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What does that mean? If you believe that God is bound by nature and that everything in nature is the highest authority over all things, then when you come to a talking snake and you know snakes don't normally talk, that supernatural thing will blow your mind.
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If you come to a talking donkey and you say, normally, hey buddy, you see a talking snake or a talking donkey, and what happens? It blows your mind.
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But then, if you take a step back and you say, God created this world, and there is nothing outside of Him that is impossible, there is nothing that God cannot do or cause to happen, and so when I see a talking snake or a talking donkey or a guy who takes a ride and a fish, I've got to remember, I believe in the supernatural.
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Duh! And the problem that you're having is not that you don't believe a snake could talk, because if science proved that a snake could talk, you'd be fine with that.
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The problem is, science is your God, not God.
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That's the problem.
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It's not that snakes talking is a problem for you, because if tomorrow all the snakes in the world started talking and there was a scientific reason for it, you'd say, well, that's just the way it's supposed to be.
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You wouldn't have any problem with it.
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Your problem is with supernaturalism.
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You have a naturalistic worldview.
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And you see how the worldview influences everything.
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Now, why am I talking? I'm talking about all this because Paul and Barnabas, in our lesson today, they're going into a city called Lystra.
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And in Lystra, they were influenced by the pagan Greek mythology, what we would call mythology, but they wouldn't call it mythology.
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They would call it their religion.
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And they were influenced by the worldview of this pantheon of Greek gods.
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And as a result, that clouded their willingness to receive the preaching of the apostles.
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So, Paul responds to them by rebuking them, but instead of receiving his rebuke, they continue on in their rebellion.
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So let's read the text, and then we'll break it down.
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I invite everyone to stand to give honor and reverence to the Word of God as we read verses 8 through 18.
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It says in verse 8, Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet.
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He was crippled from birth and had never walked.
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He listened to Paul speaking, and Paul, looking intently at him, seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, Stand up, right on your feet.
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And he sprang up and began walking.
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And when the crowd saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.
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Barnabas they called, Zeus, and Paul Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.
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And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds.
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But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like nature with you, and we bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
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In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways, yet he did not leave them without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruit and season, satisfying your heart with food and gladness.
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Even with these words, verse 18, they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the opportunity to study it today.
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I pray that you would keep me from error, as I am the mouthpiece today.
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And I pray that your Holy Spirit would fill me and speak through me, for I know that if the Holy Spirit does not speak, then the word of God is of no effect, for the Holy Spirit is the one who applies it to the heart.
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And we know the word of God never returns void, so we trust the Holy Spirit to do his work today.
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And I pray that you would open the hearts of your people to a better understanding of your word.
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And I pray that you would break the hearts of the unbelieving, convert their hearts, remove the heart of stone and replace it with the heart of flesh, that they might be converted today through the preaching of your word.
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For all these things, Lord, we give you glory, honor, and praise.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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We have been studying through Acts together.
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And in our last session, we saw Paul and Barnabas preaching at Iconium.
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They divided the city.
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If you remember, I said the Gospel brings division.
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The Gospel is a sword that divides people.
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Well, they divided the people of Iconium, and they were marked for assassination as a result.
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The people wanted to drag them out of the city and stone them.
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So they left there.
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Not because they were cowards, but because they wanted to move on to other areas to bring the Gospel.
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In fact, they're going to go back through Iconium.
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Paul is going to be stoned in this chapter, and we'll see that in the weeks to come.
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He's not fearful of death.
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He wants to preach the Gospel, so he moves on to preach the Gospel.
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And they come to a place called Lystra, Lystra, which is in Lycaonia.
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And they find themselves facing a man who has a debilitating disease in his feet.
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We see this in verse 8.
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It says, Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet.
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Adunatos is the Greek.
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Dunatos is the word for power or strength.
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It's where eventually the word dynamite would come from.
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So the idea of power is where we hear the word dunatos.
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And so, adunatos means he was without that.
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Every one of us knows what power in your feet means.
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It means you have the power to get up and walk around.
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Well, he didn't have that.
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If the King James Version says his feet were impotent, he just didn't have the strength.
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He was what other places in the Bible would use the word lame.
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He was lame in his feet.
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This is an important passage, by the way, because it reminds us of the Messianic promise that accompanied the ministry of Jesus Christ.
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Because in Isaiah 35, it tells us that the lame will leap.
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That the lame won't just be able to walk, but he will be like a deer, jumping and leaping.
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And that's what we're seeing here.
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This man couldn't use his feet.
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And it says he was crippled from birth.
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He had never walked.
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Verse 9 says he listened to Paul speaking.
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And Paul looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well.
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I don't know what the man did to identify to Paul that he had faith.
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Maybe it was a look.
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Maybe Paul was supernaturally given some type of insight into this man's life.
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Because I've got to be honest with you, as a preacher, I look out at you all, I don't know who has faith and who doesn't.
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And some of you grin and smile and shake your head.
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Don't stop doing that.
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I'm saying some of you do this and your heart's going this way.
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So I don't always know.
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But somehow, Paul is given an insight, some type of supernatural insight to know that this man has faith to be made well.
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He has faith and trust that God can save him from his disability.
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And verse 10 says, Paul said in a loud voice, stand upright on your feet.
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And he sprang up.
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He literally jumped up to his feet and began walking.
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It's a miracle.
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It's a miracle in two ways really.
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Because if you think about it, the miracle first is that his feet were made well.
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But it's also a cognitive miracle.
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Because even though a man who has been lame in his feet is given the ability to stand up, it doesn't mean he knows how to walk.
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Because that's a cognitive thing.
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That's a mental thing.
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How many of you, as children, you had to learn how to walk? I think we all did.
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I don't think any of us just sprang up and started going.
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You had to take steps to walk.
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You know what walking is? Walking is falling with control.
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You fall, you stop yourself.
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You fall, you stop yourself.
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And eventually you get pretty good at it.
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But all it is, is pushing yourself off balance and catching yourself.
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It's actually a pretty big deal.
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Walking, that's bipedal organisms, is what we're called.
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Because we have two legs.
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You know why bipedal is such a big deal? Because that takes a lot of cognitive thought.
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It takes a lot to walk on two legs.
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The animals who do that really are doing something pretty miraculous.
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Most animals don't.
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Most animals need all four.
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Touching the ground.
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We're able to do it with two.
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And this guy is able to do it having never done it before.
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He was born lame.
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His feet never worked.
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He's jumping up and sprinting like a deer.
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This is a huge miracle.
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By the way, it's a picture of the Gospel.
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Don't ever forget that.
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And this isn't the point of the message today, but I would be remiss if I didn't say it.
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When you hear the preaching of the Gospel, and you receive it in faith, it is because God does a miracle in your heart.
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Because you would not be able to receive it if that miracle wasn't done.
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And the same way this man would not have been able to stand up and run on his new legs, you would not be able to receive Christ in faith if God were not to take out your heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh.
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This is a picture of the Gospel.
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God does a miracle at the preaching of His Word, and we see the change happen.
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Wouldn't it have been foolish had Paul said, stand up and walk, the guy's feet are fixed, his mind is fixed, but yet he stayed laying down and said, no, I'll just stay here.
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That would be dumb, wouldn't it? We'd all be like, what? That's a picture of that thing that we call irresistible grace or effectual calling.
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When God changes the heart, the natural response is what? Come.
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Lazarus in the tomb.
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Jesus says, Lazarus, come forth.
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What if Lazarus said, no, I'm good in here.
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Wouldn't that be dumb? It's a picture of irresistible grace.
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It's a picture of effectual calling.
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God saves the person.
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He regenerates the heart.
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What do they do? They come to Christ.
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It's the natural result of the miracle of regeneration.
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In the same way, running is the natural result of a man whose lame feet are restored.
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Faith is the natural result of a heart that's been regenerated.
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It's just the natural response.
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So as I said, I kind of got off topic there, but I can't stop.
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I've got to reference the Gospel.
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That's what we're here about.
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And this is a picture of the Gospel here.
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He never walked.
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God does a miracle, and now he's able to walk.
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And no one in town missed it.
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No one in town missed the conspicuous nature of this miracle.
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And it led to inappropriate, confused worship.
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We see in verse 11, and the crowd saw what Paul had done.
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They didn't have any doubt that he did it.
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So they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, which is their native language.
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By the way, the text does not indicate that Paul knows this language.
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Paul would have been speaking the common language of the day, which was what? Koine, Greek.
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Common Greek.
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That's a language everyone would have spoken.
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But in this instance, they say it in their language.
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I think the point of the text is that they're saying, hey, the gods are here.
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We need to deal with this.
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And they're not letting on to Paul and Barnabas what's happening.
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It says, the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.
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Barnabas they call Zeus.
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If you have a King James Version, it says Jupiter.
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The reason why, that's the Roman name of the Greek god Zeus.
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And Hermes is the speaker of the gods, or the communicator of the gods, where we get the word hermeneutics.
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In our study of the Bible, the communication of the word of God is called hermeneutics.
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It comes from the word Hermes.
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If you have a King James Version, it says Mercury, because that's the name of the Roman god Hermes.
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It's Mercury, or Mercurius.
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So the priest of Zeus, by the way, they called Paul that because he was the one that was speaking.
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He was the mouthpiece, so he gets the name Hermes.
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He's the speaker, the announcer.
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They called Barnabas Zeus, the biggest of the gods.
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It's kind of interesting they would call one one and one the other.
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And the priest of Zeus, verse 13, whose temple was at the entrance of the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gate, and they wanted to offer sacrifice to the crowds.
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Did anybody hear that? Is it over here? Okay.
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They want to offer something to the crowds.
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Or rather, the crowds want to offer sacrifice to the apostles.
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Now, I want to kind of share with you why I think this is happening.
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Because this is important.
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I think there's a reason for this.
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There was a story that was going around at this time in history about a visitation from Zeus and Hermes that apparently had been done before.
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The people of Lystra, Lycaonia, believed that they had been visited once before.
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The idea was that Zeus and Hermes had come, they had visited them, and a couple named Philemon, and that's not the Philemon of the Bible, but Philemon and Bacchus, had received them into their homes even though they were dressed as beggars.
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This is a Greek myth, but it's important because I think it has reference to the story here.
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These two gods had come to the city.
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They had been dressed as homeless men.
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The rest of the city left them.
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They didn't want anything to do with them, but Philemon and Bacchus invited them into their home, and so the gods, Zeus and Hermes, said, you know what? We're going to bless you, but we're going to punish everybody else.
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So they take the two out of the city, take them up on a high mountain, and then they flood the village.
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And then they turn their house, the house of Bacchus and Philemon, into a temple, and Bacchus and Philemon become trees in the temple.
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They become eternal living trees.
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It's Greek mythology.
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It's a little weird.
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But here's the point.
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If you grew up believing that, if you grew up believing that that had happened, and that was your religion, and here comes two old boys with powers, enough to see a man rise, you might think, hey, they're back! And we don't want to mess up again.
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We don't want to do the same thing we did last time they got mad, and they flooded the whole place.
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So we want to make sure this time we get it right.
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So it makes sense, at least in a sense, as to why they say we've got to worship these guys.
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We've got to bring them all of our best, and we've got to sacrifice to them.
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This is Jupiter and Mercury.
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This is Zeus and Hermes.
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It's our gods.
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They've come to us.
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We've got to worship them.
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So at least we understand the worldview that they're starting with, right? This is where the situation gets interesting because verse 14 tells us, but when Paul and Barnabas heard of it, they tore their garments.
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By the way, the tearing of the garment is simply a sign of being dissatisfied with something, being offended by something.
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If you remember when Jesus was before the Sanhedrin and He announced Himself coming with the clouds of heaven, what did they do? They tore their clothing because that was a sign of blasphemy, it was a sign of something bad had happened.
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So Paul and Barnabas, they run to the crowd, they tear their garments, they rushed in and they cried out, men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions, as King James says, it means of like nature.
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We're just like you.
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We're not gods.
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We bring you good news, the gospel here.
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We bring you the gospel that you should turn from these vain things.
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What vain things? This belief that you have.
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This belief that you have about the pantheon of gods.
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I'm calling you to repentance from your world view.
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I'm calling you to repentance from your bad religion, your bad theology.
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I'm calling you to the true and living God.
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And then he goes on to say, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
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And in verse 16 and 17, he addresses them from natural theology.
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He says, in past generations, He that is God allowed all nations to walk in their own ways, yet He did not leave for Himself without witness, for He did good by giving you rains from heaven, fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.
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Now what's Paul doing there? He's saying, look, I come to you as a representative of God, not as God myself.
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And I come to you to bear witness to God, not to be God.
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And I'm coming to preach to you a very simple message.
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This God has already been good to you, so good that you should have already repented of this nonsense and followed Him.
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But now He's giving you a messenger.
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I'm the messenger.
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I'm not the God.
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Now you would think, He's healed somebody.
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They're willing to worship Him.
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He says, no, don't worship Me.
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Worship the One who sent Me.
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You'd think everyone would have stopped and said, okay, you tell us not to worship you.
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You tell us to worship the One who sent you.
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We're all going to put away this nonsense and we're going to worship the One who sent you.
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Now you'd think that's how it'd go.
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That seems logical, right? If I'm worshiping you, and you tell me to stop, but worship the One who sent you, that's logical, right? Because worship has in its nature obedience, right? If you're telling me not to do something and I'm worshiping you, there should be obedience attached to that worship.
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But there's not.
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Look at verse 18.
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Even with these words.
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What words? Even with a call to repentance from the people that they thought were gods, they scarcely restrained the people from sacrificing to them.
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Think about that.
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You ever heard the phrase, old habits die hard? Well, the truth is, worldview is even harder to kill.
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Even though the very men they were worshiping said, Stop! They continued anyway.
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As I was thinking about the message this week, I thought, this is proof that most men do not worship what they think they do.
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If they really worshiped Paul and Barnabas, they would have obeyed Paul and Barnabas.
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But they didn't really worship Paul and Barnabas.
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They were actually worshiping their own vain opinions and their own decisions.
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That's true of the church today.
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God tells us to do something.
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What do we do? We run it through the filter of our opinion and our decision.
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And if we agree, we do it.
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But if we don't, what do we say? Well, God didn't really mean that.
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Or that doesn't apply to me.
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Or that verse of Scripture is only for 2,000 years ago.
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It's certainly not for today.
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There's a story about a man whose father owned a great deal of property.
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And the father said, Son, come, I want to talk to you about something.
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I want you to sell a portion of my property and I want you to take that money and I want you to put it into an estate for your mother.
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Because if I die, I want your mother to be taken care of.
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So I want you to take this money and put it into an estate.
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So the son said, That's a good idea.
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I think mom should be taken care of.
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I agree with you.
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So he sold the property, took the money, put it into an estate for the mother.
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A couple of months later, the father says, Son, come to me, I have another request of you.
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And he comes.
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And the father says, I need you to take some money or take some land and sell it and put it in an estate for your children.
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Because I want to make sure that my grandchildren receive a good inheritance upon my death.
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And the son said, I love that idea.
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Fantastic, dad.
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You're not only taking care of my mother, you're taking care of my children.
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And I'm very thankful and I'm glad to do it.
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Third time, the father calls, Son, come to me.
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He said, We have stock in a very large company.
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And even though I know that that stock is going to go up, I don't want to be involved with this company anymore.
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They've done something that's violated my conscience.
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I don't want to be involved with them anymore.
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Would you sell this stock? And the son says, Yeah.
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And as he leaves, he thinks about the situation and he says, Dad doesn't realize it, but this stock is about to go sky high.
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He's given up a lot of money on conscience and I don't have the same conscience or objection.
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I'm going to go ahead and leave the money in there at least until the stock goes as high as it can.
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And I'm going to let that happen.
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Now I'm going to ask you a question.
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I'm going to ask for a response.
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I normally don't do this from the congregation.
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I'm going to ask for a response.
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How many times did the son submit to the will of his father? The answer is zero.
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You say, but wait a minute.
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He did what his father said the first time.
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He did what his father did the second time.
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He only did it because he agreed with it.
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That is not submission to anyone but self.
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If you only do that which you agree with, you are only submitting to yourself.
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God calls us to absolute submission to Him.
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You see, that's where Paul and Barnabas are with these people.
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They have called them gods, but they're not submitting to them.
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Where are you? Do you submit to God or do you submit only to self? As we consider this text, I want to make some application from this passage.
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I think that was already the first point of application.
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That didn't make it into the outline though.
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I want us to look at this text.
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I want us to think about some things that we see here.
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There are three notes in your worship folder.
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Three things, three points of application for you to consider.
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Number one, God's existence is clearly seen by all men.
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Everybody agree? Amen? The Bible says that.
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If you want to put some notes on a piece of paper, God has placed an innate knowledge of Himself in our hearts.
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Romans 1 verse 19, For what can be known about God is plain to them, that's all men, because God has shown it to them.
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No doubt.
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Everybody in the world knows that God exists.
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And Romans 2 verse 15 says that the law is written on their hearts.
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Verse 15 rather, says the law is written on their hearts.
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So not only do they know God, they have His law written on their hearts.
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The moral law of God, the standard moral law of God, this is why you don't have to convince men it's wrong to lie, it's wrong to steal, they know it because the law is written on their hearts.
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This is something that is perceived by all men.
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This is why you'll never meet an atheist.
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You'll meet people that say they're atheists, but all a man who is an atheist is is a person who is suppressing a truth he knows.
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Because the knowledge has been placed there by God.
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Number two, we know God's existence is perceived by all men.
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Number two, men have a warped world view because they suppress the truth.
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Now you say, you're not really getting this from this text.
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I'm comparing this with Romans 1.
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Just in your mind, think about Romans 1.
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The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men who by their unrighteousness do what? Suppress the truth.
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I'm getting back to Acts 14, I promise.
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I'm building a theory here.
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Not a theory, but I'm building an outline here.
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Because God's existence is perceived by all men.
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We know this in Romans 1.
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And Paul assumes this when he's talking to them in Acts 14.
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He says, God gave you the rain from heaven.
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He's given you all these good things.
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You know this.
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He's speaking as a man who's assuming Romans 1 is true.
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But the warped world view of men suppress the truth and this is number 3 and this is getting back to Acts 14.
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Our world view must be open to correction.
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You see, the people of Lystra were not willing to be corrected.
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And as a result, they remained in their paganism even after seeing the almighty hand of God work a miracle in their midst.
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Even after they called these men gods and they wanted to submit to them, but they wouldn't submit to them.
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They submitted to self.
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And what did they do? They continued in their paganism even after seeing the miracle and even after being instructed in righteousness.
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They continued in their sin.
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Why? Because they were not open to correction.
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If you call yourself a Christian, I'm going to say this.
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I want you to hear this.
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If you call yourself a Christian, but you don't live differently, if your life isn't changed, if your world view isn't different from before you became a Christian, I don't believe your confession.
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If you have never been corrected by the Gospel, you've never come to Christ.
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You might say, well, I grew up in a Christian home.
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I already had a Christian world view.
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No.
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You might have had a very Americanized world view.
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You might have had a very Christian secularism going on.
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But unless you've had your life changed, your mind changed by the Gospel, you have not come to Christ.
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And by the way, if you have come to Christ, you should still be open to correction because ain't none of you arrived yet.
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Maybe I should say that different.
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Ain't none of us arrived yet.
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If you think you are above correction, you are sorely mistaken.
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The goal of discipleship is what? That you be conformed to the image of whom? Jesus Christ.
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Why do you need to be conformed to Christ? Because you ain't yet.
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And you must be open to correction.
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The people of Lystra were not open to correction.
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Even though they received a solid rebuke from the men of God, people they said were gods, they would not listen.
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And this would lead ultimately to an even worse error because next week we're going to see it's the same group of people that called them gods that stoned Paul.
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As Christians, we do not behave like the pagans.
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They spurned correction.
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They ignored warnings.
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We need to love correction and heed warnings.
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You know what the Bible says? Write this down.
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Proverbs 12.1 Whoever loves discipline, loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.
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That's the people writing it down and getting excited about writing that.
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Proverbs 12.1 Whoever loves discipline, loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.
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The Bible got real with us today.
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It got real.
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Because that's the truth.
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If we're unwilling to be corrected, then what we're saying is we want to remain in ignorance.
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If we're unwilling to be corrected, we're saying we're happy in our stupidity.
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That's not what we're called to.
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Let me tell you something.
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The problem in the modern church, and I'm going to start drawing to a close now.
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The problem in the modern church is Christians who are devoid of a Christian worldview.
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How can that be? Because they are unwilling to be corrected by Scripture.
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A Christian without a Christian worldview is foolish, but that's what we've got.
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We've got thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who say, I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian.
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You say, well, what do you believe about this? What do you believe about that? Well, I believe the Bible is written by men.
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I believe that the world is a product of a cosmic burp.
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I believe that everything you are is simply a collection of molecules over millions of years.
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I believe all these things that the Bible says is not true.
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Why? Because that's my opinion, and I'm going to worship my vain opinion rather than worshiping the God of Scripture, and that's who I've become.
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I've become an incorrectable soul.
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A person unwilling to receive rebuke, and unwilling to be corrected, and that is not what God has called us to.
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Think about people who claim to be Christian.
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Ask them where they came from.
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They'll say evolution.
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Ask them where they're going.
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They say heaven, just like everybody else, because everybody goes to heaven.
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Ask them where they get their ethics.
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They'll say from their feelings.
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Ask them where they get the reason for their actions.
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They'll say whatever works.
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Pragmatism is king.
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Ask them where they get truth, and they will say from popular opinion.
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And yet, they will say they are Christians devoid of a Christian worldview.
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Why? Because of the unwillingness to be corrected.
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For the Christian, the Bible is not just a list of suggestions.
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It is the Word of God.
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It has been given to us by God.
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And as such, it is the standard.
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It is the fountain out of which our worldview should flow.
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The fountainhead of all truth.
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Do you receive it? Or do you stand in rebellion of it? You will know by the fruit of your life.
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For as Christ says, you will know them by their fruits.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for this text.
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I thank You for the reminder, Lord, of how obstinate we can be as a people and how unwilling to change we can be.
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So God, I pray for a spirit of repentance to overcome this place and a desire to follow after You would overtake us all and that we would no longer only be submissive to our own vain opinions, but that we would be submissive to the Word of God.
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Father, thank You for the truth.
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Thank You for the Gospel of Jesus Christ whereby souls are saved, regenerated by the miracle of regeneration, the new birth.
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We pray, Lord, that today sinners have heard the Gospel and might want to be saved and that believers have heard this call to repentance and would have a desire to be submissive to You.
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In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.