25-0129wc Transcript

Teacher: Scott Reynolds

(0:04) Okay, last time we started Lesson 3, the first lesson was, what is truth? (0:15) We started off with a word that Del Tackett, the guy in charge of the Truth Project, (0:26) created a word, Veritology, based on Veritas, which is truth, and the study of, -ology, (0:34) study of truth, because of all the scripture that’s in the Bible that talks about how important (0:43) the truth is to Christianity. In fact, Christ said to Pilate, when Pilate was questioning him (0:53) just before his crucifixion, whether he was a king or not, and Jesus told him the reason why he came (1:01) was to testify to the truth. And we went and looked at that.

The second lesson was (1:08) philosophy and ethics, and being contrasted with the naturalistic view. The natural view (1:20) of man, the worldly view, is that there is no supernatural. There’s only (1:30) what we can see with our senses, what we can observe, what we can hear, you know, (1:36) the physical world.

And now we’re on number three, anthropology, what is man, or who is man, (1:44) actually. And in this, I like Del Tackett and his studies, because he does a superb job (1:56) of defining and showing us exactly what the world’s thinking, what their philosophy is. (2:08) And then looking at the world from their perspective, it makes sense, all the (2:18) silly things we see going on.

And being contrasted, then, in the truth project, (2:28) with the perspective of the world from God’s point of view, the biblical worldview. (2:37) But Del is Protestant. He’s from the Reformation movement, and we’re from the Restoration.

(2:49) The Reformation started to reform a church that had fallen away, a church that had a lot of error (3:03) over a couple thousand years, nearly, had produced a lot of error in their practices (3:12) of concerning Christianity. And starting then with Martin Luther, (3:21) protesting against the corruption and error that he saw, began to reform a fallen church, (3:32) the Catholicism is a fallen church. It’s not the first century church.

It’s (3:43) 1500 years by the time Martin Luther shows up, away from the first century church, (3:50) and all the error that can creep in, in a thousand and a half years. (3:58) So when you start from error and you try to reform, what do you reform? And so it’s not surprising (4:05) that the Protestants still have error in their teachings, because they started from error, (4:14) and that’s why the Restoration movement even came about, seeing that the Reformation wasn’t working, (4:21) that they had started to come back towards the first century church, but then they became, (4:34) they kind of stopped. And so they started practicing a hybrid in between the error church (4:42) and the true church.

So the Restoration movement, which is where the churches of Christ came from, (4:52) is throwing out all of that, and starting only with the Scripture to determine what it is that (5:03) we believe, and what God wants us to do. So we are restoring from scratch, from the Scripture, (5:14) of Christianity. So when, in the third lesson, talking about what is man, anthropology, (5:26) Dell started talking about our sinful nature.

And I don’t know if you know what that means. (5:37) If it means, and API, Apologetics Press, has a great article on Calvinism, and Calvinism, (5:48) part of that is the depravity of man. And that is, we are in a fallen state, and if you remember (6:00) from the first session that we viewed, Dell was talking about the different states of man, (6:07) and we’re in a fallen state.

And what they mean by that is, is that we are predisposed to sin (6:17) when we’re born. We’re not born innocent. We’re born predisposed to sin, (6:26) which is not a biblical teaching.

It’s a Catholic teaching, and it’s one that the (6:36) Reformation inherited from a fallen church, and never quite very well rectified. (6:47) So starting from scratch, there is no, we don’t inherit sin from Adam. (7:00) What we inherit is a fallen world, a world that has consequences because of the sin, (7:08) but we inherit death because we all sin, and the wages of sin is death, we’re told in Romans.

(7:21) So I will be speaking, I’ve been thinking about bringing up a sermon (7:28) the next Sunday night that I have, since the Sunday night crowd is the Wednesday night, (7:36) which is now the Truth Project class. I’ve been thinking about bringing up (7:42) what Calvinism is, so we can identify what the Protestants think, so when we see it in the videos, (7:52) we’ll recognize what it is, and we’ll be able to understand where they’re coming from, (8:03) and in essence, what the Bible really says about that. And Ezekiel, you don’t inherit (8:12) your father’s sin.

The one who sins dies, not because your father sinned, (8:22) but that’s what they’re trying to say with sinful nature, and the NIV, at least some (8:27) older translations of the NIV, used that term when it said our fleshly nature, it said sinful (8:36) nature. And if you remember from our study on the realm of faith and the realm of sight, (8:48) the realm of sight is spiritual, and that’s where the heaven of heavens is, where God resides, (8:55) and Hebrews chapter 1 said that God made his angels spirits, so they’re spiritual, (9:04) living in the spiritual realm, they walk by sight, and they’re not offered redemption. (9:11) Now, contrast that with the fleshly realm, or the natural realm, and the natural realm (9:20) does not walk by sight.

The spiritual realm is hidden from us. We only know about it (9:30) because God revealed that to us through his scriptures. That’s the only way we know that (9:37) it exists, and that’s why the natural realm, the natural man doesn’t believe in it because he can’t (9:46) see it with the sensors of the natural realm.

The sensors we have are tuned to the natural realm, (9:54) and we cannot see the spiritual realm unless God allows us, which he did for Balaam, (10:01) he did for a couple people, showed them the spiritual realm briefly so that they knew it (10:09) actually existed, but that whole point there between walking by faith and walking by sight, (10:15) is if you, like the angels, have seen God, they were created, according to Job, (10:26) before the creation of the natural realm, because they witnessed the creation of the natural realm, (10:34) and when they did, when they saw God work his works, they rejoiced, and they sang (10:44) and worshiped God, so he brought them into being just before he brings the natural realm (10:54) into being to allow them to view that process happening and see him, and they communicate with (11:03) him. Job chapter 1 talks about the angels presenting themselves to God and talking back (11:10) and forth, and even Satan himself presented himself to God after he’s fallen, and that’s (11:17) what Job’s all about, is this conversation between God and Satan, and God allowing Satan to tempt (11:26) Job, so the natural, the supernatural, the spiritual realm, which is supernatural, (11:35) supernatural is above nature, we’re the natural realm, the spiritual realm is supernatural, (11:43) it’s beyond the natural, so the, where was I headed with that? I forget. (11:58) Well, you get the point.

(12:04) What? Oh, the spiritual is not offered redemption, and because we walk by faith, (12:15) because God has hidden that realm from us, he allows us, he offers us the opportunity of being (12:25) redeemed, because once we leave this realm and enter the spiritual realm, that offer is no longer (12:34) extended. We are only offered redemption while we exist in the natural realm. The moment we enter (12:46) the spiritual realm, we now, we no longer walk by faith, now we walk by sight, because we’re in (12:54) that realm, we are, part of us is spiritual, and that spiritual part enters the spiritual realm, (13:01) and at that point, we’ll see God as he is, and we no longer have the opportunity for redemption.

(13:12) That’s why you can’t pray somebody’s saved that’s already dead. They’re in the spiritual realm, (13:23) he didn’t, God did not offer those in the spiritual realm redemption when they sinned. (13:29) Why would he offer us redemption when we enter the spiritual realm if we haven’t acted on that? (13:37) When it’s a matter of faith, when it’s a matter of sight, why would he offer us (13:42) redemption when he didn’t offer that to those in the spiritual realm? Okay, so all that said, (13:51) we need to be careful with some of the stuff that Del’s saying.

We’ll work that through at some (14:00) point in the next lesson, lesson four. He’s going to talk about theology, what is God, (14:09) or who is God actually, and that’s even more so steeped in Calvinism. So that’s why it’s going (14:18) to be important for us to have some idea where they’re coming from, what they base their views (14:24) on, and they base their views on men after the Scriptures, extra-biblical people, or where they (14:37) base their views on, who have certain interpretations of what the Scriptures say, (14:44) just like the Jews had their traditions of what the Scriptures said, and they valued those as (14:53) high or higher than the Scripture, so does man in the Reformation, and other men, too.

Okay. (15:04) Now, the video. Okay, so that’s the video.

The only thing I have to add to this would be, (15:18) reminded me, especially there at the end, that the natural man in chapter 8 of Romans (15:26) contrasts the spiritual man with not the sinful nature man, but the fleshly nature man, (15:32) and what’s the difference? The flesh is the natural man. If all we know is this natural world, (15:41) and as a result, man becomes the epicenter of our life, we become, it’s all about us, (15:50) and now it’s what I can do for me. The fleshly man doesn’t view the spiritual, and he can’t, (16:00) it says there in Romans 8, so that’s the contrast.

If we only recognize our fleshness, (16:09) that we are only natural, and we don’t have a spirit, then that’s what causes us to (16:18) then become degraded, and we start a regression, where we become more and more selfish. (16:27) You can’t be concerned about someone else if you’re always thinking about yourself. (16:33) It just doesn’t work, so it reminds me of what Jesus said in Matthew 10 39, and he says, (16:42) he who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.

(16:51) So another way to say that is be transformed from the world’s thinking through the renewing of our (16:58) mind, and in chapter 8 again of Romans, then be conformed to the image of Christ. That’s what’s (17:08) going to give us purpose. We are not in a chaotic universe.

This has been created by God for his (17:19) purpose, and we’re part of that, so we have a purpose, and we don’t have a righteousness of our (17:28) own, which again Romans talks about. We have righteousness only because God gives us righteousness, (17:36) so if we are exalt ourselves to find our self, we’ll lose it. That’s not where we’ll find (17:47) happiness.

That’s not where we’ll find satisfaction. It’s when we lose our life to God, (17:57) and that’s when we’ll find satisfaction. Okay, so that’s what I have.

Let’s close with a prayer. (18:07) Holy Father, thank you for this day, for all the ways you’ve blessed us. We pray that you continue (18:12) to be with us.

Help us to think about these things, that we may look to your Word to see (18:19) how we can be transformed from the world’s thinking. Help us to understand what the world (18:26) thinks and what their philosophies are, that we may not be taken captive by them, that we (18:33) may understand the lives that they are preaching. So by learning your truth, (18:41) and Father, we pray then that you’ll help us to help others also.

Be with us. (18:48) In Jesus' name we pray it. Amen.