Podcasts about deists

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 31, 2024 33:47

With the fourth word of Genesis, the second inversion arrives. At this rate, I may not get far, because here a long pause is required on this word. “In the beginning, God…” There is no word more argued about, discussed, twisted, bargained over, or rejected than the word God. We all have some idea what it means. But more importantly, what we believe at this top level affects the heart and mind. What we believe about this fourth word of the bible ultimately directs how we live. This acceptance or rejection of God, and what that word means, acts like a compass along the journey of life. Where we end up depends on the compass we use as well. We can have wildly different understandings of it, but let me stop here to address the most common errors: the word God means neither cop nor genie. Many bad understandings regarding God fall into either the cop or the genie category. For some, he is both a genie and a cop. But this inversion suggests to you that he is neither. He is several things that can be asserted with confidence, that is, with faith, which is what the word confidence means:* He is one. He exists. He is first.* He is the sheer act of “being” itself.* He is an all-powerful Creator. * He is a loving father, not a bully, who desires your return.* He is true, good, and beautiful. That is all you need to know for your mental health regarding this inversion. Good night! The end. But clearly more must be said, even though we could (and should) just contemplate all of these in silence. There is much to be said, so starting from the top, this inversion will focus on the oneness of God.He is not many. He is not none. He is one. (Truly, he is three-in-one, but even then he is one. Later inversions will discuss the Trinity.) Genesis is not a shouting match, but it is quietly entering a deadly serious argument at this point. Genesis is in dispute with every other culture and myth in the world. By this fourth word, the first book of Moses sets his belief apart from every culture - literally, every culture - that surrounds him. Before Moses, Abraham believed the same, but Moses and his scribes wrote it down. This is important, because had he not written it down, Jesus would not have said so often, “It is written…” Jesus invokes the written word of Moses and the Prophets rather often, especially to rebuke the devil during the temptations in the wilderness. If you believe Jesus is God, and Jesus quotes what is “written” by Moses and the Prophets, then these words have weight - infinite weight - in how to view the world and, by extension, how we should live our lives. Thus, what we think of God matters greatly in how we view scripture, the world, and the spiritual life. If Jesus is God, and Jesus quotes scripture, and God inspired scripture, then God used human authors to convey his eternal word. This makes for a simple waterfall set of conditions that fall like gravity into place:If Jesus is God… And Jesus quotes scripture as the word of God… Then Jesus inspired the sacred writers… Meaning Jesus authored the scriptures.That was mighty kind of God, in my opinion, to give us the scriptures. Even more kind, he came down to us in the form of man to go ahead and make things more clear to the apostles so they could pass on the tradition and teach us. But this should give you some idea about why we all like to argue about scripture. We argue because we disagree about who or what is God. Further, we argue about how he reveals himself, and to whom. But most of all, we argue because we dislike authority and the Catholic Church believes it has the teaching authority. This is why we argue. Even atheists love to argue about all of this, but they come at scripture wearing a bent pair of glasses, because the word God means something very different if you reject the idea of God. Likewise, you cannot understand the cross of Christ and the resurrection without at least getting the foundational idea of God in place first, not to mention the idea of an ultimate authority in heaven and on earth. Thus, it's no surprise that the “word of God” only makes sense if you believe in the supernatural existence of God. Truly, reading the bible without belief in God is like reading a bike repair manual without believing in bikes. Even if you believe in God, the perception of it leads to wildly different conclusions, which is why we have such wide-ranging belief systems as Islam and Jehovah's Witnesses and thirty-one flavors of Protestant churches. The bible is a difficult read, and this is why the “bible alone” is insufficient as a teaching authority, because we can see with our own eyes how different each group uses that teaching authority.Where we are at in this opening line of the bible is the origin story of all creation. Every culture needs a creation story. Every culture has one, and even atheists have a faith-based creation story. We certainly have our stories about the creation of America, just as the Soviets did (or tried to), or the Italians, or the English, so this should not seem odd to anyone. Comic books have an origin issue. Businesses have foundation narratives. My favorite pie shop, Betty's Pies (“The Best Pies in Minnesota”) has a founding story about Betty. Without a story, we are left stuck in a no-man's-land. We're like the orphan Annie who runs away from Miss Hannigan in search of her real parents. As it turns out, the beginnings of things need a cause, a character, a maker, or doer, or a force. The choices for who lifted the curtain on this grand play called “Creation” come in three sizes: many, one, or none. Also, you cannot mix these - you must pick one, and only one. Genesis declares that the answer is one. And if you think you don't have to choose, you are incorrect. Really, you have already chosen. You may think you have chosen in your mind, but you choose by how you live today and every day. Actions reveal the choice, as Jesus described in the great Parable of the Two Sons. Actions speak louder than words. Every seeker must accept or reject God's oneness. For the seeker, the treasure to be found is the truth, but only one choice is not fool's gold. Every angsty teen, every doubting Thomas, every physicist, every Greek mythologist, every internet atheist, every Christian and Muslim - truly, anyone who is seeking truth must venture into the test of oneness. Genesis is inverting the worldview that accepts the “many gods” and the “no gods” hypotheses. Genesis states that there is one God.This may seem trivial but it's not. Genesis declares a truth that many do not want to be true. And even those who say “Amen” often do not fully understand the implications of what this “oneness” means. Greek myth has a story of creation. The old mythology is a search for the truth, just as astronomy, psychology, and chemistry are also deep investigations into aspects of truth. And we all want the truth, more than anything, except for when we want to do something that requires a different truth. But what is truth? Ah, that is the question. Now we are getting warmer. Hamlet asked the great question of “To be or not to be,” and Hamlet was right. That is indeed the question. He was close to the answer just by using the word “being.” What does it mean “to be”? We are getting warmer still. Pontius Pilate, long before the fictional Hamlet, said it even better when he asked Jesus straight up: “What is truth?” This question of “What is truth?” and “What does it mean to be?” are related. When Moses asks for God's name at the burning bush, God tells him that his name is “I AM”. I found this rather confusing as a child. But just consider what “I AM” means. This is the verb for “to be.” God might have said it another way, as in “I BE.” In fact, that phrase sounds like it could be the name of a modern pop song. “To be” is to have come from God. Being comes from God. Being and truth both come from the simple, beautiful, transcendent oneness of God. God is to be. John Keats said “Beauty is truth,” but God's being and truth go together with beauty. Descartes said “I think, therefore I am,” but thinking is not being. No, God is “to be” and he created us, giving us our being. In any case, it's worth pointing out that Zeus is none of these things: he is not good, true, or beautiful. Zeus is an ugly power-hungry shape-shifting rapist. That is not the God of the bible. This inversion is easy to spot if living in the ancient world. Today, we have different versions of the pagan gods, but they are still around. They have moved into other forms, such as honor, wealth, pleasure, and power - but rest assured, for every god of the ancients, we worship strange versions of it now. More important, however, is the subtle inversion regarding Zeus and every other contender god. None of the other gods are the act of “being.” Again, God's name is “I AM.” In most stories about Zeus, he shifts into the shape of a swan or a bull, so he could say the opposite: “I am who I am not.” This is exactly what the shape-shifting devil presents to Eve: a lie. Once again, like in the first inversion, regarding the nature of time having a beginning, a middle, and an end, there is one Creator, one “sheer act of Being,” and one source of all truth. This, once again, is an inversion upon which you can rest your head, where your finite mind can focus. One true God is much better to aim your meditation toward than nothingness, and much more sane than thinking about the pantheon of Greek and Sumerian gods. However, when in prayer, you can easily find out which gods you worship, because your distractions will lead you there. The distractions reveal your fragmented understanding of God, as they pull you away from the oneness of God. Knowing that God is one is an act of faith, because no amount of proof can sway the mind alone to accept it. But it is an act of faith anchored in reason. And reason can take you to the doorstep that there is one Creator, but faith is needed to knock on the door. As St. John Paul II wrote, faith and reason are the two wings that make us fly. St. Anselm and St.Thomas Aquinas presented rational arguments of the “ways” to know that God is one, and that God is logical, and that God is beautiful. People can and will argue until the end of time over God's existence - and this is a good thing because skeptics often come to believe in the oneness of God in a most profound way, such as Augustine, Dostoyevsky, or Antony Flew. To doubt the oneness of God is not a defect, it is part of the journey back to God. However, argument will only take you to the door. You still have to knock, enter, kneel, and pray. This is a mystery and it is wonderful. God seems to have designed it this way for our own good. The most common doubt today is about God's existence. But there is no existence at all without God, who is the act of being itself. When we doubt God's existence, we are much like the “self-made” billionaire who thinks his fortune came entirely from himself instead of the complex set of circumstances that were needed to allow for his success. In his self-satisfaction, the billionaire ignores the whole and only sees himself. Sure, he may have worked hard, but he didn't create the infrastructure, culture, opportunities, timing, talent, and need that led to his wealth. He did not educate himself or feed himself as a child. In other words, he sees everything in terms of the self. (Hint: we are all the billionaires in this metaphor).The pursuit of wealth is a search for meaning, as are the pursuits of pleasure, honor, and power. But the real search is for the origin story, the place of rest, the giver of life - we are searching for home - but we confuse where that place is at. Seekers who are burdened with the burning need to find the truth will undoubtedly try on the differing hypotheses of “many gods” and “zero gods” before they really look into the possibility of “one God.” With the Zero hypothesis, this leaves only the self and the void to find answers - there is no soul to save. With the Many hypothesis, it leads to a flattening and scattering, a divided mind and separated body and soul, a rudderless chase. With the One hypothesis, there is no confusion. There is a body and a soul, and one source, one origin, one beginning, one ending. This puts solid ground underfoot and a proper heaven overhead. It almost seems too simple of an answer, because there is no struggle. Mythology seems more exciting, more dramatic (but that is the next inversion after this one to discuss). The One hypothesis of Genesis also shrugs off the coercive policemen concept, as God creates out of his goodness. He is the Artist who creates because he can create. Moreover, God creates and does not engage in transactions with his creation, but rather made everything for its beauty. He is a great artist who creates out of love and calls all of this creation to himself. St. Anselm called the Christian search a way of “faith seeking understanding.” You might say that those who believe in Greek myth or pure materialism also have a faith seeking understanding. Even the atheist is a believer in no gods, and that a faith in nothing must seek understanding through reason alone. With all texts, with all searches, we must take something on faith to find the truth. This is unavoidable. To compare a creation story from Greek myth, from Hesiod, against Genesis, let's take just the opening lines:Here's the opening from Hesiod's creation story (after he finishes praising the Muses):In the beginning there was only Chaos, the Abyss, but then Gaia, the Earth, came into being…With that one line, we have a whole cast of characters to consider, and it only expands from there. With Hesiod, we don't just have to bother with the Muses, now we have three more beings, and soon there are about fifty. Genesis starts much cleaner, simpler. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.Done. The writer of Genesis starts out with a roundhouse. He says, “Let's cut the nonsense: God was first and created everything.” So much is said in so few words. The first line of Genesis is a masterful sentence that never stops speaking. But what else is the fourth word of the bible saying? What is God? We know there are basically three options: no gods, many gods, or one God. If the bible is declaring one God, which it is, what does that mean for us? Our idea of God has everything to do with where we came from and where we think we are going. I'm not yet talking about the big “why,” but just the where for now: where did we come from and where are we going? I often think of the analogy of trying to fly a rocket to the moon. First, the rocket must be pointed upward, not toward the earth. The Zero gods hypothesis aims the rocket at the ground. That rocket is going nowhere. The One hypothesis and the Many hypothesis is aiming the rocket upward. But clearly, that is not enough, for even a rocket aimed upward must have precise calculations to reach its target. Missing by a single degree will leave the crew lost in outer space. This inversion is about calibrating and setting the sights on the right target, charting the destination. Declaring that there is one God, not many, and not zero, will get you going in the right direction (and later inversions will fine-tune the landing). With this inversion coming so soon in sacred scripture, this sets apart the people of Moses from all surrounding families and nations. The Canaanites and Egyptians of Biblical fame did not have one God, they had many. Abraham must have seemed a strange man in the ancient world and even had to leave his home in order to follow the one God. His city likely worshipped a moon god, meaning their rocket was aimed at the wrong heavenly body. Abraham must depart because he knows that will end in disaster. His faith in God Most High is not the norm. It's not popular. But he knows it is the truth. Even today, Abraham would have to leave home, because we still have many gods. We have believers in no gods and believers in many gods, and then we have believers in the one God. Mythology as we know it today is what we refer to when we want to talk about dead religions. When the Sumerians were worshipping moon gods or the Greeks were rocking out at a Dionysus fest, they were not saying, “Man, I love our mythology!” No, those gods and goddesses were real to them, or at least some of them. The household gods of Romans, which taught men and women to live virtuously, were not like Calico Critter figurines that didn't mean anything to them. These were meaningful objects, symbols of unseen realities. Genesis, in its quiet boldness, states out loud that all of these little gods are ugly babies. Really, the sacred writer just cannot pretend any longer - these are false gods. Thus, these are fighting words for people and nations who have entire lives, rituals, and power structures built around these gods. Every domain of life, from hearth and home to war and sex, all had a god or goddess. Genesis rejects all of them. We have them today too, which we will get to later. Again, we have lived with the idea of one God so long that we cannot comprehend how hard it was for Abraham and Moses to say, “All of your gods are fake. Only one is real.” This is the inversion that brings much hatred against Jews and Catholics to this day. Yet while we nod along about the idea of one God, we often live as if there were Many or Zero. But why? Why is it so irritating to believers in the Zero or Many hypotheses? Why does saying, “There is only one God” irritate us? Why does saying, “There are no gods” bother people? Why does saying “There are many gods” make us do a double-take? The reason is that it matters immensely, because like our view of time, our sanity and cosmology rests upon: 1.) Does God exist? And if the answer is yes, then: 2.) What is the nature of that being (or beings)? The question of whether or not God exists is fundamental to how your life is lived, how your family eats, and how your government operates. This is where we build our lives. Like it or not, upon this rock we stack up all other things. And this choice always requires an act of faith. Even if we select the Zero hypothesis, that is an act of faith. The internet atheists make an act of faith when they say, “There are no gods or God” just as much as when a Catholic says, “Credo in unum Deum” (I believe in one God). The “unbelievers” actually are believers, they just subscribe to the belief that there is only matter and energy. That is a creed, also. There is no proof for either side that can be used to win the other over by pure argument or technique. It is not pure geometry. Nor are feelings enough to prove anything. There is only an act of faith in the end. The act of faith in One God, Many gods, or Zero gods comes down to an act of the will, where we submit our will and intellect to a choice. When I felt there were no gods, never once did I say, “God help me be willing to be willing to believe no gods exist.” Why not? Because I didn't want to believe in God or gods. I wanted to mock the idea that God existed, crown Jesus with thorns, and be unburdened by the consequences of what it means to say “God exists.” Because if you say those words, then it follows that God is not just matter. Then it follows that God matters. Then it matters in how you live your life. But wait - the bible just says “God” in Genesis 1:1, it doesn't give any details. What kind of God is this one God? Is this the clockmaker God of the Deists? Is it a vindictive God? Is it a God merely made in our likeness? Is this an invented God to control people? Is this a God of convenience for power? Is this a God you can barter with? Is this a God who built the universe and then departed, or is he watching us with his many eyeballs right now? These are the questions that the rest of the bible answers. But the Catechism of the Catholic Church has a nice little paragraph to help us here.Since our knowledge of God is limited, our language about him is equally so. We can name God only by taking creatures as our starting point, and in accordance with our limited human ways of knowing and thinking.God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God--"the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable"--with our human representations. Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God. (CCC 40-42) In this inversion, we can start small, without diving into the nature of God too far. It's often easier to say what God is not than to say what God is, because being bound in time and space does not allow us the language to describe God, but it allows us to know there is a God. Once again, we are given all that we need for salvation and sanity, not every last detail that we want out of curiosity. Just as hunger goes with our craving for food, and our thirst matches our need for water, so does our spiritual longing pair nicely with the God that created all things. Our hearts seek God, and God is all that can quench that seeking thirst. But mostly, in this inversion, what Genesis is saying is:* God exists.* God is one.* God was first.* God created. This inversion marks a departure from all other creation stories. It casts out all myth systems and modern atheism. In the Greek creation story, Chaos gets first billing and then mother Earth just pops into being, as if birthed by itself. The point that Genesis makes is that the first mention of any “being” is God, who is “Being Itself.” Chaos is not first. Earth is not first. Nothing is first. But God precedes that nothing. Surely it is proper for the first character of the bible to be God, from whom all being is sustained. “It is right and just,” as we say at the Catholic Mass. This is also why Genesis is so memorable. It's simple. It's beautiful. It's good. No one memorizes Hesiod, not just because it's longer, but because it's not as good, not as simple. We don't memorize Hesiod because it's false. It lacks the three transcendentals of goodness, truth, and beauty. Many people know the opening line of the bible because it is terrific writing and speaks a truth that makes sense, even if many wish it wasn't so. We can't look away from Genesis for a reason: it is a masterpiece, and masterpieces do something to us. The first eleven chapters of Genesis cover massive territory, but there is nothing that says quite so much as the very first line. This is much like the Apostles' Creed, with the opening line of “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth.” A lifetime can be spent meditating on that alone. To meditate on Chaos and the Abyss does not satisfy in the same way. In fact, Chaos and Abyss in capitalized letters sound like a couple of rollercoasters at Six Flags or Cedar Point. (What a strange time to be alive, when we name our fun distractions after the things that terrify us - Leviathan, Behemoth, Goliath, Medusa…I suspect an amusement park will just go all in and soon name a rollercoaster “Satan, the Accuser,” but let's not get ahead of future inversions to be discussed.)I realize that there are many differing accounts of the Greek, Sumerian, and Roman creation stories, so Hesiod's writing is not the only version. However, all of them start with something other than one God. This is why the inversion of Genesis is so stark in contrast. This inversion, of coming to know that there is one God, is not like the fleeting thrill of reading about Chaos and Gaia. This is no cheap Double-Bubble parade gum that grows stale after a short time, but rather it is endless food for the mind and the soul. The idea of one God, on its face, does not seem as interesting as a tale that begins with Chaos, the Abyss, and Gaia's spontaneous generation. If I had two movie choices to select from, I would choose the one starring Chaos in the leading role. But Genesis is not a movie. It is not about entertainment. Genesis is going higher and deeper than what Hollywood or Greek myth does. Genesis does not set out to titillate and persuade. So while Chaos may be more exciting in the short term, it makes far more sense logically and spiritually that before all things were, God is. And merely four words into Genesis, the sacred writer has inverted the nature of time, and asserted the existence of one God, and declared the number of God is One. This is why, as these inversions gather together, it becomes increasingly clear why the tribes of Jacob cannot help but be called “the chosen people,” because these differences are not small, not subtle, but glaring and sharp, like a knife that carves them out from a world of very different expressions of faith. In closing, the mention of God in Genesis upends other worldviews. We believe that God needs no pre-existent thing or any help in order to create, nor is creation any sort of necessary emanation from the divine substance. God creates freely "out of nothing":If God had drawn the world from pre-existent matter, what would be so extraordinary in that? A human artisan makes from a given material whatever he wants, while God shows his power by starting from nothing to make all he wants. (CCC 296)God exists. God is one. God is first. Many people have gotten caught up in an academic distraction about the word Elohim being used in various lines of the bible. This is where personal interpretation of the bible can go wild, like college students on spring break. This is where deep dives into Giants and extra-biblical texts like the Book of Enoch and the Divine Council become unhealthy distractions. Interpretation of the bible should never be approached as a research exercise, but as an encounter with God, in a living tradition. If there are two books to keep on your shelf, or to take along to a desert island, to keep from getting lost or going insane, it is these: The Bible and The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Many heresies start when the idea of the oneness of God is discarded or doubted. Rest assured, however, that God is one, even if he is three-in-one. The many and none hypotheses are upside-down worlds. The oneness of the Trinity has fingerprints all over the bible, even in the opening line. The Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is still one God. Yes, there are other created spirits, like angels, but there is no other God than the one true God, also known as God Most High. The Trinity is beyond full comprehension, and this is a wonderful mystery to pray on. As always, prayer is the key, as it pleases God and is offered like heavenly incense to Him. To embrace the certainty of God while letting go of the desire for all divine data is a liberating act for your mind, body, and soul. The certainty and mystery of God's oneness is glorious. With that, let's move to the next inversion, which happens in the fifth word of the bible, which is the word “created.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit whydidpetersink.substack.com

'Deist' Founders? 'Trans' Family? Ethan Crumbley? | Mon. 12-18-23

The Hake Report

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 18, 2023 118:58

Calls on Muslim guest, Omar. Fire extinguisher to menorah! Deist Founders? CNN trans family propaganda. Ethan Crumbley sentencing. The Hake Report, Monday, December 18, 2023 AD TIME STAMPS * (0:00:00) Start/Topics* (0:01:50) Hey, guys! Mt. Baldy tee* (0:03:49) KEITH, IL: ADL on U's vs Kanye, Kyrie* (0:06:55) KEITH: Omar on occupied lands* (0:09:30) KEITH: Omar a pretend friend, Islam, Dems* (0:14:38) KEITH: Confederate flag at rally, Fed* (0:16:18) MARK, CA: Omar, Jesus is Muslim? Blasphemy* (0:18:51) MARK: Islam, Nat Soc: JB Stoner, NOI, infidels* (0:21:52) Don't hook your wagon to people you agree with* (0:23:53) Fire extinguisher to Menorah in Poland (Hard-Right)* (0:33:45) Deists? Theists? Christian founders? Liberals, Marxists distort history* (0:48:35) Shoplifter, old Jamaican man, stopped by man with camera (Muckraker) * (0:55:28) "Silent Night" - Phil Hahn, Steve Johnson (2005 or 2013, Songs of Christmas)* (0:59:15) Supers: Christ is King of Poland, look it up!* (1:00:47) FREDERICK: Bibi egg on his face after hostages killed by IDF* (1:05:10) FREDERICK: Trump bringing WWIII, yeah ok (Hake won!)* (1:08:34) CNN "Trans family" propaganda: Leaving Florida!* (1:23:35) Ethan Crumbley sentenced in emotional court (pics)* (1:34:03) Side note: Death Penalty sought by libs (Dylann Roof, Loretta Lynch)* (1:34:58) Crumbley: Thoughts, Mental health, Never fixed, Parents charged* (1:46:16) MAZE, OH: "Bro…" Christ's law, Man's body, man's choice* (1:54:56) Call tomorrow! Hake tries, fails to read last Supers* (1:56:36) "A Little Safety from Yourself" - Platelets (2004, All I Want for Christmas compilation, Lujo Records)BLOG https://www.thehakereport.com/blog/2023/12/18/the-hake-report-mon-12-18-23 PODCAST by HAKE SubstackLive M-F 9-11 AM PT (11-1 CT / 12-2 ET) Call-in 1-888-775-3773 – thehakereport.com VIDEO YouTube | Rumble* | Facebook | X | BitChute | Odysee* PODCAST Apple | Spotify | Castbox | Substack (RSS) *SUPER CHAT on asterisked above, or BuyMeACoffee | Streamlabs | Ko-fi SUPPORT HAKE Substack | SubscribeStar | Locals || SHOP Teespring ALSO SEE Hake News on The JLP Show | Appearances (other shows, etc.) JLP Network: JLP | Church | TFS | Hake | Nick | Joel Get full access to HAKE at thehakereport.substack.com/subscribe

Thom Hartmann: Progressive Political Commentator

Global Connections Television Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 11, 2023 26:04

Thom Hartmann is an American radio personality, author, former psychotherapist, businessman, and progressive political commentator, whose talk show has been rated in the top 10 shows for over a decade by Talkers Magazine. He discusses his recent book, “The Hidden History of American Democracy: Rediscovering Humanity's Ancient Way of Living,” by focusing on facts, such as many of the founders were Deists, not Christians, who firmly believed in a strong separation of church and state. Several contemporary challenges today are that Donald Trump ostensibly tried to illegally overthrow a fair election and install an autocratic, anti-democratic government; support for the US Supreme Court has declined primarily due to some of their biased judicial decisions and allegedly corrupt justices, such as Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito; and the misinformation and disinformation that is streaming out of many faux news outlets, such as Fox, OAN and Newsmax, which arguably pass themselves off as legitimate news operations.

America's Christian Founding: A Discussion with Historian Mark David Hall

Reasonable Theology Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 3, 2023 46:13

Did the United States truly have a Christian founding, or were the Founders simply Deists who desired to create a secular nation?This question has been hotly debated for generations, and our society increasingly regards the idea of America's Christian heritage as something to be minimized, rejected, or denied.So what is the truth regarding the faith of the Founders and how it influenced their actions as they fought a revolution and brought forth a new nation?To answer this question we're speaking with historian Mark David Hall. Hall is one of the most distinguished scholars of early American history. He is a professor, a nationally-recognized expert on religious freedom, and the author of several books, including Did America Have a Christian Founding? In this conversation we'll discuss how Christianity shaped our nation, how much impact deism actually had on some of the founders, the true meaning of the separation of church and state, and how we can return to the biblical founding principles that made America a great nation.See the Show Notes at ReasonableTheology.org/FoundersLogos Bible Software is a powerful platform that allows you to study Scripture and consult commentaries, devotionals, Bible dictionaries, church history resources and much more. As powerful as Logos is, it is also more affordable than you might think.See which package is right for you at ReasonableTheology.org/Logos for 10% off plus 5 free books when you use that link and PARTNEROFFER10 at checkout. If you enjoy the Reasonable Theology Podcast go to ReasonableTheology.org/Subscribe and get the weekly email, which includes the latest article or podcast episode, a helpful theological definition, a painting depicting a scene from Scripture or church history, a musical selection to enrich your day, and the best book deal I've found that week to build your library.Support the showGET THE NEWSLETTEREach edition of the Reasonable Theology newsletter contains my latest article or podcast episode PLUS: A Theological Word or Phrase Explained Quickly and Clearly A Painting Depicting a Scene from Scripture or Church History Audio of a Hymn or other Musical Selection to Enjoy A Recommended Book or Resource to Expand Your Library SUBSCRIBE HERE

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What is Religious Freedom Actually?

Will Wright Catholic

Play Episode Listen Later May 15, 2023 44:01

IntroductionIf you ask the average American on the street what religious freedom is, you will get all sorts of different ideas. Some places, you will hear: “keep your religion to yourself. Haven't you heard of the separation of Church and State?” Others might answer: “People are free to believe whatever they want. Who am I to judge if they're right or not?” Still others might claim that religious freedom means the ability to pray privately however you want.None of these are what religious freedom actually is specifically. But it should also be noted that the American constitutional notion of religious freedom is not precisely what the Catholic Church holds religious freedom to be. And, so, the object of today's exploration is to look at what religious freedom is in the United States of America. Then, more importantly, to view what religious freedom is, in principle, as defined by the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council. Separation of Church and StateThe First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, the first of the ten amendments which comprise the Bill of Rights, adopted on December 15, 1791, reads thusly:“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”For our purposes we will focus on the first phrase: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” This is known as the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.I do not have the time or space here to provide an exhaustive account of American jurisprudence on the matter of religious liberty. But, I do want to draw out a few key moments in American History where this question came up and which will give us a clearer view of what religious freedom is.Thomas Jefferson's Danbury LetterIn a letter to the Danbury Baptists, Thomas Jefferson wrote:“GentlemenThe affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem (Danbury Letter).”He wrote this letter in response to a letter from the Danbury Baptists in order to explain his views on federalism and the meaning of the Establishment Clause. The main meaning of his “wall of separation between Church & State” is an assurance that the government would not interfere with the church of the Danbury Baptists or give special treatment to any particular religion or sect. Justice Hugo Black, an appointee of Franklin Roosevelt to the Supreme Court, would even refer later to the Danbury explanation as an “almost authoritative declaration” of the Founders' intent for the Establishment Clause (cf. Bill of Rights Institute).Two days after sending this letter, though, Jefferson attended a religious service in the House of Representatives location in the Capitol. As Daniel Roeber notes: “Jefferson and others recognized the benefits of developing a national identity that transcended interdenominational division (Roeber).” Yet, since 1795, public worship was administered at the partially completed Capitol Building each Sunday at noon (cf. ibid).Religious liberty was the motivation of the Plymouth Pilgrims and many Catholics who settled in Maryland. However, the colonial period was far from united on religious matters. Protestant sects disagreed amongst themselves. Catholics were seen as untrustworthy papists of low social stature. Jewish people were tolerated, at best. The nascent country needed an identity which transcended these divisions. The importance of developing a national identity was something that would take over a hundred years more as most identified most readily with their own state. Lemon V. Kurtzman and the Three Pronged Test (1971)Let us now skip forward quite a bit to 1971. In that year, a case was brought to the Supreme Court in which the Court considered whether a law in Pennsylvania violated the Establishment Clause. The law reimbursed religious schools with state funds for textbooks and salaries for teachers for non-public, non-secular schools. The Court responded 8-0 with a three-pronged test for determining whether a given statute is constitutional. The government may assist religion only if:* The primary purpose of the assistance is secular* The assistance must neither promote nor inhibit religion, and * There is no excessive entanglement between church and stateIn this specific case, the Pennsylvania law was struck down because of excessive entanglement between church and state. It is worth noticing here what is implicit: there is nothing wrong, in the American understanding, with some implicit entanglement between Church and State. The issue, ultimately, is when the line is crossed towards “excessive.”Marsh v. Chambers (1983)The Nebraska legislature opened each of its sessions with a publicly funded chaplain offering a prayer. The Supreme Court, in Marsh v. Chambers (1983) determined that this was NOT a violation of the Establishment Clause. Though this instance does not pass the “Lemon” three-pronged test, the Justices argued that there is a long historical custom going back to the Continental Congress and the very Congress that resulted in the Bill of Rights. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote: “In light of the unambiguous and unbroken history of more than 200 years, there can be no doubt that the practice of opening legislative sessions with prayer has become part of the fabric of our society. To invoke Divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making the laws is not, in these circumstances, an ‘establishment' of religion or a step toward establishment; it is simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country (Citation: 463 US 783).”As we saw with the Capitol Building services, there is not a strict and non-transversable wall of separation of Church and State. Other Supreme Court CasesI now want to walk through several other Supreme Court cases that touched on religious liberty. Again, this list is not exhaustive, but it can help us round out our picture.Reynolds v. United States (1879)In 1879, in Reynolds v. United States, the Court upheld a federal law banning polygamy. They claimed that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment forbids government from regulating belief but that government can nonetheless punish acts which it judges to be criminal, regardless of religious belief.Torcaso v. Watkins (1961)As of 1961, the State of Maryland had a requirement that a candidate for public office needed to declare that they believed in God in order to be eligible for the position. Unanimously, in Torcaso v. Watkins, the Court agreed that this gives preference to believers who were willing to publicly profess; therefore, Maryland was aiding theistic religions and beliefs overr atheistic ones.Engel v. Vitale (1962)In the 1962 case Engel v. Vitale, the Court ruled 6-1 that a New York prayer to begin the school day was unconstitutional and in violation of the Establishment Clause despite being a nondenominational prayer. Abington v. Schempp & Murray v. Curlett (1963)The following year in 1963, the Court heard the case of Abington v. Schempp and the related case of Murray v. Curlett. In both cases, public schools were involving students in daily Bible readings and in the latter case of the daily recitation of the Lord's Prayer. Both of these cases were seen as violating both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972)In 1972, Amish parents sued the State of Wisconsin for requiring that their children attend school until the age of 16. The unanimous decision held that the Amish teens were exempt from the state law of requiring 14 to 16 year olds to attend school because the Amish religion required a living apart from worldly influences. In other words, though it was in the state's interest that the children receive two years more schooling, this did not outweigh the free exercise of the religion of the Amish.McDaniel v. Paty (1978)A Tennessee law barring clergymen from serving in public office was challenged in 1978 in McDaniel v. Paty. The Court unanimously ruled that this law was a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment (as well as the Fourteenth Amendment) because it made holding public office contingent on surrendering religious beliefs. Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (1993)In 1993, the Court heard Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. There were ordinances passed by the city of Hialeah, Florida that banned animal sacrifice. These laws were not written in a neutral and generally applicable way. They specifically targeted Santeria, a Afro-Caribbean religion based on Yoruba and some Catholic elements. Because animal sacrifice is an important part of Santeria, the Court ruled that the ordinances were designed as a form of religious persecution in violation of the Free Exercise Clause. Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000)The Sante Fe Independent School District of Texas in 2000 had a policy permitting student-led, student-initiated prayer at football games. In a 6-3 decision, the Court upheld an appellate court's ruling that this was a violation of the Establishment Clause. The school district tried to argue that because it was student led and initiated, it was private speech, and, thus, protected under the First Amendment. However, Justice John Paul Stevens argued that it was not private speech because it was done over the P.A. system, by a student body representative, under school faculty supervision, and under school policy. Also, it did not pass the “Lemon” test because it did not have a secular purpose and was implemented with the purpose of endorsing school prayer.Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow (2004)California's Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow in 2004 investigated the policy requiring each elementary school class to say the Pledge of Allegiance daily. Michael Newdow, a father of one of the students, challenged this because of the words therein contained of “under God.” Because Newdow did not have custody of the child, he did not have standing to bring the case to court. However, in concurring opinions, Justices William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Clarence Thomas, said that the words “under God” do NOT violate the Establishment Clause.As the Bill of Rights Institute reports:“Further, they noted, ‘the phrase ‘under God' in the Pledge seems, as a historical matter, to sum up the attitude of the Nation's leaders, and to manifest itself in many of our public observances. Examples of patriotic invocations of God and official acknowledgments of religion's role in our Nation's history abound.' They concluded that ‘the recital, in a patriotic ceremony pledging allegiance to the flag and to the Nation, of the descriptive phrase ‘under God' cannot possibly lead to the establishment of a religion, or anything like it' (Bill of Rights Institute).”Van Orden v. Perry (2005)In a similar case in Van Orden V. Perry in 2005, in a 5-4 decision, the Court determined that a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments on Texas State Capitol grounds did not violate the Establishment Clause. There were 38 other monuments on the grounds and highlighted different parts of Texan history. Justice William Rehnquist argued that the monument had a religious message, however, it was presented in a context showing that:“[a] secular moral message about proper standards of social conduct and a message about the historic relation between those standards and the law.” Therefore, the religious message is part of a broader context of cultural heritage and patrimony of the people of Texas. Teaching Evolution in SchoolsThere are two Supreme Court cases worth looking at briefly which discuss the teaching of evolution in schools. Generally, there is a perceived discrepancy of considerable magnitude between the theory of evolution and the evidence for creation from the Book of Genesis. I am not getting into that minefield right now, but these cases show how religious liberty and the government of the United States interact.Epperson v. Arkansas (1968)In Epperson v. Arkansas in 1968, Arkansas passed a law saying that public school teachers were banned from teaching evolution because it was in contradiction with the Bible account of creation.Justice Abe Fortas wrote in the majority opinion:“In the present case, there can be no doubt that Arkansas has sought to prevent its teachers from discussing the theory of evolution because it is contrary to the belief of some that the Book of Genesis must be the exclusive source of doctrine as to the origin of man. No suggestion has been made that Arkansas' law may be justified by considerations of state policy other than the religious views of some of its citizens (Epperson v. Arkansas).”He continued to argue that the law of Arkansas is clearly not a religiously neutral act. Instead it was the targeting of a particular theory on Biblical grounds, literally read. Therefore, it is a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.Edwards v. Aguillard (1987)Nineteen years later in Edwards v. Aguillard in 1987, the Court examined a Louisiana law forbidding the teaching of the theory of evolution in public schools unless it was accompanied by an equal treatment of creationism. In a 7-2 decision, the Court declared that this law violated the Establishment Clause because it failed all three parts of the “Lemon” test. It lacked secular purpose, endorsed the view that a supernatural being created mankind, and it entangled the interests of Church and State by seeking “to employ the symbolic and financial support of government to achieve a religious purpose (Citation: 482 US 578).”The American View of Religious LibertyIn sum, the evolution of religious liberty in the United States has its basis on the cultural milieu of the time. In the colonial period and in the early days of the country, there were few true atheists. Deism was exceptionally popular, but even Deists acknowledge a belief in the Creator. So, a nondenominational prayer to the Creator at the state of a session of Congress was a forgone conclusion. Since that time, the United States of America has become far more cultural, religiously, and politically diverse. As a result of this undeniable diversity, it cannot be said that the United States is currently a Judeo-Christian nation, even if the case can strongly be made that it began that way. Private speech and religious practice is unambiguously protected. However, as we have seen, the nature of the public exercise of religion is questioned when public funds are in the mix. Each of the examples mentioned above, and where problems usually arise, is in publicly-funded schools, government property or buildings, and in relation to public office. However, the Supreme Court has upheld that religious beliefs which are not criminal are protected in the public sphere. A religious person need not check their religion at the door when engaging in public matters (and how could they, really). The First Amendment of the Constitution protects all Americans against the establishment of any one religion to the competition or detriment of any others. Any law which would exclude a person from public life on the basis of religion is unconstitutional. And the free exercise of religion is safeguarded and held in a careful balance with the interests of all other religions, beliefs, and ideas. This reality is a blessing and a curse for Catholics. On the one hand, we have freedom to boldly speak the truth without fear of legal reprisal, within due limits. Yet, on the other hand, there is a bland tolerance of false religions and ideas antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Church.The Church's View of Religious FreedomAll of that being said, what is the Catholic view of religious freedom? Is it precisely the American view or are there significant differences? When I speak to American Catholics about this question, there is no real sense of a firm understanding of the Church on the matter. And, frankly, when people read the official Church teaching, they do not understand the nuances offered there. I am going to do my best to help shed some light on the subject! Dignitatis HumanaeOn December 7, 1965, Pope St. Paul VI promulgated a Declaration on Religious Freedom which is one of the sixteen documents of the Second Vatican Council. Dignitatis Humanae (DH) is only fifteen paragraph sections long and is highly worth reading in its entirety. What I will offer here is a brief summary and the main conclusions. In the interest of keeping this to the point, I am going to be looking at three questions:* What is religious freedom in the eyes of the Catholic Church?* Why is religious freedom based on human dignity?* How has God revealed religious liberty?What is religious freedom in the eyes of the Catholic Church?God has made Himself known to man, shown us how we are to serve Him, and how we are saved in Christ and come to eternal blessedness. The Church unequivocally affirms in Dignitatis Humanae that:“We believe that this one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church, to which the Lord Jesus committed the duty of spreading it abroad among all men. Thus He spoke to the Apostles: ‘Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have enjoined upon you' (Matt. 28: 19-20) (DH, 1).”Many of those who are suspicious of the Second Vatican Council read this not as the full throated profession of Christ and His Church that it is. Instead, they read the word “subsist” in an uncharitable and ignorant way. We could say that the one true religion IS the Catholic and Apostolic Church, but subsists is actually a richer word. Subsists means to begin in a certain way and remain in that way. In other words, there is no true religion apart from the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, as our Lord began it and has constantly sustained it to this day. The Church which, of course, is His own Mystical Body.The Council Fathers continue:“On their part, all men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and His Church, and to embrace the truth they come to know, and to hold fast to it (DH, 1).”Elsewhere in Vatican II in the documents Lumen Gentium and Ad Gentes we hear: “Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved… The bonds which bind men to the Church in a visible way are profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and communion. He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a ‘bodily' manner and not ‘in his heart' (LG, 14).”For those who claim that Vatican II is weak on doctrine and the truth and is overly ambiguous or some other such nonsense, it is abundantly clear that they never read the documents or they have read them in an uncharitable and ignorant way.At any rate, all of this being said, what is religious freedom? The Council Fathers write:“Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ (DH, 1).”So, the moral duty of man towards the Catholic Church remains untouched by religious freedom. What is vital to understand the Church's view is that phrase: “immunity from coercion in civil society.” That is the key. A more substantial definition is then given, with very official verbiage:“This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits (DH, 2).”The Church has always held to this doctrine. We know, for example, that the Church has always condemned forced conversions as illegitimate and compelled baptisms as invalid. As St. John Paul II often said: the Faith is always proposed, not imposed.'Why is religious freedom based on human dignity?This right to religious freedom is rooted in human dignity. The Church even calls for this right to be enshrined in constitutional law throughout the world. Our human dignity points to the fact that God endowed man with reason and free will and therefore personal responsibility. We are impelled by human nature and bound by moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. Once we know the truth, we are bound to adhere to it and order our lives towards it. The Church declares that religious freedom is thus necessary because:“... men cannot discharge these obligations in a manner in keeping with their own nature unless they enjoy immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom (DH, 2).”There is no love without freedom, there is no seeking of the truth without freedom. So, religious freedom does not belong to feelings and subjective disposition. No. It belongs to the very nature of the human person. Faith comes from what is heard. And as truth is discovered, “it is by a personal assent that men are to adhere to it,” to use another phrase from Dignitatis Humanae (DH, 2). Personal though this assent is, religious freedom also extends to religious communities. They should not be hindered:“either by legal measures or by administrative action on the part of government, in the selection, training, appointment, and transferral of their own ministers, in communicating with religious authorities and communities abroad, in erecting buildings for religious purposes, and in the acquisition and use of suitable funds or properties (DH, 4).”Nor should they be hindered from public teaching and witness of faith, whether spoken or written. As the preeminent religious community, all of these freedoms belong to the family as well.How has God revealed religious liberty?In Divine Revelation, the doctrine of religious freedom finds its roots. The Council Fathers write:“Revelation does not indeed affirm in so many words the right of man to immunity from external coercion in matters religious. It does, however, disclose the dignity of the human person in its full dimensions (DH, 9).”First and foremost, man's response to God in faith must be free for it to be legitimate. No one can be forced to become Catholic. The act of faith is a free act. Forcing someone to love is not love at all. As Dignitatis Humanae states:“It is therefore completely in accord with the nature of faith that in matters religious every manner of coercion on the part of men should be excluded. In consequence, the principle of religious freedom makes no small contribution to the creation of an environment in which men can without hindrance be invited to the Christian faith, embrace it of their own free will, and profess it effectively in their whole manner of life (DH, 10).”God is very clear, however, in what He has revealed that we are to boldly proclaim the truth. Therefore, are we to be “tolerant” and “accepting” of other religions and simply have a bland indifference? Absolutely not! The Council Fathers write:“The disciple is bound by a grave obligation toward Christ, his Master, ever more fully to understand the truth received from Him, faithfully to proclaim it, and vigorously to defend it, never-be it understood-having recourse to means that are incompatible with the spirit of the Gospel. At the same time, the charity of Christ urges him to love and have prudence and patience in his dealings with those who are in error or in ignorance with regard to the faith (DH, 14).”Freedom from CoercionFreedom from coercion in religious matters is the crux of the Church's view of religious liberty. Really, it pertains directly to the establishing of an environment in which a person may freely seek and adhere to the one, true religion. Though there are elements of truth outside the Catholic Church, there is no salvation. If someone outside the visible bounds of the Church is saved, it is only by the superabundant merits of Jesus Christ and the instrumentality of the Catholic Church, the sacrament of salvation.We must not be indifferent. We must boldly preach the truth at all times. And we must not be afraid to stand up for these beliefs, even when it is inconvenient. In some contexts doing so can lead to our bodily martyrdom. In the United States of America, the constitutional order is more or less compatible with the free practice of the Catholic religion. However, we must be cognizant that there is a distinct difference between religious freedom in the American idea and the Catholic teaching.The American notion protects us, to an extent, but it is more geared to creating a national identity that transcends religion. This should make any faithful Catholic nervous because it is working. How many American Catholics do you know who are more concerned about being American Catholics than being Catholics who happen to be American? Religious freedom is freedom from coercion. Ultimately, it is freedom FOR the truth, FOR the Catholic Faith. We cannot forget this, lest we descend into a banal coexistence or tolerance without the drive to share the fullness of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. We cannot be indifferent and we cannot be content to allow anyone to stay in error. We must respect their right to religious freedom by not coercing them and respecting their journey, in good conscience. But the task and privilege of evangelization remains in full force. Get full access to Good Distinctions at www.gooddistinctions.com/subscribe

united states america god jesus christ american new york california founders texas church father lord master bible man freedom house prayer personal state gospel americans holy spirit creator government tennessee pennsylvania revelation jewish wisconsin congress biblical maryland court supreme court divine rights louisiana catholic private arkansas believing nebraska religious capitol constitution edwards separation catholic church ten commandments freedom of speech declaration reynolds lemon generally catholics american history chambers amish first amendment texan pledge marsh watkins franklin delano roosevelt protestant thomas jefferson engel lg forcing allegiance his church nineteen dh clarence thomas mcdaniel religious freedom justices judeo christian vitale capitol building yoruba yoder john paul ii citation paty vatican ii catholic faith santeria afro caribbean danbury apostolic church fourteenth amendment pope st second vatican council adhering church state continental congress epperson american catholics hialeah deism paul vi establishment clause abington mystical body lumen gentium van orden free exercise clause texas state capitol deists schempp justice john paul stevens aguillard rights institute council fathers lukumi babalu aye elk grove unified school district newdow michael newdow lemon v kurtzman

Absentee Heavenly Father

Holy Watermelon

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 5, 2022 50:02

Deism may sound a lot like theism, and while they're etymologically the same, the belief systems are more nuanced. In this episode, we deep dive into Deist belief and its rise to popularity in the 17th and 18th centuries. We explain the core belief of the initial creator, but he's not around anymore—kind of like the dad that left for a pack of smokes. The Enlightenment made deism a popular belief system as people looked to logic, reason, science, and observation to explain the world around them, rather than revelation. Deist philosophers believe in a God that created the universe, but they also believe in science to explain how things work. If you're an American history buff, we also talk about the founding fathers and their religious beliefs. While we don't have great records for all of them, it's clear that some were Deists, most notably Thomas Jefferson and his book The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, aka The Jefferson Bible.That's right, Deism is a spectrum, and we talk about the different deism types and how they overlap with other faith groups. Support us at Patreon and SpreadshopJoin the Community on DiscordLearn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

The Gate of God (part 4)

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 4, 2022 33:20

Why were the people building the Tower of Babel? What was their goal? They were trying to “make a name for themselves” but more subtly, they are building a Gate to God. The root word of Babel means “Gate of God.” Think of Stargate or a science-fiction Portal if it helps you. The Tower is a gateway to bring God near, to control God, to pull him down to earth. There is metaphor here in the Tower, obviously, but metaphor is how we remember and re-tell stories of great meaning. If we were robots we could just use zeroes and ones, but a Tower or Gate to heaven is meant to invoke the image of man overtaking God, which is the reverse of humility before God. Since God made us in his image and likeness, with a body and soul together, God is obviously not a robot. Thank God for that. I, for one, am glad, because staring at code all day at work does not stir me like hearing a well-told story does. Here's the central theme of Babel. If we can pull God down, and lift up ourselves, then we can become god. We can then make God into a kind of pet. That is quite a different idea of God from the great quote from St. Athanasius about why Jesus came to earth. “God became man so that man might become God.” That is a great quote, but wow, it can be easily misunderstood. This makes it sound like through prayer we can become God himself, and hardly sounds different than some of the modern meditation practices that are being used. Karlo Broussard says of this quote: “According to the original Greek of St. Athanasius, the phrase, “that we might become God” is better translated as ‘that we might be deified.'…The idea of sharing in the divine nature means we share what philosophers and theologians identify as God's communicable attributes (goodness, holiness, and love) as opposed to his incommunicable ones (omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and absolute simplicity).St. Athanasius could have made it easier for us and just said that we can become like God, with the full understanding that we can never become God. That distinction is enormous to gaining understanding of what it means to work toward sanctification and holiness in the Christian life. You can never be God. That's off-limits and impossible. But, you can partake in God's divine nature, particularly through prayer and receiving the Eucharist at Mass. But we never, ever, become God. Not with a million prayers or pushups or a perfect college entry exam score. The addition of the word “like” in his quote has critical meaning, because without it, we might as well be chasing after our divine selves in New Age religions. We are creatures, not divine, made like God - but must never forget that we are not God. That may have been the greatest discovery of my life. What a relief!What Babel is attempting is to justify our behavior by making God into an idol that performs vending machine operations. This God has an LED screen that reads, “Insert two dollars. Press B12 for a sandwich. C36 for drunkenness. F25 for group sex. G31 for an orgy.” At Ziggurats, the priests sacrificed people or animals, but with our vending-machine god we can just use quarters and get whatever we want approved. It's the same thing. People who assume prayer will direct God to take action are making the same assumptions of those at Babel. Prayer is powerful, but not if it's meant to control God, or if it's perceived as controlling God. In fact, again, the atheist may be better off than this person who misunderstands prayer, because prayer used in this way could just as well be a child sacrifice to bring the rain. What's the difference? Both are attempts at controlling God. We can pray for requests, but we must pray for God's will to be done, not ours. The vending machine god of Babel is just as powerless and useless as the absentee God of the Deists. While it probably looked exciting watching sacrifices on those altars at Babel, it was really just the denial of the one God, the God Most High. This is why when Jesus came, he corrected the record and said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” What a statement! What about all those sacrifices in the Temple of Jerusalem? What about all that stuff in Leviticus and Numbers about the goats? I would like to go there now, but I'll continue with Babel or I'll never finish. (If this topic of sacrifice interests you at all, I highly suggest listening to the Lord of Spirits podcast - all of it, from the beginning to the end). The builders of Babel, and the deists like Franklin, and the atheists like Richard Dawkins are all doing the same thing in the end. They are speaking the common language, but Dawkins is the only one who really puts all his chips in the middle and lays his cards on the table. Atheists don't buy the bluff about Baal the storm god and know that the deists are just hedging bets on a bad hand. The only card player left for them is those who believe in the one God. The cool thing about atheists is that they are closer to coming back to belief in the one God than they ever realize, or would ever care to admit, because they've seen through all the smoke and mirrors of the meaningless and dead gods. The reality is this: the builders at Babel are trying to appease a god that is a convenient projection of their own power and desire, while the Deists of early America are tipping their wigs at a dead or fully absent version of God. The ziggurats in America are courts and the Statue of Liberty. Next time you see the Statue of Liberty in New York, you can ponder our worship of “Liberty” and consider the Tower of Babel. Dawkins just says what everyone else in power was thinking all along, which is this: God doesn't matter. He is saying that the Emperor has no clothes. He is also like the Emperor Napoleon, when an officer suggested that “God willing” they would take Brussels in the morning. Napoleon allegedly said, “God? God has nothing to do with it.” That's the same answer Dawkins gives. To Dawkins, the only towers or cathedrals that ever existed were in the mind of those built by mitosis. There is no God, or gods, living or otherwise, outside of our brains. Of course, Dawkins' grand bet on the selfish gene goes too far. He's all in with all the answers, but he left out of the equation an important variable. He fails to solve for Y, as in “Y are we here?” That is the problem with this worldview, because in a world without meaning, you have to live in that world. So does everyone else, and everyone else is not necessarily an educated PhD who can spend a lifetime inspecting in all corners of science and history. Everyone else lacks the funds and leisure time to find meaning. Everyone else, for the most part, in the end, has to rely on what someone says is true. I take it on faith that germs cause disease and not fairies, even though I have never actually saw either of them infect a person. Dawkins and company can win arguments about how the world works, but what they cannot win an arguments about is why a sunset is beautiful. When there is no satisfactory ultimate why, people spend a lifetime searching for that variable. In the end, what the world without a living God results in is someone else taking control by force and dictating that the value of Y must be what they say it is, simply because they said so. So even though I'm not a Dawkins fan, at least he isn't hedging his bets. He's all in, and I actually think deniers like him are closer to finding God than the builders of Babel or the deists like Franklin ever were. Having the door half-open to God is like letting the heat out of the house in winter. At some point, you have to make up your mind to go outside or stay inside. This makes me realize, truly, that we should pray for Richard Dawkins. He may end up bringing more people back to faith in God than we could have ever realized. He is almost at the top of the circle, since when we run away from God, we often find ourselves running right into the arms of God. At Babel, the builders may think there is a God at the end of their staircase, but if they think God can be extracted somehow, or pulled into the universe, then they have actually rejected God. They have invented something new that is not God, not the one true God. I will be coming back to this, because there is something happening at these temples, it's just not what the builders think it is. The God of Israel is outside of time and space. He cannot be accessed via a portal, or gate, or tower. The living Creator God is beyond our understanding. He is transcendent and immanent, near and far. We can know he is living, that his will is being played out at all times, but we cannot control or change God. I don't know how, but even children can understand that God is alive, that he is real. What is being done at the Tower of Babel is the creation of idols, which replace God, reduce God, and substitute God with man-made ideas and desires. An idol is the god of a cynic, not of one who has the faith of a child. When the concept of God nosedives from a living Creator God outside of time and space, it becomes nothing more than a local god that can be manipulated through a gate or a tower. What inevitably follows is that there is no longer sin, or rather, certain sins are approved while others are outlawed. It just depends on who holds power. This is happening before our eyes in America today. An elaborate ritual in a ziggurat is just a big ruse, a power play, but what is really happening is the attempt to control the concept of “God,” because gaining the upper ground on that idea is required to justify whatever behavior those in power want to dictate as acceptable behavior. In our case today, an already bad concept of God is being reduced further as Redditors and public school administrators go to great lengths to ensure that even the word God is removed from our mouths. You can't even say God today at work or at school without potentially losing your job. Interestingly, talk of “sin” is becoming less common at church, which is a clear sign that there is a widespread lack of understanding of the God of Christianity, because you cannot understand your need for God unless you understand your own weakness in sin. The affirmation of sin is the voice of the culture today, and where sin is denied, ziggurats of the mind are constructed. Today, we are witnessing the outcome of what happens when the idea of Dawkins are taken to its logical conclusion. The reason Dawkins is a fool is that he doesn't understand what the builders at Babel and the deists like Franklin understood well. The emperors and Founders of history knew that people needed religion, and to pull that rug out from society would cause the city itself to collapse. Dawkins has a middle-school concept of God that he never outgrew. He's also operating as an autonomous speaker of “his truth” without a plan or concept of how to organize a world. He doesn't have employees or mouths to feed or an economy to plan. In the walled-in academic world where the idea of “no souls” exists, Dawkins fails to realize something rather large. His theory of the “Selfish Gene” starts from the bottom, instead of the top, and therefore he cannot describe the whole. His answer of “Because of genes!” is too simple. A toe does not describe the wholeness of a person any more than a gene does, and genes cannot explain the totality of human nature. Dawkins is so smart, but he can't understand what farmers and mothers with no education understand perfectly well. You would think an evolutionary biologist would be very equipped to understand the parable of the grain of wheat, but somehow he misses it completely. We need religion. People need religion. Or they will find one. And it won't be what you expect. In the clean, childless world of our universities, ideas sound good that lack depth. Dawkins' answer is from the atomic layer, and he emerges from a quiet library to tell us that we are nothing but atoms. Meanwhile the bustle of the street doesn't hear a word he's said, because life is happening far beyond the atomic layer. When Dawkins' burst forth from his library, he was telling a very different message from what the apostles told when they emerged from the Upper Room at Pentecost, after having received the breath of life, touched by tongues of fire. No, when Dawkins and his disciples emerged in their lab coats to tell us the good news, their message was that respiration is a selfish act to propagate our genes and that there is no meaning to any of it. The apostles had a message of eternal life, while Dawkins made us ponder suicide. So while I commend Dawkins for his honesty, he is actually more foolish than the leaders of Babel. At least the leaders at Babel are offering something to believe in: “Look, here's a tower. It's a Gate to God. See?” And Jefferson and Franklin offer something, too: “Look, here's a sacred document, a Constitution, where we make a nod to God - and also - over there - see the Statue of Liberty?”Dawkins only offers the abyss. And our brains revolt at the idea. We all know the Big Empty is there, but we don't really want to stand on the edge and look into it. We can't. Not for long. The temptation to believe that Dawkins is right draws us all, as doubt is more natural to us than faith. So even if we dabble in disbelief, most move away from the edge in search of a Higher Power of some kind. The search for God, when thwarted or stifled or silenced, erupts like boils, in strange places and in uncomfortable ways. We are already seeing strange religions being born in America now, almost more strange than that of the pagan gods of Babel or America's traditional worship of the rule of law, wealth, and the slippery thing called “Liberty.” The Tower of Babel may be an expensive lie to justify power, but it is a better attempt at meaning than what Dawkins offers the masses. But again, Dawkins is the only honest one, which is why his idea is the most dangerous. He's the anti-Jesus (I don't want to call him the anti-Christ, because he lacks the charisma needed for that). Dawkins tells us that we are purely material beings without souls. He goes all the way. Most people hold back and speak the old common language that dances around this fact, finding idols and obsessions to occupy or fence off the Big Empty. Dawkins has spent his life shouting this message and now we are seeing what fruit it bears, where we are in fact atomized, solitary beings - kind of like genes. When we are just chemical machines, we act like the “selfish gene” writ large. Again, not only is this message the polar opposite of Christ, but it's brings the polar opposite result. Where people know Christ, they form communities, families, and fellowship. There is warmth amid the struggle. Dawkins inability to get past middle-school in his understanding of God leaves him out on the playground all alone. As we watch millions of community organizations and church groups fading away in America, we are clearly becoming more atomized, as people sit at home watching TV alone instead of joining the Lions' Club or a bowling team. What is worrisome about this is that Hannah Arendt, who dissected the rise of 1930's totalitarianism, said that loneliness, a.k.a atomization, is a first step toward totalitarianism, because isolated people without purpose or faith are attracted to a powerful ideology that delivers some kind of meaning. So yes, Babel may be called a fool's game, or superstitious nonsense, but in our “common language” we already play a fool's game, and are happy to do it because Dawkins' worldview makes Kurt Cobain or Morissey seem light-hearted. We don't want to mope about in atomized solitude knowing that we are nothing more than chemicals, a bunch of matter mixed together. Even if we suspect we are “just a clump of cells” we don't want to live like a meaningless mass of molecules. We want meaning. We want to kick ass and take names. We want to win the Super Bowl and go to Disney World and sleep with all the cheerleaders. We want to fight, or at the very least, to watch the fight. We want stories, winners, losers, heroes, and goats. We'll believe in that Tower of Babel or Statue of Liberty if it allows us some sport, some entertainment, a full belly, and a chance to get a little action on the side. Dawkins was honest, but even crazy Nero understood human beings better.The Tower of Babel could be summed up in the saying, “If you tell them a lie, don't tell a little one, tell a big one.” This saying has been attributed to Lenin, Hitler, Goebbels, and various other dictators, but this saying precedes those infamous names by thousands of years - probably tens of thousands of years. The “Big Lie” is old; it was just perfected in the 20th century and is now being refined. To maintain power, great narratives must be upheld, and Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington knew this. They understood it better than any ruler in the time of Babel, but the ancient leaders also knew it or they wouldn't have started building a Tower in the first place. The pyramids in Egypt are probably the most famous form the big lie. They were not a Gate to God, but a tomb that said the Pharaoh was god. Caesar was known as a god and built great structures to prove the lie. The Eiffel Tower is a Tower built in an era of denying God, built to celebrate our modern obsession with technology and engineering. In an odd reversal of Babel, the Eiffel Tower is almost like a Tower to keep God away. You might say it was the next logical step after the Statue of Liberty. Then you have, finally, the degradation into modern art structures that have absolutely no meaning whatsoever, like the Bean in Chicago or the Cherry on a Spoon in Minnesota. These are as meaningful as the world's largest ball of twine. The modern structures and buildings have no meaning because, well, you guessed it - there is none! The National Endowment for the Arts is on full Richard Dawkins' mode. You can easily see how things get uglier in art and architecture as we move away from the era of Christendom. This can also be observed in modern churches, which Bishop Robert Barron has appropriately titled “Beige Catholicism,” in a lament at the drabness of churches built in the latter part of the 20th century. Countries still build structures to symbolize their chosen-ness, their righteousness. They still try to convince citizens of blessings from above, even after they have stopped pretending that the power of the state is really just from the status quo. If you walk through the Washington D.C. mall or the Roman Forum, you can still feel awe at what the builders of Babel were intending to achieve. They were offering what the band Poison was searching for when Brett Michaels cried out, “Give me something to believe in.” Unfortunately, you will get spoon-fed poison if you are looking for some “thing” to believe in that is not the living Creator God, because he created all of the “things” that you might be offered. If you have a Gate to God, then whoever owns the Gate can conceivably talk to the god and tell us what god wants. Oddly enough, the god always wants what the owner of the Gate wants. What luck! But in reality, a Gate or Tower or Altar or Pyramid that grants access to God, like Delphi in Greece, is really a trick that those in power use to sell their claim to the crown. All of these structures are a way to kill off the true God, the Most High, the one true God, and replace him with a human who pretends to have the ear of God. What happens is that there is no longer a living Creator God. As long as the economy is looking good, most people don't really care, and bread and circuses do nicely for keeping the masses pacified. Still, it's nice to have some kind of feeling that the god has blessed the nation, even if you suspect it's all nonsense. That's the genius of the ancient kings, and that's how the “Divine Right of Kings” went off the rails in Europe. The bogus claim to power as “God-given” was abused so horribly that the French Revolution was bound to happen. Louis XIV even called himself the Sun King while simultaneously claiming to be a practicing Catholic. I will resist the urge to comment on Joe Biden here, but I will say this: those who use Christianity in the same way that the pagans used their gods, are pagans themselves. In other words, paganism never really died. As for all who would like to say it simply moved into Catholicism, I would suggest reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church before repeating what others have said and judge for yourself. The great casualty of this trick about god and power is that there is no redemptive suffering, no forgiveness, and no reason to love one another. If there is no living God, then of course there is no ultimate truth. The obvious answer is to take power for yourself and for your family. People who lambast the faithful for only behaving out of fear of hell suggest that believers would be robbing and looting if not for God. They argue that you can be good without God, but they are making that argument in the days of plenty, when famine and economic meltdown have not yet hit. The rise of atheism has coincided with the most bountiful era of food production and wealth in human history. That is not a coincidence. When the economic winds change and the grocery stores shelves are empty, we will see how “good” people are without God. After all, God helps those who help themselves. Let's now return to the Bible, to Genesis, to look at the world after the Tower of Babel story. There is a key difference in dealing with God in the post-Babel chapters, when Abraham and Jacob show up. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.whydidpetersink.com

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The Gate of God (part 3)

Born to Win Podcast - with Ronald L. Dart

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2022 17:59

The common language of Babel is a more subtle message than the idea of language as we think of it. The mention of the Table of Nations right before the Tower of Babel is a key connection to make. If we want to know why did Russia invade Ukraine, or Caesar cross the Rubicon, we can step back and ask ourselves, what common language do all nations speak? Or closer to home, what common language do we all as individuals speak? The common language is not only seen in war, but that is the grossest and most full expression of it. The bombs being lobbed into apartment buildings in Kiev are shouting the language right now. But really our common language can be heard in the nicest of phrases, and spoken from the kindest of faces. A few good examples of the common language are as follows: Benjamin Franklin, in the 18th century, said, “God helps those who helps themselves.” That is one version of the common language. A more blunt version of the common language is from the 21st century rapper, Fifty Cent, who said, “Get rich or die trying.” Ben Franklin and Fifty Cent speak the same language. Yes, they both speak English, but more importantly, they speak the original common language, the ancient one, the same as those who were building the Tower of Babel. Franklin and Fifty are expressing the same idea in different words, separated by a few hundred years. Ben and Fifty are fluent in the the pre-Babel language of “making a name for themselves.” Both orient their lives toward the goal of gaining money and taking power. Gordon Gecko's famous line spoke the language, fully dropping the facade of Franklin, when he said, “Greed is good.” Franklin invented a proverb that almost sounds Biblical, but rest assured, it is not. God does not help those that help themselves. He would much rather that they imitate Jesus and give their lives to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. For all the contributions Franklin made to the founding of America, he did not in any way imitate Jesus. Moral perfection was an interest of Franklin, so long as it was achieved without the Christian God. He tackled the subject in a truly modern way, even using a paper version of a spreadsheet to track his progress, working on one virtue at a time. Father Scupoli was a few hundred years ahead of Franklin, when in 1589 he said, “Virtues are to be required one at a time and by degrees,” except Scupoli's project included God and required no spreadsheet. In many ways, Franklin's paper project was attempting exactly the same thing that was happening at the construction site in Babel, just without masonry or mortar. Let's talk more about Benjamin Franklin, the gentle old bespectacled grandfatherly figure of American history who graces the front side of every one hundred dollar bill in print. He is a fascinating character who embodies much of the American character and the best intentions of the Enlightenment. First, Franklin was a Deist, not a Christian. The same goes for George Washington. Franklin was also a practicing Freemason. Even if Washington and Franklin publicly claimed to be Christian, as practicing Freemasons, they likely just found references to God useful for advancing their own public lives among the peasants. This is important to understand, as this is the same root motive that drives an ancient people to build a Ziggurat. The ancient people went to great lengths to justify their power, requiring a lot of stone and labor. Nations needed an awesome structure to control the people, while the Deists of the Enlightenment just declared man and his mind to be the tallest. The modern temple is intellectual, existing in the mind, but still requires assent of the masses. There is just no need to build a tower to reach the sky now, because no lower-case gods need ritual sacrifices or transactions. (We actually do have plenty of rituals and sacrifices still with us, but they are not as obvious now, and I'll need a whole separate series to discuss that topic.)Instead of building towers, the Deists kept the upper-case God in our mouths, but tried to move him off-stage, kind of like giving a lifetime achievement award to a good actor that never won an Oscar. Jefferson threw God a medal in the Declaration of Independence and then asked him to kindly step aside and retire. To this day, a nod toward God goes a long way for politicians, even as they completely ignore him in their policies and personal lives. Of course, everyone is a sinner, so it's not surprising or even noteworthy that people fall down and appear hypocritical, so I'm not pointing out the failure of politicians to be “good” Christians. What I am suggesting that very few of the Founders were Christian at all, because a practicing Freemason like Franklin or Washington cannot be a Christian any more than a practicing Jew could be a Hindu. They do not go together. Attempting to claim co-existence of Christianity and Freemasonry requires a lot of spinning plates and hula hoops and tambourines and fireworks. Freemasonry is an open rejection of the living God of Israel, and certainly the Trinitarian God of Christianity. Franklin believed in a Clockmaker God, a being who set the stars in motion and left the lights on before retiring into the beyond. He's like a gamer who started a video game on auto-mode and went to bed. The Deist idea of God is a Creator that requires no worship and demands nothing. In other words, it's an absentee father who left long ago and left us free to do whatever we like. The Clockmaker version of God has no relation whatsoever with the living God of Christian faith, because that Bible ends at chapter two of Genesis. Nothing more is needed beyond creation.Why am I picking on Ben Franklin here? He is the poster child of the common language spoken by the architects of Babel. Franklin spoke the language of Babel, because the language of Babylon is declaring a deity that either serves us, or doesn't matter, or both. A Ziggurat is an expensive, fancy way of trying to communicate with and manipulate a god. This required a lot of ritual and song and dance and smoke to sell the idea. But what happens with a Ziggurat is the same thing that happens with Deism. The human, the self, bubbles up as the new deity. Pride rises like hot air and overtakes humility, and the virtues get swapped. Pride rises, humility sinks; it very much matches the behavior of hot and cold air masses. Humility kneels, while pride tries to grasp God.Franklin did not try to deny that God exists, but rather to deny that God matters. This trick makes for a dead deity instead of a living God still present with us. The Clockmaker God opens the door to this. The result of the long onslaught of Enlightenment thinking is a polite depositing of God in the dustbin of history. If you punch your vote for the Clockmaker God, like Franklin did in his weekly Masonic meetings, then there is little or no difference from denying the existence of God entirely, or making bogus sacrifices in a Ziggurat to justify your power. The false gods of Babel were made in the image and likeness of the ruling class, and the Clockmaker God's image and likeness doesn't matter at all because he's on permanent vacation. More importantly, the Clockmaker God is not needed to forgive anything, because just like the rulers of Babel, the rules are decided by those in power, or in other words, “those who help themselves.” The pagan god who demanded sacrifice was not alive, but at least the illusion was more lively than that of the Clockmaker God. When the authority of the living Creator God who sustains all things is gone, then there is nothing holding back “those who help themselves.” The proverb of Franklin is essentially a nice way of arguing for will-to-power, as in, win at all costs. In Franklin's cosmology, there is no cosmic justice, no everlasting judgment, and the conscience is just a nag that you need to stifle. The cookie jar is just as open and unattended with the Clockmaker God of a deist as it is for the atheist who says there is no God at all. In fact, the atheist is really the only honest one. This is why I think our age of atheism has a lot of people coming around, the long way, back to belief in the true God, the living Creator God. All of the other trick gods are so obviously false (Zeus) or pointless (deism), that the only God that makes sense, the only one that can even satisfy the intellect and give purpose to our lives, is the transcendent living Creator God. All the other gods don't matter or are total frauds. In any other cosmos than that of the God of Abraham, we can do whatever we like, and like Franklin, we can help ourselves to whatever we like. A dead or silent God leads directly from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Michel Foucault. A pagan god can at least command fear, but without that new methods are needed. The thunder god who throws lightning and causes storms only has power through fear. The storm god keeps the lightning nearby to strike if he is disrespected, as he is the one who unleashes havoc on the world. He must be appeased with worship, otherwise he will show us who is boss. The storm god that oddly matches worldly power, in that he is in competition with creation and craves adoration as payment. If he gets what he wants, you will receive a reward. There are many modern Christians who understand God in this way and need to break free from this model, because they are playing the same game of Babel as well. On the other hand, a Clockmaker God commands nothing. He is the god of indifference. A God that created matter and exited the stage, doesn't matter at all. It's like a teacher who leaves the classroom and tells the students to behave. He's a powerless joke. The hall monitor is gone, so what's the difference between an absent God that created the universe against a pre-existing universe with no God at all? There is none. The latter is just much easier to live with, except you need something called “the rule of law” to assert control by pretending at objective truth. The funny thing is, however, that the ground for objective truth starts to shake when it's just a set of rules etched in stone outside a courthouse. Eventually people see through this game as well. What we call “the rule of law” is our new storm god, in the form of courts, police, and in its most full form, SWAT teams and the National Guard. As the masses come around more to match Franklin's idea of God, or worse, Marx's idea of God, the jig is up. The pretense of objective truth gets jettisoned for “my truth.” In either case, there are no rules except what we decide. Ziggurat or no Ziggurat: the god of Babel and the God of Franklin is the one that “helps those who help themselves.” The only thing that comes to matter in this worldview is power. That is the common language of Babel. That is what we want. However, a living God that knows the number of hairs on your head matters a great deal. That God is the only one that can change our behavior out of love. There is a reason that the God of the Bible has lasted so long. This God satisfies our souls. He fits our lives. He explains everything. He is also the only real one. The God of Israel, who we have come to understand better in the revelation of the Trinity, is the only one that can make all of our difficulties in life suddenly fall into place, just like he did in creating the universe. Once this concept of God is understood, both suffering and love begin to make sense. The main reason this happens, and keeps happening in every generation, is because, this God is real, and this God is alive. The language that is being spoke in the Tower of Babel story is not really referring to Sumerian or Akkadian or Greek or Latin. No, it means a worldview that celebrates a culture of competition, power-seeking, comfort-seeking, possession-seeking, and pleasure-seeking. What we really want is God to approve our desires, but our conscience is God's messenger that lets us know in subtle ways that he will never approve of those things. The worldview or common language is the little voice that tells us otherwise, that suggests that we elevate our pursuits over the glory of God. What we want, instinctually, is salvation independent of God. A Ziggurat is built to pull the gods down, to shape god to match our human pursuits, to justify ourselves. The correct approach to God is to stop trying to manipulate him, because he cannot be manipulated, and rather we need to conform our human pursuits to the will of the one true God. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.whydidpetersink.com

Outsmarting Your Enemies

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 11, 2022 28:05

A vast majority of Americans believe in God. A surprising majority actually pray, regularly—often more than once a day. What is disappointing is that more of them don’t read the Bible. And I want to tell you why that is so important. There is a small but determined minority in this country who want the rest of us to shut up about God. They may or may not believe in God. Some of them are deists. They believe there is a God, but they don’t necessarily believe he has ever communicated with man.Deism is defined as Belief in God as revealed by nature and reason combined with a disbelief in scripture, prophets, superstition and church authority. They really are no better equipped to deal with the world than an atheist or an agnostic. God, they think, has never seen fit to reveal himself to man in any other way than the creation. Why God would create all this and then go off and leave it is not all that clear. Perhaps he likes a soap opera as much as anyone.Apart from the Deists, there is another segment of this determined minority who want God out of public life. These are the people who don’t believe in God at all. And they have this in common with deists: They have no underlying authority for the way they live their lives and the way they treat other people. One reason this feisty little minority is as successful as they are is because so many people who do believe in God know next to nothing about the Bible. They don’t read it, much less study it. Their exposure is limited to Sunday school and church. If it weren’t so, they would immediately see through some of the nonsense being sold to them.If we expect to be able to respond to the lunacy that is coming from some quarters these days, we are going to have to read our Bibles; not just to prove this or that doctrinal nicety to other Christians with whom we may have a difference, but so we won’t be caught off guard by the enemies of faith.

god bible americans christians belief enemies bibles outsmarting deism deists

X's and O's

marriage catholic exist catholic church deists

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 25, 2022 20:01

Ideas that looks good on paper often don't work as expected. Compare a football play drawn in a playbook to what actually happens on the field. These two things rarely, if ever, match perfectly. This problem is the cause of many gray hairs among coaches as their plans fold like a house of cards when put into action in the real world. We live in a time where many ideas look good on paper, or more specifically, on screens, and our mind is easily convinced, that things we've tried and have not worked out well, will work if we just try it one more time. “This time it will be different.” For example, we know that heavy drinking is a bad idea, but perhaps we'll try it this weekend. Or, we know that dating multiple partners results is gunpowder and kerosene that results in relationship explosions, but what if, just maybe, everyone who ever lived through a tumultuous love triangle is wrong? Or on a wider scale, we have all observed socialism's train-wrecks that invariably result in brutal dictatorships, but let's give it another whirl (this time with feeling)! We get fooled by the fruit on the tree without remembering what happened after the first bite. We need a plan, a starting point, a model to follow, and everyone is selling a playbook. Many of these plans have been proven to be bad ideas, even in our own experience. Yet we keep trying them, even after we know the likely outcome. In our lives, we know the patterns that fail, but like the stubborn coach we can't accept that the X's and O's in our mind are bad ideas even after repeated attempts that prove it. We're still convinced our rag-arm quarterback can complete that bootleg rollout cross-body pass despite the last five attempts when it resulted in a pick-six touchdown for the defense. The coach who says, “Let's run it again,” will be searching for new employment soon.We privately know that the best model is the one used and put into practice by sober, boring coaches, not wild rebels, but it's hard to admit. There is a reason that Nick Saban draws the best players to Alabama year after year. He's sober, he's boring, and doesn't run dumb plays. In his sober, boring way, he wins a lot. It works. It has always worked, since the beginning of time. Adam and Eve didn't like being bored, and that's where things went south really fast. Even while we are out testing theories and researching ways of living, we can see that the boring people keep the wheels on the bus. We even rely on it. No child who is out playing wants to come in for dinner if mom or dad is a hot mess that serves a cold meal but forces the family to call it delicious. No, we want a balanced, tasty meal, served hot and on time, by a largely boring cook who follows the recipe, and executes the recipe well. Or, for another example, my accountant may be an alcoholic, but I don't want him drunk while he's doing my taxes. I would prefer that he is sober and boring and careful. In the IT world, compare the sober, boring, careful database administrator who says “no” to everything versus the fresh-out-of-college wired programmer who wants to rip out the old, stodgy system with the latest fad tech pulled down from GitHub. Or, consider a business manager who patiently reviews expense reports versus the lavishly-spending salesperson who is wooing a whale of a client. These roles are all important players on the roster of a business, but the reality is this: someone has to be the jerk, or the business will fold. Someone has to tell the creative person to reign it in, or there will be no business. You need the creative people and the boring gatekeepers. If everyone is nice all the time, and no one ever says, “No,” then the production systems will collapse into disorder and the expense reports will swell until bribery and embezzlement become side-channels of compensation. The moment the lock is removed from the safe, someone will start calling it “petty cash.”The lawmakers of revolutionary America knew this, and for their various faults, they knew that allowances were needed for those wild-eyed rebels to explore the edges of the frontier, while also realizing that tripwires needed to restrain the majority so that no more Salem witch burnings might ignite. Oddly enough, we're nearly back to witch hunting, but the witches being cancelled are the Christians. (This may sound shocking but Christians being burned makes a lot more sense. Christians are supposed to be converting witches to the faith through the joyful witness of their lives, and not burning anyone.) The founders also knew that the morality of the Christian tradition was the bedrock that a stable country could be built upon, even if they were only Deists themselves and Christians-in-name-only. They knew that humans needed some rope, some allowance for both creative and destructive rebellion, but not too much rope. They knew that when the fringe becomes the center, the center becomes the fringe, and that arrangement does not work. I've used the sandbox and kitchen metaphor before. When a child's sandbox is brought into the kitchen, dinner is never the same. Sand gets into the food, hands get burned, the floor gets filthy, and the cat may use it as a litter-box. This is not sustainable. The place for “fun” is not in the operations center of the house. The dabblers having fun in the sandbox - the tourists, the experience-seekers, the addicts - are trying on ways of life. They are trying to run plays from a playbook that is full of bad ideas. But even if told, they will run those same plays. To err is human. We know people will go there, and if you take away the playbook or the field they practice on, they will find a new place to play and invent new plays. Explorers explore. We want to taste and try things on, and we're steered to drinking, sex, and the pursuit of money daily by the images set before our eyes. We are tempted to seek, and told that our desires are our identity. The manufacturing of seekers (consumers) is the primary goal of advertising and Hollywood writers. “Try everything” by Shakira is suggesting kids really try everything, from skydiving to fantasy football to sodomy to Fentanyl. Go for it! You are only the sum of your desires! That is how you will find rest, or so we are told. Next time you hear Shakira's song, substitute the word Fentanyl for Everything. There is an alternate option here, offered by Jesus, which we tend to consider last, where he says, “Come, follow me, and I will give you rest.” What's interesting is that Jesus not only “looks good on paper” like a shiny product or football play in X's and O's, but he can execute the play and give a proper meaning and shape to your life, while he also gives you rest. He also has many friends for you to meet, both here and hereafter. The only problem is that Jesus gives it for free, so marketing and Hollywood are not needed. Shakira would have been wise to add a third verse to “Try Everything” that provided the proper ending to what she's suggesting. I tried it all, God, why am I still so lost? Now my fears are here, and there's nowhere to turn. I tried it all, to fill this hole inside,Help: Draw me, Lord, and we will run.Country music, and some rap music, is better about tying up the loose ends of story songs. Pop music tends to pretend that there is no Act III to their stories, but there is always at least three acts in every story, otherwise it's not much of a story. In producing a nation of consumers, also known as seekers, we have hit peak depression because people bought the tale that a life that resembles a hedonistic rave will be fun forever. This is why you see people bouncing like pinballs from one wellness idea to the next, one diet to the next, one “way of life” to the next. You see it in Christians who bounce from one church to the next because the Pastor isn't “feeding them.” (Again, if you are going to Mass to get something instead of to give, and that is to give glory to God, you don't understand why St. Peter or Notre Dame or any other church was built in the first place.) If you are expecting to be fed and be constantly entertained, you will always be in the pinball machine, bouncing around, never at rest. What we really want is meaning, purpose, and community, all of which are given, all at once, when faith in Christ settles into your bones and into your soul. Then you will find rest. When you follow him, the person of Jesus, the construction worker who is God, you will get what you really wanted, especially when you realize that you wanted all the wrong things. Bonus: you get community and people who will open up and talk about real things. These people tend to talk about more than how many reps they did today or how many grams of protein meets their macro requirements. Entertainment and consumption are the great distractions today. These are patterns that need to be shattered, and Jesus will do all that for you - for free - you just have to ask him, and keep asking. These habits are hard to break, but they are the shackles you put on every day by choice. Seekers get to learn the hard way because the school of life and hard knocks is brutally honest. There comes a day when the Netflix binge no longer brings joy but crushing sadness. That's the finger of God pressing on you while you lay on the couch. Fortunate souls learn by watching others' bad behavior. Take for example: Those who grow up with drug using parents who “Try everything,” following Shakira's advice, often conclude that trying everything leads to a thousand nightmares and years of therapy. This is why both AA and Al-Anon exist. The first is for those who “Try everything” and keep burning their hand on the hot stove. The second is for those who had to figure out how to live with those who “Try everything” and keep burning their hand on the hot stove. If you never leave the land of play, you get stuck there. The longer you play in the sandbox, the more the voice of the conscience becomes muffled. The sandbox plays by different rules, often no rules, which is exactly why the sandbox is out in the yard and not in the kitchen. The education of a child in the sandbox teaches valuable lessons that may not be taught while helping prepare dinner in the kitchen. In places without established order, you learn to fight or flee. You learn to lead, follow, or get out of the way. You learn your strengths and weaknesses. However, you can't live your while life in the sandbox, because imaginary games and child's play are not intended to become permanent ways of life. Eventually, if you are sixty years old and still playing in the sandbox, it becomes pathetic to see a grown man or woman still making mudpies and calling it cake. Other adults no longer think it's cute or funny. If you've ever seen a sixty year old man in a college bar checking out the sophomores, you know exactly what I'm talking about. A sore thumb sticks out because it's not healthy. A fish out of water is out of place. The presence of an old person in a young person's environment draws eyes because it doesn't make sense and we know it by instinct. There is a popular lie going around claiming that, “Age is just a state of mind,” which is exactly what the middle-age creep in the nightclub is claiming while he sucks on the straw of his rail drink. Age is an immutable fact of time and space, while mind is malleable to a mood or desire or how much sleep you had the night before. Once, while training for a half-marathon, I convinced myself that running a pace of seven minute miles was a “just a state of mind.” When the race began, I kept telling myself, “It's just a state of mind, pace is just a state of mind.” Then I learned in the race, around the fifth mile, that I was a liar, and I crashed. I gasped, “Nope, it's biology. Pace is related to biology.” My mile pace might be somewhat related to what my mind had decided, as I could motivate myself with encouragement, but my VO2 Max was where the rubber met the road. As we've become more accustomed to virtual lives through screens and interfaces, we put far more credence in our imagined states than reality can support. I had trained hard for the race, thinking that what I decided in my head could be realized, but physiology had a different fact, presenting reality abruptly to my mind, compliments of my lungs and legs. This is the same thing that happens in pursuit of bad ideas tended to in your mind, usually extending from some sickly tentacle from a seed of advertising that fertilized your desire for money, power, escape, or sex. We can not live as just a soul, nor just a mind, nor just a body, because none of these make up the whole of our self. We are watering and feeding whatever our is planted in our mind, what we are told to like, and we are surprised when the fruit is rotten at reaping. The reason for the rottenness is that we have elevated the mind over the body and soul, which are who we actually are. Our desires are not who we are. That is the great lie. We must seek to be whole, body and soul, with mind as the point of connection. When we focus too much on “mindfulness” we can easily forget that we have a body and a soul, and that is who we really are, made in the image and likeness of God. As I've mentioned before (quoting Peter Kreeft), the reason that horror movies focus on either ghosts or corpses is because in the first, the soul lacks a body, and in the second, the body lacks a soul. These terrify us because body and soul go together. Mind is where we connect body and soul, and staring in a phone we end up a zombie, neither body nor soul. The reason zombies need to have their brain destroyed to die is because they are staring into their inner phones, drooling over their desire, and neither body nor soul. They are just rotting bodies without a soul, lumbering toward their insatiable desire. Can anyone deny that someone staring into their phone looks like a a zombie? With luck or divine intervention, an awakening occurs, or a savior arrives. Rescue operations need to be present at all times to accept those with casualties returning from the sandbox, but some will reject any hand offered, and some never reach for the hand. Until someone is ready to quit the sandbox, they do not understand the need for rescue. Getting lost in the imagination is the cause of our mental illness pandemic in the age of screens. When we separate our body from our mind, we are no longer whole. The great irony is that the solution being presented is “more mind”: more apps, zoom meetings, more interactions with technology. Whenever we look at the screen, we sever our mind from our body and soul and enter into a false reality. This happens with any gadget interaction, including virtual reality, which is where we are now headed, compliments of our tech overlords. The isolation of the mind happens whether you are scrolling websites or on a zoom with real people. The mind engages with the screen and the screen reflects the self. The person on the other end of the screen could just as well be a robot or software application. But what looks good on paper, or screen, doesn't often play out well. Unless you follow the patterns of tried-and-tested usage, practice in time and space, with body and soul, you are winging it by following only words and feelings. The testing grounds for ideas is in the world, on the court, on the field, not what the X's and O's show on the screen. Any gray-haired coach can tell you that. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.whydidpetersink.com

2022-10-24 - Why Does Marriage Exist?

Called to Communion

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 24, 2022 51:00

Why does #marriage exist?, how do you explain #religion to Deists?, a listener's granddaughter says it is to hard to be #Catholic, and what is the Catholic #Church's view on dreams?

Called To Communion 10/24/22 - Why Does Marriage Exist?

Catholic

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 24, 2022 50:25

Why does #marriage exist?, how do you explain #religion to Deists?, a listener's granddaughter says it is to hard to be #Catholic, and what is the Catholic #Church's view on dreams?

marriage catholic exist communion catholic church deists

The Truth About America's Christian Founding | Ep. 62

Reasonable Theology Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 11, 2022 45:45

united states america american founders christianity scripture founding mark david hall deists

The Unitarian Universalist Irreligious Jesus

TonioTimeDaily

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 21, 2022 183:50

“This Jesus owns condominiums constructed just for those who believe in him. When they die, he gives them the keys. But, for the rest of humanity, billions of people, this Jesus says no keys for you. I have a special Hitler-like plan for you. To the ovens you go, only unlike the Jews, I plan to give you a special body that allows me to torture you with fire and brimstone forever. It is this Jesus I hate. It is this Jesus who looks at Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, Deists, Universalists, Secularists, Humanists, and Skeptics, and says to them before you were born I made sure you could never be in the group that gets the condominiums when they die. This Jesus says, and it is your fault, sinner man. It is this Jesus who made sure billions of people were born into cultures that worshiped other Gods. It is this Jesus who then says it is their fault they were born at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Too bad, this Jesus says, burn forever in the Lake of Fire. It is this Jesus I hate.” “This Jesus is on the side of the culture warriors. This Jesus hates homosexuals and demands they be treated as second class citizens. This Jesus, no matter the circumstance, demands that a woman carry her fetus to term. Child of a rapist, afflicted with a serious birth defect, the product of incest or a one night stand? It matters not. This Jesus is pro-life. Yet, this same Jesus supports the incarceration of poor young men of color, often for no other crime than trying to survive. This Jesus is so pro-life he encourages American presidents and politicians to slaughter innocent men, women, and children. This Jesus demands certain criminals be put to death by the state, even though the state has legally murdered innocent people. It is this Jesus I hate. This Jesus drives fancy cars, has palaces and cathedrals, and followers who spare no expense to make his house the best mansion in town. This Jesus loves Rolexes, Lear jets, and expensive suits. This Jesus sees the multitude and turns his back on them, only concerned with those who say and believe “the right things.” It is this Jesus I hate.” “Over the years, I have had a number of people write me about how the modern Jesus was ruining their marriage. In many instances, the married couple started out in life as believers, and somewhere along the road of life one of them stopped believing. The still-believing spouse can't or won't understand why the other spouse no longer believes. They make it clear that Jesus is still very important to them and if forced to choose between their spouse and family, they would choose Jesus. Simply put, they love Jesus more than they love their families. Sadly, these types of marriages usually fail. A husband or a wife simply cannot compete with Jesus. He is the perfect lover and perfect friend, one who is always there for the believing spouse. This Jesus hears the prayers of the believing spouse and answers them. This Jesus is the BFF of the believing spouse. This Jesus says to the believer, you must choose, me or your spouse. It is this Jesus I hate.” --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/support

8/5/22 - Stand in the Gap Today

Stand in the Gap Radio Podcasts

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 5, 2022 54:27

Ask Sam: Episode 26. We are joined by Sam Rohrer (President, American Pastors Network; SIGT Host). Topics discussed include: America's Need to Return to God. Deists or Christians? A Biblical Worldview Brings Solutions. Stand In the Gap: A Resource for Building a Biblical Worldview. Originally Aired: 7/15/22

america god stand building christians biblical worldview deists american pastors network

7/15/22 - Stand in the Gap Today

Stand in the Gap Radio Podcasts

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2022 48:59

Ask Sam: Episode 26. We are joined by Sam Rohrer (President, American Pastors Network; SIGT Host). Topics discussed include: America's Need to Return to God. Deists or Christians? A Biblical Worldview Brings Solutions. Stand In The Gap: A Resource for Building a Biblical Worldview.

america god stand building christians biblical worldview deists american pastors network

Questioning God 7.0

Hearts for the Lost The Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 1, 2022 62:28

Brian and Jimmy tackle the different types of skeptics that might be encountered when sharing the gospel. We talk Atheists, Agnostics and Deists. Give us a listen on how to handle the different objections they might have.

atheists questioning god agnostics deists

Non-Christians are Christlike too!

TonioTimeDaily

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 21, 2022 55:10

Every word in this article describes my religious views: "https://brucegerencser.net/why-i-hate-jesus/ "I don't hate the flesh and blood Jesus who walked the dusty roads of Palestine, nor do I hate the Jesus found in the pages of the Bible. These Jesuses are relics of the past. I'll leave it to historians to argue and debate whether these Jesuses were real or fiction. Over the centuries, Christians have created many Jesuses in their own image. This is the essence of Christianity, an ever-evolving religion bearing little resemblance to what it was even a century ago. The Jesus I hate is the modern, Western Jesus, the American Jesus, the Jesus who has been a part of my life for almost fifty-eight years. The Jesuses of bygone eras have no power to harm me, but the modern Jesus – the Jesus of the three hundred thousand Christian churches that populate every community in America – he has the power to affect my life, hurt my family, and destroy my country. And I, with a vengeance, hate him. This Jesus drives fancy cars, has palaces and cathedrals, and followers who spare no expense to make his house the best mansion in town. This Jesus loves Rolexes, Lear jets, and expensive suits. This Jesus sees the multitude and turns his back on them, only concerned with those who say and believe “the right things.” It is this Jesus I hate. This Jesus owns condominiums constructed just for those who believe in him. When they die, he gives them the keys. But, for the rest of humanity, billions of people, this Jesus says no keys for you. I have a special Hitler-like plan for you. To the ovens you go, only unlike the Jews, I plan to give you a special body that allows me to torture you with fire and brimstone forever. It is this Jesus I hate. It is this Jesus who looks at Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, Deists, Universalists, Secularists, Humanists, and Skeptics, and says to them before you were born I made sure you could never be in the group that gets the condominiums when they die. This Jesus says, and it is your fault, sinner man. It is this Jesus who made sure billions of people were born into cultures that worshiped other Gods. It is this Jesus who then says it is their fault they were born at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Too bad, this Jesus says, burn forever in the Lake of Fire. It is this Jesus I hate. This Jesus divides families, friends, communities, and nations. This Jesus is the means to an end. This Jesus is all about money, power and control. This Jesus subjugates women, tells widows it's their fault, and ignores the cry of orphans. Everywhere one looks, this Jesus hurts, afflicts, and kills those we love. It is this Jesus I hate. What I can't understand is why anyone loves this Jesus? Like a clown on a parade route, he throws a few candies towards those who worship him, promising them that a huge pile of candy awaits them when they die. He lets his followers hunger, thirst, and die, yet he tells them it is for their good, that he loves them and has a wonderful plan for their life. This Jesus is all talk, promising the moon and delivering a piece of gravel. Why can't his followers see this? Fear me, he tells his followers. I have the keys to life and death. I have the power to make you happy and I have the power to destroy your life. I have the power to take your children, health, and livelihood. I can do these things because I am the biggest, baddest Jesus ever. Fear me and oppress women, immigrants, orphans, homosexuals, and atheists. Refuse my demand and I will rain my judgment down upon your head. But, know that I love you and only want is best for you and yours. It is this Jesus I hate. This Jesus is pro-life. Yet, this same Jesus supports the incarceration of poor young men of color, often for no other crime than trying to survive." --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/support

My holistic secular spirituality

TonioTimeDaily

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2022 56:46

"In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references." New Testament scholar Bart Erhman "I don't hate the flesh and blood Jesus who walked the dusty roads of Palestine, nor do I hate the Jesus found in the pages of the Bible. These Jesuses are relics of the past. I'll leave it to historians to argue and debate whether these Jesuses were real or fiction. Over the centuries, Christians have created many Jesuses in their own image. This is the essence of Christianity, an ever-evolving religion bearing little resemblance to what it was even a century ago. The Jesus I hate is the modern, Western Jesus, the American Jesus, the Jesus who has been a part of my life for almost fifty-eight years. The Jesuses of bygone eras have no power to harm me, but the modern Jesus – the Jesus of the three hundred thousand Christian churches that populate every community in America – he has the power to affect my life, hurt my family, and destroy my country. And I, with a vengeance, hate him. This Jesus drives fancy cars, has palaces and cathedrals, and followers who spare no expense to make his house the best mansion in town. This Jesus loves Rolexes, Lear jets, and expensive suits. This Jesus sees the multitude and turns his back on them, only concerned with those who say and believe “the right things.” It is this Jesus I hate. This Jesus owns condominiums constructed just for those who believe in him. When they die, he gives them the keys. But, for the rest of humanity, billions of people, this Jesus says no keys for you. I have a special Hitler-like plan for you. To the ovens you go, only unlike the Jews, I plan to give you a special body that allows me to torture you with fire and brimstone forever. It is this Jesus I hate. It is this Jesus who looks at Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, Deists, Universalists, Secularists, Humanists, and Skeptics, and says to them before you were born I made sure you could never be in the group that gets the condominiums when they die. This Jesus says, and it is your fault, sinner man. It is this Jesus who made sure billions of people were born into cultures that worshiped other Gods. It is this Jesus who then says it is their fault they were born at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Too bad, this Jesus says, burn forever in the Lake of Fire. It is this Jesus I hate." -Bruce Gerencser "I agree with Bart and Bruce!" - Antonio Myers --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/support

Thinking About Deism

The Spiral Dance with Hawthorne

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 28, 2022

Deism as an encompassing thought and philosophy had a major influence over those we in American call our Founding Fathers. Thus the shape of our Constitution is very much a product of Deism. But what's the connection between Deism and Paganism? Well, in the Eighteenth Century many Deists spoke of a Creator God, or The God of Nature. They connected to the Devine through Rational Thought Processes, and by connecting with Nature. Clearly the Deists of 1775 would scoff at the Pagans of today. But we at least have Nature in common. So let's take some time to learn about Deism, and maybe derive inspiration from Deistic Quotes. Be well. Do good. Enjoy the show!

god american thinking nature myth constitution folk goddess founding fathers spells devine magick chants paganism wicca pagans creator god eighteenth century deism deists

Rob's Soapbox - Hey Pope Francis: F&*K YOU

RAD Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 17, 2022 10:13

I'll start with a few admissions and caveats. I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of organized religion. I've dabbled in most of them, ranging from the modern, mainstream “hip” version of Christianity (where they encourage patrons to wear jeans and play Christian rock music at mass) to the Assembly of God (Pentecostals). I've attended Baptist, Mormon, and Episcopalian churches and I'm one of the very few people I know who has actually read the Qur'an.In the end, spirituality is for me, but not organized religion and believe you me, there is a very stark difference. Religion is the process and practice of humans telling other humans what to believe and how God will react…not to mention the collection of endless amounts of money along the way. I am, instead, like the majority of our founding fathers were, a deist; meaning that I acknowledge the existence of a supreme being and/or creator and who or what that looks like is not of your god damned business (pun intended). Deists also believe that this supreme being does not intervene in the universe…he is the ultimate believer in free will and doesn't have the time or inclination to actually plan out or interfere in the silly decisions humans are making on a day-to-day level, let alone our long term individual fates.In other words, everyone hates me in the spiritual world. Atheists think I'm a childish moron who, like others, believes in the man in the moon, and religious believers think I'm gutless and looking for a way to split the difference. I've heard it all from both sides. The thing that amazes me is that I am neither threatened nor upset at their beliefs, or lack thereof, but boy are most of them very concerned about mine. It might make one wonder or question their level of faith if one were so inclined.With all of that said, Pope Francis is a hypocritical moron who, quite frankly, needs to call it a career.I freely admit that I don't get the “Pope,” thing. Elevating a human on earth to near god-like status (which is absolutely what the Catholic Church does regardless of their spin) is, in and of itself, both absurd and creepy. That said, Pope Francis was ushered in as a change agent who was going to modernize the church. Despite being now 85 years old, he has been embraced by young believers for his acceptance and/or open-mindedness towards the LGBTQ community, women in the hierarchy, and even birth control. For much of his reign, Francis has shown a desire to move the church forward, while understanding that such changes must be done slowly and methodically to maintain the existing base of followers.https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/09/23/james-martin-pope-francis-lgbt-241483https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965261708/pope-francis-latest-moves-to-empower-women-in-roman-catholic-churchhttps://www.firstpost.com/world/let-couples-not-the-church-decide-on-contraception-pope-francis-writes-in-the-joy-of-love-2719410.htmlBut boy, did he miss the mark last week…and people noticed.Pope Francis, on Wednesday, January 5th, lamented that couples prefer pets to children. He said many “do not have children because they do not want to, or they have just one, but they have two dogs, two cats… dogs and cats take the place of children.”He said that parenthood provides "something fundamental, something important" in people's lives. He said there is "a form of selfishness" in couples deciding to have just one child (or none) and that this "is a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity."This is not a new message by the Pontiff; in 2014 he made sure we all knew that having the audacity to be married and choose to neither have, adopt, nor raise any children would lead to a life of “bitterness and loneliness.”This is all too rich. Here we have a man who has never had children, never been married, and perhaps most notably, never had a dog, lecturing all of us on all three without being remotely connected with the delicious hypocrisy and vapidness of his comments. (Never mind the fact that we have no shortage of humans on this planet as we're primed to hit 8 billion this year).Let's start with the hypocrisy:The church talks the talk on families, but it doesn't walk the walk. Many of its beliefs and policies are decidedly not pro-family.Consider, for example, the second-class status married people have had in the church itself for centuries. For close to 900 years, the church has deemed celibacy crucial to a priest's vocation. By being unmarried, the priest more fully conforms to the life of Christ, and thus his role was more elevated spiritually. So which is it? Is this simply the Pope trying to save the souls of those of us not so spiritually elevated as he and others that we have chosen to instead give in to the temptation of flesh by pointing out that the least we can do is provide more humans who can ultimately tithe? (For, let's not pretend that in the end, all messages from all religions are motivated by one thing and one thing alone: money).Is now the time to mention the offspring of not-so-celibate priests? No one knows how many there are, but it appears thousands of children may be in this situation, and some may never have been told who their real father is nor have received sufficient child support as part of the decades-old child molestation scandal that has been beautifully brushed aside by the Church so worried about the precious children.Meanwhile, the pope endorses more adoption. But many Catholic social service agencies refuse to include gay couples as foster or adoptive parents. In judging loving gay unions as not “even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family,” the church cannot see the potential of gay Catholics as good parents.There's also the deep inconsistency between the pope's push for more children at the same time that he erects barriers to couples actually having them. Though he expresses empathy for couples struggling with infertility, church rules have been very picky about which fertility treatments can be approved. One treatment deemed unacceptable is in vitro fertilization, even if it only uses the husband's sperm and the wife's eggs. In part that's because children are not conceived the way God intended.IVF is “making children instead of accepting them as a gift,” Francis said in 2014. The church retains its opposition despite the fact that IVF often offers couples their only chance for children after other treatments have failed and has led to thousands of successful pregnancies.I could fill endless space with the hypocrisy of all religion, let alone on this particular subject, but alas, let's move on to the more salient point:In 2022, you can't expect people to believe we are simply here to breed. We are all individual humans with dreams and desires and goals. They don't always include having children. I know a lot of people like me who don't even like children.Many people, of course, choose to have children. Some have one, some have six. That is a choice they make, and I say more power to them, as long as they own the fact that they made that choice and the challenges that come with having brought lives into this world are theirs to bear and burden on their own, and they created their situation.And most importantly, people who choose to have children are in no way better or more human than those who choose not to. In many cases, the latter group is better, for we have recognized our own limitations and inabilities and decided not to pass those along to innocent lives who never asked to be brought into this world. As Oprah Winfrey acknowledged in 2013, had she chosen to have children, she would have had to choose the things in her life which had to be given the highest priority, and she knew she wouldn't have chosen her children. She would have chosen her career, and her kids would have both suffered and learned to quickly hate her. Is this the fate Pope Francis wishes upon all babies?To be clear, there are quite literally millions of Americans who have both children and thriving careers and interests; but they are motivated and driven by that. Many of us are not, and recognizing that is the least selfish thing a human can do. I'm not aware of any of us who have chosen not to have children who are pining to be rewarded, congratulated, or revered for our decisions, it would just be nice if we weren't demonized for it. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/why-oprah-never-had-kids-they-would-hate-me/article15964472/To the most appalling misstep of the Pope's comments, let us acknowledge an undeniable truth: dogs make us more human. They make us better. Dogs are, in fact, superior to most people.The idea that dogs are unlike children is ridiculous.Custody battles break out over dogs. Short of setting up a college fund, having a dog is as heavy a responsibility — one with an expiration date, with heartbreak for the human built into the deal.I've seen people grieve for their dogs harder and longer than they have for friends and family…dog parents know. To the extent that offends parents, go to hell and stop telling those of us who have chosen who and what to love differently than you that you are somehow better and more enlightened. And while you're at it, remember once again that you are aligning yourself with someone who we're being lectured at who happens to be a childless Pope who doesn't have a dog.Why begrudge people their dogs? Why such a heartless take on man's best friend? What a misstep for Pope Francis. Why not take his cue from the late Pope John Paul II, himself an actual beloved global figure, who once comforted a small boy grieving his dog with the reassurance that yes, all dogs go to heaven?“Animals,” John Paul II said, “are as near to God as men are.”Or perhaps we look to a potentially even greater spiritual leader, the late Mahatma Gandhi who famously said “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”And need I remind all that Dog is God spelled backward? Coincidence or divine intervention? What say you, Pope hypocrite? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/03/pope-tells-couples-have-children-not-pets https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/pope-francis-claims-pets-replacing-children-many-families-selfish-s-ncna1287140 https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/6-questions-pope-francis-who-may-benefit-adopting-petSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

R"D Nieto, semicha, PhD, MD Hakham Spanish Portuguese London 18th century

Jewish History with Rabbi Dr. Dovid Katz

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 26, 2021 109:03

Defender of the Faith against Deists, Sabbateans, Spinozists, and bull-artists

defenders nieto 18th century deists spanish portuguese sabbateans

The Glorious God Speaks Out of a Whirlwind (Job Sermon 24) (Audio)

Catholic Heritage with Dr. Italy

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 3, 2021

Finally, God descends to earth and speaks to Job with awesome power... out of a whirlwind. - Sermon Transcript - Well if you could, and you can't, but if you could be transported back in time by the Spirit of God to any moment in redemptive history, what would you like to go back and see? Where would you like to go? So many options. Love to be there when God created the universe and see it all unfolding step by step. To see the beautiful garden of Eden, to see the beauty of that pristine and perfect world. What would it be like just to be there? Or when Noah got off the arc after the flood, and he offered up the sacrifice, that pleasing aroma to God, and then that rainbow came in the skies and that sense of the beauty, the freshness of a world cleansed from wickedness and sin, a fresh start. Maybe when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and the Angel of the Lord stopped him and a voice from heaven, from the Angel of the Lord said, “Now I know that you fear God.” There's so many options, but for me this morning, at least, I would love to be there when God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind. To just stand there and hear the voice of God. Because I have a feeling that in the end, that's the message of the book of Job. That if God would be with us in our suffering, if he would talk to us, if he would speak to us, if he would walk with us through the water and through the fire, we could make it through anything. If God would be with us and would be for us, we could endure any of the afflictions he would choose to bring into our lives. I know that this is the lesson. And so I want to hear from God this morning, we've come in Job 38 to the climax of the book of Job, four chapter climax. We're not going to get through all of the dimensions, the beauty of God speaking to Job, but we're going to begin. Job 38 begins one of the most dramatic conversations there's ever been in human history. Job, one of the godliest men in history has been yearning for a face to face with God. This is as close as any man could come, for almighty God descends to earth and speaks to Job with awesome power. The glorious God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind. At last, the seemingly silent God, the invisible God, the omnipotent God speaks, at last. Job assaulted by his sufferings which came upon him wave upon wave has been yearning for the chance to confront God and to interrogate him. Job seems convinced that God has made the same mistake in some ways that his friends did. Essentially Job seems to be operating at least from time to time out of the same faulty theology that they had. The only explanation for human suffering is punishment by a wise God for specific sins that that person has committed, the law of retribution. And he knows that he hasn't committed any great sins. So it must mean that God has, in some sense, made a big mistake. And all that needs to happen, Job thinks, is to have somewhat of a court trial in which he gets a face to face with God. And the evidence can be presented at last of his basic righteousness, his blamelessness, and God would agree, consent to it. And Job would emerge triumphant in some sense against God, himself, as his unjust adversary. He expected to grill God like a prosecuting attorney and have God answer all of his questions. But this conversation doesn't go anything like Job expected that it would, not at all. Because God being God seizes the initiative here, right from the start. And he asks Job all the questions and demands that he answer God. And as he does all of this, he brings deep repentance to Job and he brings final spiritual healing to Job. And through Job, as we read, by the ministry of the Holy Spirit to us, to us. So that's what we're getting as we look at Job 38. I. God’s Voice in the Whirlwind Humbles Us This is God's voice; God's voice in the whirlwind and it humbles us. Look at verses 1-2, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: ‘Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?’” the overwhelming majesty of God. Now earlier in the book of Job we saw in Job 13:11 this statement, “Would not his splendor terrify you? Would not the dread of him fall upon you?” Yes, it would. It's always the case with these theophanies, these appearances of God in the Bible, whenever it happens, human beings are on their face before him; they're leveled by him. So God determines to appear in majesty with the trappings of power and glory, and to overwhelm Job with his infinite greatness as he did with the Israelites at Mount Sinai. When God spoke to Israel that day, he descended from heaven to earth in clouds and fire, and he made the ground shake under their feet. And his voice was so terrifying that the people begged Moses that God not speak to them anymore less they should die. And God did all this to fill the people with fear. That was his motive, clearly. There's no doubt that God has this capability. He can show up with this level of power. He can cause his glory to shine brilliantly. He can cause the ground beneath our feet to shake and he can speak to us with a voice that sounds like thunder and that fills the whole world with terror. God can do that. He has a dimmer switch on this. He can ramp it up, the display of his glory and his omnipotence, and his majesty to such levels we can scarcely begin to imagine. If he dial it up to 1% maybe, I feel that we would immediately die. “No one can see me and live,” God said to Moses. He has that power and God can choose any level of display he wants with any person at any time. Then why does he use a whirlwind to speak to Job? He didn't have to use a whirlwind. Why did he do it? He uses the wind, but in overpowering magnitude. I mean, wind can be gentle, like a zephyr, like a fragrant spring breeze, barely causing leaves to flutter. Making a few strands of your hair to dance around your face, making the tall grass sway just a little bit here and there. That's all. That's what the wind can do at that level. That was the choice it seems that God made when he spoke to Elijah on Mount Horeb. God said, “Go out and stand in the presence of the Lord.” So Elijah went out and the Lord passed by Elijah and an overpowering wind at that time, tore the mountains apart. But God was not in that hurricane. And after that mighty wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, there came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And then after that came the sound of a gentle blowing, like a gentle breeze, like a faint whisper, but the KJV calls it a still small voice. And when Elijah heard that still small voice, that gentle whisper, he covered his face and went out into the presence of the Lord and God spoke to him. So why did God use the gentle whisper with Elijah and this terrifying whirlwind with Job? God seeks to humble Job in order to heal him I believe. God is the perfect counselor and he is also Job's greatest friend. He's the lover of Job's soul. These three counselors failed in their ministry to Job. Their motive initially may have been to help their friend in his suffering, but their theology, their theology was flawed. Theology is the ground beneath your feet as you reach out to help a falling friend. But if your theology is flawed, you're standing on wet rotten wood in a collapsing derelict house. So you cannot catch a falling friend with faulty theology. You cannot lift a falling friend with faulty theology. You have no ground under your feet. You really are falling yourself. So it was with Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. In the end their truth system was flawed and their pride kicked in and they doubled down, and they doubled down again on their flawed theology, and they became destructive to their supposed friend. But, this is by the way the greatest understatement of my entire sermon, you ready? God's theology is good. God's theology is actually perfect. God knows what he's talking about. Everything God says is true, and along with that, God is perfectly wise. He is the wonderful counselor and he knows precisely what approach to take to heal Job. He knows what truths to speak to transform Job's anguished heart, and to restore his soul to health. Now, admittedly, I would have to say, it's not what we would've thought a man in Job's situation would've needed. Isn't that true? We would've thought, “God, if you're going to show up in a wind, why don't you choose that little still small voice thing again, that gentle whisper. I mean, don't you think this man's been through enough?” I mean, I would've thought a gentle whisper would've been just a thing for a man like Job in that circumstance. But Isaiah 55 makes it plain. God says this, “My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord, as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” It seems like one of the basic lessons of the book of Job is don't question anything God does ever. So that includes this whirlwind strategy. Don't question it, it was the right thing for the moment. He knew what to do. God knew exactly what Job needed here. And none of the things that God said to job were for God's own benefit, but always for Job's spiritual healing and through Job, all of us. Apparently that's what Job needed the most. "Everything God says is true, and along with that, God is perfectly wise. He is the wonderful counselor and he knows precisely what approach to take to heal Job." He needed to be humbled and put in his place. He needed to be brought to repentance for the hard things he was thinking, the hard things he had said about almighty God. He needed to be brought down a number of pegs to be made to realize that he cannot possibly think to stand toe to toe with God as an equal and debate with him. None of us can. And more than that, Job needs to be brought to a point of absolute trust in almighty God. So what is God's approach going to be? What are we going to talk about over these four climactic chapters? Well, he's going to use something that we have learned to call natural theology, natural theology, to prove his wisdom and power. God's going to speak natural theology. He's going to engage Job in the process so Job is deeply thoroughly humbled. So it's going to be a bit of a conversation, but not really. He's going to bring Job in at some key moments, but just to humble him and he's going to use natural theology. What is that? Natural theology is what nature teaches us about God. What you can learn about God by looking at nature, at creation, that's natural theology. So God builds on Job's experience in the world and stands as the creator, the sustainer, the ruler of everything in the universe. God made it without man's aid. He sustains it every moment without man's aid. And he rules over every moment without man's aid. Excuse me. God will effectively be saying, “Since I have done and am doing all of these things and you have done none of them, you should trust how I'm dealing specifically with your life right now. You should trust me. You are absolutely in no position whatsoever to question me. Just trust me, I know what I'm doing.” That seems to be the lesson. So that's what we're going to get in these four chapters and more, a lot of details. So he is directly humbling Job and through Job he's humbling all of us. So God sees his control as I said of this encounter. Remember that Job wanted to ask him questions, but it's not going to go that way. It's God who's going to ask him, look at verse three, “Brace yourself like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me.” “Brace yourself like a man.” What an expression. “Get yourself ready Job. Get dressed for battle. Okay, are you ready? Let's go.” There's that sense, “Let's go. You wanted to talk to me, here I am.” And then fundamentally it's, “Who are you to question me?” That's the tone here. Do you see that? Almost all of the roads lead to that. “Who are you to question me?” Verse two, “Who is this?” Who are you? “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?” Remember the two basic issues always in life are the same, fundamental aspects of our wisdom. Number one, the knowledge of God and number two, knowledge of ourselves. That's what we're learning. And so God wants Job to see himself properly in light of the infinite majesty of God. That's how that works. “So who are you to question me?” And so he is going to expose three basic limitations of Job and through Job, all of us, we have the same limitations. First of all, knowledge: “Job you know almost nothing. I am omniscient.” Secondly, time: “Job, your lifespan is very brief. You haven't been around very long. I am eternal.” And then thirdly, power: “Job, you have very little power. Actually, you're very weak. I am omnipotent.” So these basic limitations he's going to expose and then through Job, us. Also along the way God is going to use irony and perhaps some sarcasm. And people don't like that word sarcasm, but I don't know what else to do with some of the statements. We'll see it very plainly at one point. But he says, “Tell me, since you know. You were there, weren't you? At that point, remember when I made everything. Teach me Job, I'd really like to know. Have you done this? Have you done that? Can you do the other?” That's just sarcastic or ironic to some degree. God is using this as a technique. All right. So let's look at those limitations. We need to be humbled in this way. Fundamental aspect of our salvation is our humbling. When we get to heaven, we will be leveled when it comes to pride, leveled. We will be so perfectly humble in heaven. The more humble we can be now on earth, the better. So let's look at these limitations. First of all, knowledge, “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?” So when a wise man speaks, his words bring light, right? They bring enlightenment that represents insight, wisdom. “But Job when you speak, it just gets darker. It's like what comes out of your mouth are thick, dark clouds of ignorance that cover over light. You're darkening my counsel and you're speaking words without knowledge. That's ignorant words. Job, you are actually shockingly ignorant. There is so much you don't know.” Now, the human mouth displays the arrogance of the human heart. Jesus said, “Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.” So what's in your heart out it comes out the mouth. And it says in James 3, “The tongue makes great boasts.” That's who we are. We're very arrogant. We need to be humbled. Secondly, the issue of time, “You haven't been around very long, Job.” Look at verse four, “Where were you when I laid the Earth's foundation?” And then later in verse 21, “Surely you know, since you were already born! You have lived so many years!” That's an example of that sarcasm that I was talking about, verse 21. So, “You're limited in time. You haven't been around very long.” Thirdly, power. You're limited in power. You are very weak. Verse 12, “Have you given orders to the morning or shown the dawn its place?” So it's not just power, you're limited in authority, “Go ahead, speak to the dawn and let it obey you.” Or again, verse 34-35, “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do the lightning bolts report to you and say, here we are, what do you want us to do?” So anyway, this is the counseling strategy that God takes with Job and through Job to every generation of his suffering people since then. God vigorously puts us in our place so that we will suffer well and we will not question his wisdom, his power or his love. God’s Power in Creation Educates Us Secondly, God's power in creation educates us. So let's just drink in this natural theology. Let's just learn what God talks about. God's three great works when it comes to the physical creation, the physical universe. First of all, God originally created it out of nothing by the word of his power. Secondly, God sustains it every moment by the word of his power. Thirdly, God rules over it actively, every moment, by the word of his power. These are the displays of God's power in the physical universe, his great works. Creation, sustaining, and governance. And he begins with the earth's foundations. Look at verses 4-7, “Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know. Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footing set or who laid its cornerstone, while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” So he begins with the planet, the earth, the ground under our feet. The earth is solidly set. It cannot be moved, another scripture said. God laid the foundations of the earth permanently. This is the stage, the physical stage on which the drama of human history and redemptive history has been unfolding. He marked off the dimensions of the earth, knowing how large to make it. He laid the foundations of the earth, and he says, verse 7, “While the angels watched him in sang for joy.” Most of your translations say, sons of God, one translation just tells us what that is, angels. We know that there's no humans at that point. There's no physical earth out of which they were made yet. So the angels are the audience and they're enjoying it. God does these things for an audience. Everything's a theater. We are the knowledgeable beings, angels and humans, who watch what God does and praise him for it. Animals don't do that. Rocks and rivers, and trees don't do that, we do. And so before, in verse 7, before this adoring audience of angels, he laid the foundations of the earth. They were his first audience and they applauded him. Then he discusses ocean's boundaries, verses 8-11, “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds, its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt?’” Well, that's awesome. I mentioned last week in Japan, seeing the after effects of a tsunami, a hurricane, and just the thrashing of the ocean, the raging power of the ocean is terrifying. Think of the might of the billowing waves. Think how destructive they are on cities who are built on the coast, when the tsunami hits and tidal waves come crashing down. Nothing created by man can restrain the oceans. And there's certainly more than enough water to 100% inundate planet earth, Noah's flood proved that. But God restrains the oceans. He sets boundaries for the oceans, limits. And they are, apparently very fragile. The sand dunes with the little wispy grass and you're not allowed to walk on them. Have you ever been there with all those warning signs about walking on the fragile dunes? They're very fragile. It's like, “That's it God? That's the limit? That's the boundary?” Yep. It's enough. It'll stop. The proud waves halting right here. This is the limit. Here your proud waves must halt. The limits of God. God limits all of his creation. Every created thing has boundaries and borders, and limits, and he upholds them. God says to Job, “I'm the one who did this.” He openly tells him. And then he gets to day and night, verses 12-15, “Have you ever given orders to the morning, [Job], have you ever shown the dawn its place that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal, its features stand out like those of a garment, the wicked are denied their light and their upraised arm is broken.” So God set up from the beginning, the rhythms of evening and morning. As you read in Genesis, there was evening and there was morning, the first day. There was evening and there was morning, the second day. There's this rhythm of days, of sunrise and sunset. On the fourth day of creation, God created the sun to govern the day and the moon to govern the night. He also created the stars. And God gave orders to the sun and the moon in terms of their boundaries, in terms of what their task would be. He controlled the rotation of the earth as we understand it, to make each day as long as it should be. God figured all that out, and in the language here, God claims to give orders to the morning, to command when it should be morning. This is not the machine, the mindless machine of the Deists. You know how they said, it's like a clock that God made all the gears and the springs and wound it up and just lets it run. The mindless creation, the machine of the Deists, that's not it. God gives orders to the dawn when it's time for the dawn to come. He's in charge of it. And as the sun rises, the contours of the earth become increasingly visible to the naked eye. As the light kind of shines more and more over the terrain, you can see the high places and the low places, it takes shape like a seal. So this could go back to the original creation, but it seems to be more what it looks like when the sun rises. “Did you, Job, command this, the morning, would it obey your voice?” And he notes with the rising of the sun, the wicked crawl back into their dark caves, no longer able to do their deeds of darkness. This is a picture of God's sovereign control even over the rebellious of the earth. So God is ruling over even the wicked of the earth. He doesn't talk about it much, but he does that. Then in verse 16 he talks about the sources of the sea. Verse 16, “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?” He speaks, it seems, of the sources of ocean water from the bottom of the ocean floor. He uses language asking if Job has ever walked there or walked on the ocean itself. When Noah's flood broke on the earth, it wasn't just 40 days of rain, but in Genesis 7:11 it says, “all the springs of the great deep broke forth.” So from down below, there was this pressured water and it just roared up. God's in charge of all that, as though there's hidden sources of ocean water deep within the earth's crust that God unleashed; God's in control of that. And then verse 17-18, the vast dimensions of the earth: “Have the gates of death been shown to you, [Job]? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?” The vast expanses, the dimensions of the earth, “Tell me if you know all this.” This speaks of the dimensions in details of planet earth, including the subterranean regions, the deep regions of the earth, where the dead are buried. The actual dimensions of caves and deep crevices and sinkholes, even down to the core of the earth itself. “Job, have you ever seen these? Do you have any sense of the vastness of the earth's size and dimensions?” And then again, light and darkness, verse 19-20: “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?” So he goes back to the sun and moon perhaps, but even more to light and darkness itself. The nature of light, how it works, what it is physically, and then darkness as well. God's in charge of all of this, the light of the world, how it shines and where. I wonder if at this point Job doesn't have any idea what God is talking about. I mean, that's the point, isn't it? You don't know how to do all this. Like Jesus said to Nicodemus about being born again, “I've spoken to you in earthly language and you don't understand what then if I speak in heavenly language? There's whole levels of communication I could be using here and you wouldn't have any idea what I'm talking about.” And so he takes a little bit of a break for sarcastic mockery, as I mentioned, verse 21, “Surely you know, [Job], for you were already born! You have lived so many years!” I just find that interesting. People say often God has a sense of humor. There's not a lot of evidence that he does, but we have a sense of humor and we have a sense of that. It's like, “All right Job, I'm ready, ready to listen since you're so old and you've learned so many things.” So again, he is humbling him. And then he deals in verses 22-30 with weather patterns of every kind, snow, hail, lightning, wind rain, thunderstorm, dew, ice, frost, freezing water, and the effects of the rain watering the earth. Look at these verses. Verse 22, “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens, when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?” Honestly weather patterns are beyond most ability of human beings to comprehend. Certainly beyond anyone to control. We can barely comprehend what has happened. The rhythms of meteorology and some of the best among us who have spent a life studying this can give us a five day forecast. And sometimes four out of those five days are right. Maybe even all five. Those are good days. I wouldn't want to be a meteorologist. I don't know how they do what they do, but God's going beyond this. God actually controls staggeringly huge movements of air, massively huge. And he controls temperatures, cold fronts, warm fronts, thermals rising, does all of this. And he knows how much rain to give each region of the earth to produce the exact outcome he desires. He waters, the text says, the desert regions with just the right amount, as well as the grasslands, the tropical rain forest, the wheat fields for us in Kansas, the corn fields in Iowa. He's controlling all of that. And his power is beyond comprehension. God doesn't just know the weather patterns or predict them. He's controlling them. He's controlling the movements of air. And then he goes to the stars in verses 31-33, the constellations and the laws of physics, “Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the chords of Orion? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God's dominions over the earth?” So at this point, God raises Job's eyes up to the heavens like he did with Abraham. Look up at the stars, look at the staggering dimensions of outer space, clearly beyond man's control. No doubt about that. We have no control over that. Most of it is beyond man's even observations. We don't even know how big it is, how many stars there are. We're never going to reach even the closest stars. Stars are given to give light to the earth, but also to humble us, because the nearest star Proxima Centauri is 4.25 light years away. So you're not going to get in your vehicle and dial up the cruise control to one light year, and then in four of those, you'll be there. You'll never make it. The only thing we ever made that has left the solar system, Voyager, at its rate it would take 73,000 years to get there. Like, “Oh, we got much better technology than Voyager now, we can go twice as fast.” Okay. Then that's 37,000 years maybe. One of you will do the math and come back at me. I know that. But then that's the nearest star. The Pleiades that he mentions, the stars that make up that constellation group, is 100 times further away than that. We'll never make it. We just look at it. Job has absolutely no control over the stars. He cannot bind their chords or loosen them, whatever that means. He cannot bring any star forth, but God actually controls each star, because of his mighty power not one of them is missing and he knows each of them by name, Isaiah 40:26. It's interesting, he talks about the laws of the heavens. Like long before there was Newton figuring out the laws of gravitation or Einstein, figuring out the laws of light and of relativity, God knows, verse 33, the laws of the heavens, all of it. And then whether, again, verse 34-35, “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you and say, ‘here we are?’” “Are you in charge of the wind and the rain, and the clouds? Can you control all that?” Now, interestingly, in verse 36, for the only time in these four chapters, the only time, God addresses human capacity. He doesn't talk about man pretty much at all in these four chapters. I find that interesting, but here he mentions it briefly. Verse 36, “Who endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind?” So he's saying, “I created you in my image, and I gave you a brain.” The human brain is the most complex physical thing God ever made. The number of neural interconnections in the human brain are equal to, they tell us, the number of leaves in the Amazonian rainforest. God made that. He made your brain to do what it does. It is made in the image of God. And so your reasoning powers, your thinking, your analytical powers, your understanding, God did that. And he's greater than all of it for he made it. Man's understanding is like a flickering candle compared to God's omniscience. But this capability is still an astonishing display of God's creative power. And then he goes one more time to human limits and to weather again. Verse 37-38, “Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?” All right. So God's basic natural theology approach, I think comes in two main parts, not counting Behemoth and Leviathan, we'll get to in due time. Basically you've got inanimate objects and then animals. Those are the two basic approaches. So we've done all this inanimate stuff. The foundations of the earth, the oceans, the weather, the wind, the clouds, the stars, all this inanimate creation and how God runs it. Then he starts getting into animals. Now I know this is still chapter 38, but if I can tell you, the chapter divisions are not inspired by God. They were done by monks, I guess at some point, or somebody did them. I don't know who divided up the chapters. Some of the divisions are excellent and wonderful, and shouldn't be changed others are a bit confusing. So this one, I'm just going to put a line across here and say the two animals he discusses here we'll talk about next time with all the other animals. And there are 10 of them, one after the other, each of them with their capabilities, each one with their domains and God feeding them and caring for them and all that. We'll get to that God willing next week. III. God’s Truth in Scripture Prepares Us So that's natural theology. That's what God's saying. Now, God's truth as revealed in scripture is higher and clearer. The book of Job is clearer than looking at creation itself. We learn more from scripture. So again, keep in mind the whole book of Job and the context, Job's sufferings, the problem of human pain. That's what we're addressing here. God is addressing the problem of human suffering. The problem of pain that comes in our lives, the afflictions that come and hurt us deeply, and he wants to help us. And this is how he's helping us. This is how he wants to help us. This is God's answer. What is it? The God who made all these things and wisely sustains them, and powerfully sustains them, knows also how to run your life. “Trust me, trust me, I have earned, I should have earned your trust.” That's the argument that's going on here. We know there's stronger arguments. I know in the New Testament, the giving of Jesus, his life, his death, his resurrection. We'll get to that in a moment, but this is what's happening in this chapter. “Know me. Look at creation.” The astounding evidence of God in creation. The clearest description in scripture of natural theology is in Romans 1:20 and following, “Since the creation of the world,” that text says, “God's invisible qualities- his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.” So let's not be fools. Let's look at nature. Let's look at creation and say, “The God whom I love made all these things. When I look at this creation, I see how powerful he is, how wise he is, how loving he is.” And if we don't, then our foolish hearts are darkened. We're not glorifying God as God and giving thanks to him. "The God who made all these things and wisely sustains them, and powerfully sustains them, knows also how to run your life." So do that, and as you're doing that, know yourself. What do you think you should know about yourself? You should be humble. You should be humble in reference to God. You should know yourself. You're a creature, you're created in the image of God. That's true. That's your exaltation. But you are not God, that's your humbling. So fall down before God in humble worship, renounce all arrogant claims and charges against him. And in suffering, especially, trust God that he is wise. He knows what he's doing. The same God who orchestrates the weather patterns, who moves masses of warm air in one direction and cool air in another to produce exactly the right amount of rain and sunshine for the crops, God knows how to orchestrate your life. And not only that, he knows how much you can handle. We would've been, admit it, extremely gentle with Job. We would've had God be gentle with Job. In terms of the trials that he brought, we would've had fewer, less. We feel that God maybe wasn't gentle. But I'll tell you this, God was effective. The level of trial he brought in Job's life was the right amount to achieve what he wanted. And the counsel, the approach to counseling was just right. So therefore, suffer well, suffer well. Look at creation and realize that God is in control and knows exactly what he's doing in your life. Trust him; speak words of confident faith to him when you're hurting. When you're hurting, speak words of confident faith, “God, I trust you. I know you love me. I know this is working in good purpose in my life.” Say those things to him. Pray your pain back to him. Be patient in affliction. And as you study creation, learn the attributes you can learn from creation. You can't learn all of them. There are some attributes you can't learn from creation. I mentioned that last week. I don't think you can learn God's justice in creation. You have to look at what he does with people. And in the end, his justice will be vindicated. We'll talk about that. But what can you learn? Well, Jesus said, “Consider the lilies of the field,” right? Consider them. David said in Psalm 8, “When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers.” So you got this considering thing going on. So consider the lilies of the field. And what do you get, according to Jesus, when you do? You realize you shouldn't be anxious about your life, what you'll eat or drink or about your body, what you'll wear. Look at the lilies of the field. If God clothes them better than Solomon, he knows how to take care of you. So what you get from looking at that creation, you get a sense of God's love, his love. And when you look up to the stars in the night sky with Psalm 8 in your mind, and you say, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have made,” you know what I think, I think, “what is man?” So you get humbled by that. And you also have a sense of God's infinite power and your lowness. So you get humility from that. And what do you get when you consider the complex ecosystems, about the animals and how they relate to their terrain and all that? We'll get more of that, God willing, next week. But the Psalmist does that in Psalm 104. You realize that God has a place for every creature and every creature is in its place. And it lives as long as it's supposed to and it eats what it's supposed to, and it functions like it's supposed to, and all of it interacts in amazing ways. So what do you get when you meditate on that? A display of God's wisdom, wisdom. Psalm 104:24, “How many are your work O Lord. In wisdom, you made them all, the earth is full of your creatures.” Now, look at the three attributes we've just seen. God's love when you consider the lilies. God's power, when you consider the heavens and God's wisdom, when you consider the animals and the ecosystems, and their relationships to each other. Those are the three attributes people always question when it comes to human suffering, always. Either God's not loving or he is not wise, or he is not powerful or none of the above. But when we look at creation as Christians, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we see differently, we see differently. Now, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Job's real problem was not his sufferings. The loss of his possessions, his children's health, that wasn't his real problem. His real problem was his own deeply embedded sin. Deep inside his heart there were sinful attitudes toward God, and it took this level of pressure, pressure, to bring them bubbling up to the surface. And they came, didn't they? God knew they were there. And so he puts pressure on Job to bring him to humbling so that he can have mercy on him, that he can heal him from those things. And he's going to be humbled. The fear of the Lord in all of this brings it to the surface and saves him. In Job 42:5-6, this is where we're heading, “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. And I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” So humble yourself. Let's do a little logic problem. Job is the godliest man alive. One that God boasted about as blameless and upright, a man who it says feared God and shunned evil. That's who Job was. If I can just be general with you folks and with myself, that's not who we are. We're not blameless and upright, fearing God and shunning evil like Job, not to his level. So here's my logic problem: If a man like Job as good as he was needed this level of humbling, how much do you think we need? Certainly not less. And this humbling is designed to get us ready for suffering. So either you're going through suffering right now, or you will someday. The best thing you can do in either case is to fall down before almighty God and humble yourself. Tell him that he is your everything and that he is everything, and that you are nothing. Scuttle your pride. Tell him that you trust him and whatever he chooses to do with your possessions or with your loved ones, or with your help, he has the right to do. IV. Christ’s Perfect Fulfillment Saves Us Now, as I finish this morning, I want to bring to you the sweetest meditation that I had on this chapter. It's not in the chapter at all, but I'm just moving out further to the whole scope of 66 books of the Bible and all of what God is saying to us. I want to bring your mind to Christ. I want you to think with me together about Jesus Christ. We need to see the infinite majesty of Christ, the Son of Man, the Son of God. Jesus Christ is the exalted perfect God man. And unlike Job, this is beautiful, he actually can answer each of God's questions to Job, all of them. Christ is actually perfect in wisdom. Christ is actually eternal in his person and Christ is actually infinite in his power. So look at the questions that God asked Job, and imagine him asking them of Jesus. Look at verse 4, “Where were you, [Jesus], when I laid the foundations of the earth?” Well, according to John 1:3, “Through Christ, all things were made and without him, nothing was made that has been made.” Or even better, this will blow you away. Hebrews 1, in which we have an intra-Trinitarian conversation going on, in which the Father is exalting the Son, “To which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son; today I've become your Father?’” He's talking, the Father's talking to the Son. Keep that in mind. Then you get to Hebrews 1:10-12, God the father says to Jesus the Son, “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands.” Wow. That's Jesus. That's our Savior that God is talking to, “They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe they will be changed. But you remain the same and your years will never end.” He is eternal. That's Jesus. What about walking on the sea? Look at verse 16 again, “[Job], Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?” Imagine him saying that to Jesus, “Actually, father, I have. I have walked on the billowing waves of the sea of Galilee.” Mark 6:48-51, “About the fourth watch of the night. Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them. But when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out because they all saw him and were terrified. And immediately he spoke to them and said, ‘Take courage. It is I. Don't be afraid.’ Then he climbed into the boat with them and the wind died down and they were completely amazed.” What about the storm? Verse 34-35 of Job 38, “[Hey Job], can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you and say, ‘here we are?’” In other words, “Job, do you control the weather?” What about Jesus? Oh, you know he does. In Mark 4:37-41, “A furious squall came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples went and woke him saying to him, ‘Teacher don't you care if we drown?’ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Peace, be still.’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. And he said to his disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’ They were terrified and asked each other, ‘Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him.’” And at the second coming, Jesus is going to come riding on the clouds. Matthew 26:64, “In the future you'll see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” He's going to be riding on the clouds. And best of all, what about the gates of death? Look at verse 17, Job 38:17, “Have the gates of death been shown to you, [Job]? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?” Well, Jesus has not only seen them, he's blown them apart, “I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” "By his mighty death and resurrection Jesus has destroyed the power of the grave; death could not hold him. And if we trust in Christ, if you trust in Christ as your Savior, death won't hold you either." By his mighty death and resurrection Jesus has destroyed the power of the grave; death could not hold him. And if we trust in Christ, if you trust in Christ as your Savior, death won't hold you either. He's going to bring you through the gates of death into everlasting life. For he says, “I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me will live even though he dies and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” So God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind and restored his soul. But now, right now, God is speaking more clearly through his Son. Trust in him, put your faith in him. He is the perfect Son of Man who can answer all of these questions on our behalf and will be eternally worshiped at the right hand of God, forever. Close with me in prayer. Lord, thank you for the things that we've learned already in Job 38. There's a lot to cover. Thank you for speaking the truth to us. Thank you for Christ who died and who rose again that we might have forgiveness of sins and eternal life. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Jairus' Daughter, Miracles and the Enlightenment

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 23, 2021 5:46

Did Jesus really raise the daughter of Jairus and perform other miracles? The Deists, including several American founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson, said no, and their Enlightenment skepticism still influences us today. For the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B.

jesus christ american daughter miracles enlightenment thomas jefferson jairus ordinary time deists

Were The Founding Fathers Deists?

Uncommon Sense Podcast - Christianity and Politics

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 5, 2021 25:02

Did our Founding Fathers believe that God had nothing to do with the formation of our nation? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/foruncommonsense/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/foruncommonsense/support

god founding fathers deists

God is Working in Our Lives

Zenith Ministries Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 14, 2020 17:44

Thomas offers a few stories of God's concern with our lives. Tune in to hear an epic band name, how the Deists got it wrong, and how God can overcome our mistakes.

god deists

God is Working in Our Lives

Zenith Ministries Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 14, 2020 17:44

Thomas offers a few stories of God's concern with our lives. Tune in to hear an epic band name, how the Deists got it wrong, and how God can overcome our mistakes.

god deists

Deism

In Our Time: Religion

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2020 48:17

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that God created the universe and then left it for humans to understand by reason not revelation. Edward Herbert, 1583-1648 (pictured above) held that there were five religious truths: belief in a Supreme Being, the need to worship him, the pursuit of a virtuous life as the best form of worship, repentance, and reward or punishment after death. Others developed these ideas in different ways, yet their opponents in England's established Church collected them under the label of Deists, called Herbert the Father of Deism and attacked them as a movement, and Deist books were burned. Over time, reason and revelation found a new balance in the Church in England, while Voltaire and Thomas Paine explored the ideas further, leading to their re-emergence in the French and American Revolutions. With Richard Serjeantson Fellow and Lecturer in History at Trinity College, Cambridge Katie East Lecturer in History at Newcastle University And Thomas Ahnert Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Edinburgh Producer: Simon Tillotson

god university history church father england french herbert lecturer american revolution voltaire trinity college thomas paine intellectual history supreme being deism deist melvyn bragg deists

Deism

In Our Time

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2020 48:17

god university history church father england french herbert lecturer american revolution voltaire trinity college thomas paine intellectual history supreme being deism deist melvyn bragg deists

Deism

In Our Time: Philosophy

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2020 48:17

god university history church father england french herbert lecturer american revolution voltaire trinity college thomas paine intellectual history supreme being deism deist melvyn bragg deists

Ep 67: The Problem of Evil (Part 11)- The Limits of Reason | Deism & Immanuel Kant

Deep Talks: Exploring Theology and Meaning Making

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 27, 2020 57:06

Our journey through history searching for insights and answers to the problem of evil has brought us to the height of the Enlightenment era where the limits of reason, especially as it relates to the problem of evil and Christian theology, were stretched and challenged.What happens if you were to only use reason and "natural" theology to determine what God is like and how reality is structured? This is was Deism attempted to do. Is there a danger to this hyper-rationalism that would eventually lead to the idea of God becoming obsolete, especially in the face of a confusing, painful universe?What if when it comes to understanding God and figuring out why evil exists at all, we reach a point that is beyond reason? Immanuel Kant thought this was the case and tried to offer a very different, and revolutionary, philosophical framework with a very different theodicy from the Deists, Gottfried Leibniz, or even early Christian thinkers like Calvin, Aquinas, or Augustine. This summer, Deep Talks is trying to reach a goal of 300 patrons on Patreon to sustain weekly, ad-free episodes. Supporters on Patreon get access to bonus Q&A Episodes, articles, and other resources. Please consider supporting free theological and philosophical education for as little as $2 a month by going to: https://www.patreon.com/deeptalkstheologypodcast To Subscribe & Review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-talks-exploring-theology-and-meaning-making/id1401730159 Connect with Paul Anleitner on Twitter at:https://twitter.com/PaulAnleitner You can also give a one-time donation for this episode directly at: https://cash.app/$PaulAnleitner

god limits enlightenment problem of evil immanuel kant aquinas deism deep talks deists gottfried leibniz

#14 - America's Founders: Theists, Deists, or Atheists?

Radical Truth

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 18, 2020 26:01

To what degree did the Bible & Christianity influence the Declaration of Independence? Did the Founders ACTUALLY believe in God? If so, what kind of ‘god’ did they believe in? Let’s talk about that...

america jesus christ founders politics religion islam independence declaration atheists apologetics quran islamist deists bible christianity america's founders

The Core of Catholic Resilience

Interior Integration for Catholics

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 29, 2020 41:29

Episode 22. The Core of Catholic Resilience June 29, 2020 Intro: Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem, where you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview. We are going beyond mere resilience, to rising up to the challenges of this pandemic and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms than we were before. I'm clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski your host and guide, with Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com. Thank you for being here with me. This is episode 22, and it's called The Core of Catholic Resilience. Today we are going to the core of Catholic resilience, we are going to discover what drives resilience in the saints. We are discussing the one central theme that is absolutely essential for the kind of resilience that transcends this natural world, that incorporates not just our natural gifts, but grace as well. The saints are the most resilient people who ever walked the face of the earth. What is the secret of the resilience of the saints? That's the question we are focusing on today. What is the secret of the super resilience of the saints, the secret that allows them to rise up again when they fall under the weight of adversity, of persecution, of their own failings, weakness and sins? We are getting to that in just a moment. I am a believer in spiral learning, especially for this podcast and for the online learning at Souls and Hearts. So what is spiral learning? Guess what! It's definition time with Dr. Peter. [cue sound effect]In a spiral learning approach, the basic facts of a subject are learned, without worrying much about the details. Just the main, plain concept. As learning progresses, more and more details are introduced. These new details are related to the basic concepts which are reemphasized many times to help enter them into long-term memory. Repeat. That's spiral learning. Homeschoolers might recognize that from the way Saxon math works or the way some other programs teach. Why spiral learning. I really want you to integrate what you learn in these podcasts into the whole of your being – not just have them go in one ear and out the other, but for you to really grip on to them, really hold them, even when times are tough, even when you are in a dark place, even when emotions run high. My self-defense instructor James Yeager, in a fighting pistol course I took several years ago taught the class that “The only things you really possess are those things you can carry with you at a dead run.” He was referring to gear, including weapons mindset – he is really big on mindset, having your head right in crisis situations, and worked with his students to integrate his teachings throughout their whole beings, to have the right responses come up habitually, automatically, reflexively. I want that for you. So in these podcasts, we're nourishing the mind, we're focusing on the concepts, we're starting there. The experiential work will help with the rest of the integration into your heartset, your soulset and your bodyset. Since we are already on a hard road together in the Christian life. I want to make the learning about Catholic resilience and growing in resilience as easy as possible for you. So we will spiral upward, coming back to the main themes in the podcast over and over again with new details, new data points, lots of examples, and of course, stories. As a psychologist and educator, I want this to be really easy for you to take in. Another benefit of that approach is that each podcast episode can stand alone – you can just pick this up the middle of this series on resilience can get the background you need for the topic of the episode. I'm really thinking about you when I put these together. So let's briefly review what we've learned in this series on Catholic resilience. In episode 20, two weeks ago, we discussed the 10 factors of resilience offered by the secular experts. These were the ten essential aspects of resilience as summarized by Southwick and Charney, two writer for a general audience on resilience whom I respect. In episode 21 last week we got into the three major ways that secular understandings of resilience are lacking from a Catholic perspective, three important mistakes that secular professionals make in understanding resilience, the things that they miss because of their non-Catholic worldviews. If you have the time, you can check those two episodes out if you haven't already, they help to put today's episode into context, but suffice it to say for today, that Catholic resilience is very different than a secular understanding of resilience.In the last episode, I offered a definition of Catholic resilience, comparing secular understandings of resilience to a Catholic understanding of resilience. So now, just to get us all up to speed, let's review that definition of Catholic resilience. It's definition time with Dr. PeterCatholic resilience “the process of accepting and embracing adversity, trauma, trials, stresses and suffering as crosses. Catholic resilience sees these crosses as gifts from our loving, attuned God, gifts to transform us, to make us holy, to help us be better able to love and to be loved than we ever were before, and to ultimately bring us into loving union with Him. Today we are making a deep dive into the one essential requirement, the one prerequisite, the one necessary quality you have to have to be resilient as a Catholic. All the other factors of Catholic resilience flow from this core, this central principle. Now you are asking, Dr. Peter, what is this core of resilience, this central principle of Catholic resilience? I am glad you asked. The core of Catholic resilience, the kind of holy resilience of the saint is…Drum RoleA deep and abiding confidence in God, especially in God's Providence. What I am saying is that resilience is an effect – it's a consequence of the deep, abiding confidence in God, especially in God's Providential care and love for us. . Resilience flows from that confidence in God – confidence in God's care and love for me, specifically. So resilience is an effect of the spiritual life. OK. Let's break this down, to make sure we're on the same page. What do I mean by confidence in God? St. Thomas Aquinas defines it as confidence in God as “a hope, fortified by solid conviction.” So confidence in God is Hope, but it is a hope fortified, not just an ordinary hope, which could be lost. It is a higher level of hope, a hope fortified by solid conviction. The difference between hope and confidence is only a matter of degree – they are the same, but confidence, because it is fortified by solid conviction, is hope supercharged, a super hope, as King David sang in Psalm 119 (118). “In verba tua supersperavi” read the Latin. Speravi is I have hoped – Supersperavi – I have hope to the highest level. Typical translation “I have hoped in thy word.”Let's look at solid conviction. So solid. What does that mean? Firm, grounded, immovable, consistent. Conviction -- what is that? Certainty, certitude, calm assurance, not a shadow of a doubt. So the confidence in God – a hope, fortified by solid conviction – a supercharged hope, solidified by calm assurance, without wavering, without doubting, not subject to the ups and downs of life. What I am saying is if we have that kind of confidence in God, and especially in his providential love and care – and that's important. It can't just be that God exists. Deists believe that God exists, but that he is distant, remote, disengaged. A belief in a God like that is not going to help resilience. It's not just that God exists, but that He cares for us, in big things and little things, and that we are his beloved daughters and sons. If we have that kind of confidence in God and it is deep, penetrating all of who we are. That confidence has to be integrated throughout all of us – mind, heart, soul, and body. And it has to be abiding. What does that mean, abiding? That means that our confidence in God has to persist, it has to remain in us in times of trouble. There has to be a constancy, a permanence to our confidence in God, it's not with us one moment and gone the next. So here is the key idea: [cue sound effect] So if you have the deep, abiding confidence in God and His providential love for you, you specifically, you will be resilient. Repeat. Because if you are sheltering under the wing of a God like that – who can harm you? What can separate you from Him? What else matters? What could ever take your peace away or cause you to fall and not get back up?Now that level of confidence in God is rare, it's a quality of sanctity, of holiness, it flows from and is a result of a deep, mutual relationship with God as He really is. And lest you believe that I am somehow speaking down to you from some lofty pinnacle of human experience, lest you believe that I somehow have risen up to a perfect, deep abiding confidence in God…. let me tell you. It isn't so. This is a process. I lose my confidence in God sometimes (it's not always abiding) and that confidence is not as deep as it could be – I have zones of me, parts of me that do not yet have that kind of confidence in God. All right, so let's review: We want to have a Catholic resilience, the capacity to accept and embrace adversity, trials, suffering, our crosses as gifts from God to transform us, to make us holy, and to ultimately bring us to heaven. We want that resilience. Where does it flow from? It flows from a deep, abiding confidence in God, especially in His providential love and care for me, particularly, me, specifically. So you might ask, Dr. Peter, from a psychological perspective, what gets in the way of that deep, abiding confidence in God? What psychological factors keep us from having that confidence that we so need in order to be resilient Catholics? That is a great question. Now remember that question focuses on the psychological factors that prevent us, that hinder us from a deep, abiding confidence in God. There are other factors that I don't spend as much time on in these episodes. There are spiritual factors. There are moral factors. I claim no special qualifications to discuss those matters. I'm not a priest, I'm not a confessor, I am not a moral theologian. I'm a psychologist. So I am focusing the on the psychological aspects here and how they relate to the spiritual realm. The main psychological reason why we don't have that deep abiding confidence in God is because we don't know him as He truly is. We don't understand him as He truly is. We misunderstand him, we don't get Him. We have all kinds of assumptions about Him that are false. The false assumptions about God are generated from how we misconstrue our experiences. The ways we misunderstand God psychologically stem from misinterpretations of our experiences.Now I need to introduce two key ideas, two new definitions. The distinction I am about to make is really foundational, really critical, but don't worry if you don't get this right away, we will be coming back to these two definitions over and over again. God concept [cue sound]What we profess about God. is a more intellectual understanding of God based on what one has been taught. but also based on what one has explored through reading, studying , discerning and deciding to believe Reflected in the Creed, expanded in the Catechism, formal teaching. God image [cue sound] is the emotional and subjective experience of God What we know in our bones. Who we feel God to be in the moment. May or may not correspond to who God really is. Initially this image is shaped by the relationship that we have with our parents. This is our experiential sense how our feelings, our heart interpret God Those God images can be radically different than our God concepts. This is heavily influenced by psychological factors, and varies a lot. Repeat the definitions We often suppress these God images and force them into the unconcsious. Frightened of them, ashamed of them. So many orthodox practicing Catholics in my office struggle with God images – we call have images of God that do not reflect who God really is. We might feel that God is distant, unengaged, that God is disgusted with me, wants to punish me or is even out to get me. Some may feel in their bones that God is not very powerful, not very wise, or not very good, or not aware of what is going on in the world. All right, now we have a new little segment that may come up from time to time in these podcasts. Sharing time. Sharing time is when I get a little more personal about my experience. So I thought I would share with you one of my problematic God images, what sometimes I feel in my bones about God in this very first segment of “Sharing Time, with Dr. Peter.”Cue Sharing time MusicWhen I go down the rabbit hole of internet bloggers on the Catholic Church and read about all the scandals and coverups and the general incompetence and malice and criminal behavior of Church leaders, or when I get all wrapped up in how bishops have not really pursued creative solutions to provide the sacraments – confession, the Eucharist, when I indulge in very critical thoughts about bishops, and how they can seem much more concerned about my body than my soul, or more concerned about their bodies rather than my soul, I lose my recollection, when I lose my resilience, when I lose my confidence in God, I have parts of me that want to scream at God “Why isn't anyone minding the store, God? Why are there no consequences for the evildoers and the incompetent in the Church? Where in Hades are you, God?” Except I don't say Hades. This is a clean, family-oriented podcast, doncha know, we're keeping it clean. Now, I know this image of God isn't true. I don't endorse it, I don't profess it, it is not what I believe about God, it's not my God concept. But man, when I am in that place, does it feel that way. And I can also become very unfair and unjust in my thinking about Church leaders and bishops in those moments. You know what I am talking about? How God can seem in your bones, in your dark moments, maybe a lot of the time, not to fit the loving, caring, compassionate image that we receive from the Scripture, from our Tradition. Near the end of this podcast, we'll do a little exercise to help you get in touch with your God image. So to spiral back, we have the God concept – that is what we know to be true about God conceptually, intellectually, it's what we profess. For us orthodox Catholics, it's summarized in the Nicene Creed and expanded in the Catechism. And we have the God images, which are who we feel God to be in our bones in the moment, our gut sense of God, what our intuition tells us. One more example. Orthodox, faithful Catholic experiencing all kinds of anxiety about contracting the coronavirus. Real health concerns. How in touch is that person with God as expressed in Psalm 23. So here's one more key idea. As Catholics, it is our God images that contribute so much to our lack of confidence in God. We have problematic God images. These problematic God images get activated, and they affect us heavily and they undermine our deep and abiding confidence in God. Our negative God images compromise our capacity for childlike trust in God, we either lose it or we can't grow in trust. And when we are compromised in our deep and abiding confidence in God, we lose our resilience. See the causal chain here? Bad God images lead to lack of confidence in God, which leads to a loss of resilience. Boom. There it is. where I wanted us to reach today. Now let's solidify this. Let's drive it home. How can we make these concepts stick with us. Hmmm. [Ding] Ah ha, an idea! Let's have a story, an old one, and a not very good one. It's Story time, with Dr. Peter: [cue music]Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. Satan here – Focused on the God image of Adam and Eve. He wants to corrupt the God image, change their feelings about God, set their hearts against God. Fifth of the five attachment related tasks from last episode, Episode 21: Knowing at a deep level that God wills what is best for you. We know that grace perfects nature – St. Thomas Aquinas, grace perfects nature, it doesn't destroy it. Satan wants to corrupt our nature – he works on a human, natural level. He wants to sow seeds of doubt about God's benevolence, about how God wills what is best for us. He wants us to doubt that, and he's going to use things in the natural world, he's going to try to capitalize on our psychological deficiencies, our wounds, our imperfections. He wants to capitalize on our problematic God images, exacerbate them, get us to endorse them, succumb to them so that we will lose our deep and abiding confidence in God which leads to our resilience collapsing. And if he can get us far enough down that road, we will be lost. I'm going to talk much more about the 5 attachment related tasks and how they connect to God images in future episodes, don't worry. And I am going to dive deeper into the relationship between temptation, our human imperfections, and resilience as well. We're going to talk about how to heal our God images. There is so much in store for you in upcoming episodes in this sequence on reliance. Dark place exercise. Write it down. If you join the Resilient Catholics Carpe Diem community, put it up on the discussion board there – that's private only for the community members. You can also email it to me at crisis@soulsandhearts.com or leave me a voicemail at 317.567.9594 – if you call, be warned that sometimes I pick up the phone and answer, just saying…Discern about making this podcast a regular part of your week. Not all called to it, but this is designed as a program. Can you commit to the 30 minutes per week to listen and the five minutes per day to do the exercises to work on your human formation. Super excited about next week – major story time next week, I will be in rare form for a long, long story in which we are going to pull together the conceptual work we've been doing in the this episode and the last episode. It will be great, I am really excited. Also we just had our first organization meeting for the RCCD community on June 27, last Saturday and it was “invigorating.” We are coming together in the community. The video from that with the ideas and sharing from that meeting will be up in the RCCD Exclusive Content area, along with the videos from the Grief Workshop and the Stress Management Workshop until July 8. And here's the next big thing. Friday, July 10, 7:30 PM to 8:45 PM Eastern time, I am hosting a Zoom meeting for RCCD community members to hang out and discuss together this podcast episode and the next one, Episodes 22 and 23. So put that on your calendars, register in the Zoom meeting section of the RCCD community discussion boards. It's going to be great. Friday, July 10, 7:30 PM to 8:45 PM Eastern time. And pray for me, I'm praying for you. Patronness and Patron

Small Government Big God

Salvation and Stuff

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2020 12:11

Dennis Prager reasons “The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” 1 I am sure many more have said and believed likewise, but he recently sparked my thoughts that as a government grows in size and scope, certain things shrink as a result. Goodness, particularly defined as people acting charitably to each other dwindles as the government tries to federalize communal generosity. And personal character diminishes while liberties becomes more restricted. In short, more government equates to more laws which stifles personal and corporate liberty, thus, “The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.”To add my thoughts onto this sentiment above in which might be a bit simplistic, but compellingly true, I would add - The bigger the government the smaller the God. I should note that it is not God Himself that becomes smaller but the place of God in people’s lives - that is, faith in God.We see this true in ancient history. The Hebrew people under a Theocracy were led by chosen leaders and prophets. In wanting to be like the other nations, I Samuel chapter eight accounts the Jewish people asking their leader Samuel to give them a King. Both Samuel and God were discouraged by this request and warned of the outcome. The end result in granting the people’s desire of a monarchy was straightforward. Liberties, personal finances, and land would all be given over to the King. Many people would become his slaves as well. As the Jewish people embarked into a monarchy, God’s place in officially governing His people would begin the long process of fading. Ever so slightly, one’s faith for livelihood was not erased, but shifted from an invisible and perfect God to a visible and fallible King.Since then it seems the separation between God and people via governments has only increased as time progresses and consequently, as governments become larger. And as the 18th century has freshly shown, Atheism is the default faith of oversized and unaccountable governments, and wickedness its work. Even a cursory understanding of the age of social catastrophe would confirm the bigger the government, the smaller the god. Socialist and Communist governments are by nature large and by nature atheistic. The Communist dictatorships of China and Russia unabashedly wiped out all religions in its pursuit of imperialistic domination. When the founder of Communism believed that “Religion is the opium of the people” it should be no wonder why places of worship were systematically removed. Even in the National Socialist (Nazis) regime of Hitler, which was against Communism, sparks of true Christianity were equally stamped out. In both Nazism and Communism, there was no room for religion when the government tried to take its place. Thus the bigger the government the smaller the god.Inversely, a small government should equate to a big God. This is seen no clearer than the founding of America. Its young founders made up of Deists and Christians were separating from a monarchial government belonging to the most powerful country in the world. With life and death on the line, the dire circumstances demanded that they placed much faith in God both personally and politically. Is it a coincidence that the people who wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Amendments which all proclaim the intrinsic value of all people worthy of certain unalienable rights - life, liberty, property and the ability to pursue happiness, were the same founders who strove to make and maintain a small government with checks and balances in place so that the budding nation of the United States would not in time become like the other countries whose leaders naturally oppress? They believed, the smaller government the better, and agreed with what Thomas Paine famously wrote, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” 2The acknowledgment of a divine God and the awareness of their human proclivity towards sin played no small part in guiding the United States Constitutional Republic. Their mistrust of powerful men and trust in God’s providence is unquestionable. Washington said “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have been advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of his providential agency.” 3The English poet, Percy Shelley wrote that “Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.” 4 If then government is an evil, albeit a necessary one, then it would be wise to keep it as small as possible. Less intrusive governments allow for more freedoms. And more freedoms require more responsibilities from its citizens. That is why Thomas Jefferson said that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” 5 and why he believed that the government is best when it governs least.Until the Prince of Peace reigns with the government upon His shoulders, 6 much ailments of humanity could be lessened if we seek to make mortal governments small and God big.1. Dennis Prager video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr638pCfPxs2. Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 13. George Washington, First Inaugural Address, Thursday, April 30, 17894. Percy Bysshe Shelley ,"Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes." BrainyQuote.com. BrainyMedia Inc, 2018. 17 December 2018. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/percy_bysshe_shelley_1559195. John Adams, to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, October 11, 17986. Isaiah 9:6

Faith of the Founding Fathers (featuring Dr. Gregg L. Frazer)

Truce

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2020 36:07

Were the founding fathers of the United States Christians or Deists? That question has been at the heart of a debate that comes up all the time in the Church: is the United States a Christian nation? Our guest for this episode is Dr. Gregg L Frazer. He's the author of The Religious Beliefs of America's Founders and God Against the Revolution. Donate a little to help the show on either Patreon or Paypal Helpful links: Jefferson's letter about his beliefs Searchable database of founding father documents John Adam's diary entry from Feb 13, 1756 Topics discussed: Were the founding fathers Deists or Christians? Was George Washington a Christian? Was John Adams a Christian? Was Alexander Hamilton a Christian? Was Thomas Jefferson a Christian? What does the Constitution say about God? What did Christians believe in the 1700's? Did Benjamin Franklin build churches?

united states god church christians revolution constitution gregg founding fathers frazer religious beliefs christian what deists america's founders gregg l frazer

Spiritual Persistence Basics - Part 3

Live from the Afterlife

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2020 16:08

Rikkity continues to ponder some of the basics of SP, and this episode explores how our specific fulfillments may limit other possibilities but that through connection we may find the fulfillments seemingly loss when we stand alone. Here's the text of what she shares: “So, as we have been sharing, the entityship question is not resolved by appeal to free will or determinism. You have choices to make. And this does not readily reduce to theology, either. “If you try to appeal to theists you either have it all controlled or you have chaos. Deists don't do any better with the clockwork notion. So, let's try the tried and true organic reality in which there is no act of Creation but eternal creation by which existence is always being shaped by the participants. And therefore, there is no set endpoint conclusion, except for what arises in the process of complexity and the melding of infinite fulfillments of potential. Which leads me to contradict myself. “You are offered infinite potential. But at the moment that any part of that potential is realized, the possibilities drop from being infinite. Acting on any one possibility eliminates some others… with one big exception. The ability to connect is never lessened. The key to the spiritual progression is not achievement but process, and another name for that process is ‘connection.' How so? “Ok, let's dwindle down the infinite possibilities to just 5. I know that's laughable… but let's say you or they or him… but not her… opt for 1 and fulfill that. So 2, 3, 4, 5 drop out as options. So you fulfill 1 but lose the others… unless you connect to other entities which have focused on 2 or 3 or 4 or even 5. If you can connect to their fulfilled reality, then those potentials are not lost. “No one ever said you had to do it all or alone. The ultimate act of connection brings the infinite paths of potential fulfillment into unity and whole fulfillment. “So, it is never about what you don't do, but about what you do do and your connection. Thus spake the Moo.

spiritual basics acting persistence moo deists

A Religiously Neutral Historical Test For Miracle Claims

Is Jesus Alive?

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 14, 2020 16:13

Following the tradition of the famous 18th-century philosopher David Hume, skeptics will often accuse Christians of special pleading. We eagerly accept the resurrection of Jesus and other miracles reported in the Bible. But we’re just as swift to reject miracle claims made by other religions. Critics will say if you accept one miracle, you have to open up the floodgates to them all. But is that true? Could there be a way to sift through all the noise? Enter Charles Leslie’s terse yet powerful book A Short and Easy Method With the Deists. This booklet is around 40 pages, but it packs a punch. Leslie’s method is a religiously neutral test regarding how we can judge an event as undeniably historical. Here I summarize Leslie's book and show how it's still relevant hundreds of years later. A Short and Easy Method with the Deists (Free!) : https://books.google.com/books?id=0p0PAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:Deists+inauthor:Charles+inauthor:Leslie&lr=&as_brr=1&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/isjesusalive To read more on this topic: https://isjesusalive.com/leslie-short-and-easy-method-with-the-deists/ For more older works on historical apologetics: https://historicalapologetics.org/download-the-books/

jesus christ bible christians historical claims critics neutral david hume religiously deists

Podcast 54 | The Founders and The Deist Fallacy

Self-Evident Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 31, 2020 67:12

Many voices say that the Founders were Deists and had no real reverence for God. Now, voices are raising up in Christian circles and the Conservative movement parroting this idea. But is it true? Massey and Mike dispel the rumors!

god founders conservatives fallacy massey deist deists

Emanuel - God With Us - How does that Help? (Mt 1:18-24)

Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church: Catholic Sunday Homilies

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2019 10:51

We hear Isaiah's prophecy of God with Us so often, we easily fail to appreciate the Gift this is. Deists believe God created the world, set it in motion, but is not involved. Christians believe that God helps shape history. In fact, if we work with God, History is really His-Story! To be part of God's plan promises a brighter future, than if we "Go it alone". Yet to accept the gift of Emanuel, and let God help us share our lives and world; we must hear, and follow. This is difficult, but fear not, even if we fail sometimes, if we are persistent God can still guide us! Thank God!

god history christians gift thank god god with us his story deists

Religious Beliefs of the Founding Fathers

Religion Today

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 6, 2019 20:00

Many claim the Founding Fathers were not Christians, but merely Deists. Deism was all the rage at Harvard and other schools at the time of the founding of the United States. Deism is belief in God as creator, but nothing else. Deism today would say God caused the "Big Bang" but doesn't answer prayers, cause miracles or get involved in the life of humans. The truth is all the Founding Fathers believed the U.S. should be a Christian nation, guided by Christian principles. The Library of Congress issued an official statement on this topic, "[B]oth the legislature and the public considered it appropriate for the national government to promote nondenominational, non-polemical Christianity."

united states america god christians christianity congress harvard fathers library founding big bang founding fathers library of congress stated religious beliefs deism deists

Episode 025 - Geology after Steno: Catastrophism, Uniformitarianism, and Fideism

That's So Second Millennium

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 17, 2018 23:59

- Competitor paradigms in early geology, their conceptual and thematic relationships to Noah's Flood. - Catastrophism and its inverse, uniformitarianismHutton, in some circles (especially Anglo-American ones) considered the father of geology, was a curious hybrid (from our point of view, anyway) of philosophical convictions. On the one hand, and what makes him famous and venerated among geologists today, is his methodology and core assumption that processes happening on the contemporary Earth are the same processes that have shaped it throughout its history. This idea was worked up and spread broadly by Lyell. On the other hand, he expressed a thoroughgoing sense of teleology...that the world was set up in such a way so as to maintain its surface condition fit for animal life.Controversy between "catastrophists" and "uniformitarians / actualists" Cowper, "The Task": "[God] was mistaken in the date he gave to Moses" (Cowper himself is castigating these scholars) The putative tension that people like Cowper, Steno, Pascal, even arguably Aquinas felt between science, mathematics, philosophy and their faith How has this played into the widespread notion that faith and reason are opposed? Cf. the tension between being Christian and being a soldier "Deists" like Werner and Hutton discard the rigid post-Reformation sola scriptura straitjacket, yet they become just as dogmatic about their own theories.

earth controversy reformation pascal competitors werner cf geology hutton aquinas anglo american steno cowper lyell catastrophism noah's flood deists uniformitarianism

Freethought and Freedom: The English Deists

Excursions into Libertarian Thought

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 31, 2017 12:45

George H. Smith explains the origins of deism and its basic ideas.Originally published in essay form on March 20, 2015. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

english freedom freethought deists

Thomas Jefferson, Leader of the Deists - Options to Orthodoxy in the Colonies

CLASS - Compass Bible Church

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 30, 2017 72:29

Message from Jeff Gordon on July 30, 2017

leader options colonies thomas jefferson orthodoxy jeff gordon deists

Lecture 13: Thomas Chubb and Peter Annet

Ian Ramsey Centre: The Deist Controversy

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 22, 2017 31:21

This lecture details the ideas of two popular Deists, Thomas Chubb and Peter Annet, as well as responses by Caleb Fleming, Jonathan Edwards, and John Leland.

theology lecture jonathan edwards chubb anne t deists john leland

Lecture 05: Early Deism: Herbert, Spinoza, Blount

Ian Ramsey Centre: The Deist Controversy

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 22, 2017 39:03

This lecture begins a detailed discussion of Deistic thought, starting with the early Deists, Herbert of Cherbury, later plagiarized in Charles Blount’s Reglio Laici, and Baruch Spinoza, with responses from Stillingfleet and Boyle.

theology lecture herbert boyle spinoza blount deism baruch spinoza deists deistic

The Lamb Opens the Seals (Revelation Sermon 11 of 49) (Audio)

kids unc chapel hill moralistic therapeutic deism deists

Play Episode Listen Later May 21, 2017

Introduction For most of my adult life, I have been a student of military history. Until the advent of the explosive power of gunpowder-based weapons, the most terrifying sound heard on the battlefield must have been the sound of the approach of enemy cavalry — mounted warriors. It must indeed have been beyond terrifying for foot soldiers, trained to stand their ground, to feel the earth shaking beneath their feet from an army of half-ton of animals traveling as fast as 30-40 miles an hour toward them. In Job 39:21-25 God boasts about the horse in military terms: “He paws the ground fiercely and charges into the fray. He laughs at fear, and is afraid of nothing. In frenzied excitement, he eats up the ground. He cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.” The horses alone would have been terrifying, to say nothing of their mounted warriors. The first four seals bring to us one of the more famous images from the Book of Revelation: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Here, we will see for the first time in the Book of Revelation the judgments of God unleashed on sinful Earth. His judgments will be a dominant theme throughout the rest of the book of Revelation. In Revelation 1, John, who was in exile on the island of Patmos, has a vision, which he introduces as “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show his servants the things that must soon take place.” It is an unveiling of Jesus Christ, first and foremost, and of future things that we would have no other way of knowing. In his vision, he sees the resurrected, glorified Christ dressed like a priest, moving among seven golden lamp stands which represented seven contemporary local churches, but also His Church across history, showing a constant, active interest that Jesus has for local churches around the world. Those seven churches were the focus of the seven letters which make up Revelation 2-3. In these letters, we learn both what Christ loves and is attracted to in churches, and what He hates or wants to see destroyed in them. This brings forth the beautiful balance of that which is part of healthy church life — hard work, discipline, diligence, orthodox doctrine, a genuine love for God and for one another, and a willingness to expose and to shun false doctrine. It also reveals His hatred for lukewarmness, for secret sin, and even for tolerating sin among a local body. In Revelation 4, John saw a door standing open in the Heavenly realms, and he was invited by Christ to ascend and to go through that doorway to see what was going on there. Of course, he could not obey that unaided, but the Spirit moved him from the Earth through the doorway into Heaven in a spiritual flight. He immediately saw the central reality of the physical and spiritual universe — Almighty God, the Creator on His throne. Surrounding the throne were 24 other thrones with elders seated on them, pouring forth beautiful, powerful, continual worship for the Creator who created all things; day and night they praised Him. By His Word, they were created, and by His word, they are sustained, or continue to have their being. As that scene unfolded before John, we saw last week in Revelation 5, the Creator God held in His right hand a scroll. The scroll was sealed with seven seals, with writing on both sides. A mighty angel cried out a challenge to all creation: “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” No one was found in Heaven, or on earth, or under the earth who was worthy, and John wept and wept as a result. One of the elders told him, “‘Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.’” He heard this about the Lion, but turning, he saw instead a Lamb looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, a clear declaration of his deity. Jesus is the Lion and the Lamb, possessing a beautiful combination of attributes. His triumph is the victory of the cross: By His blood, He has purchased people for God from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation. When Jesus had taken the scroll from the right hand of Him who sat on the throne, worship for Him exploded and cascaded from those around the throne. Now we come to Revelation 6. This chapter unfolds with the breaking open of six of the seals on the scroll. Because of the difficulty of interpreting the words of this and following chapters, many pastors shrink away from preaching verse-by-verse exposition of the book of Revelation. Certainty flees; at best one can render godly opinions. With careful study of other people’s opinions and interpretations, I will do my best to manage the specific challenging details. However, the large, central themes are crystal clear and we will see those repeatedly: God’s sovereign control and power over the events on earth; His active, aggressive wrath crescendoing at the end of human history, in the days, weeks, months, and years preceding the Second Coming of Christ; His love for His people; His desire to protect them from persecution or to avenge them where He allows it; and the ultimate destination of both the righteous — the redeemed, and the unrighteous — the wicked. We can approach the seven seals in two different ways. On one hand, we could see everything described from a future perspective that none have happened yet — that John’s words describe the events at the end of redemptive history, future not only for him but for us as well. This future time is known as the Great Tribulation. Jesus described a time of tribulation — the Little Apocolypse — in Matthew 24, which can be seen as an interpretive key to the Great Apocalypse. In Matthew 24:21-22 “…then there will be great distress [or great tribulation], unequaled from the beginning of the world until now — and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.” There is yet to come a terrible tribulation, unlike any that has ever been seen in human history. That language sets it apart. In this view, these events, beginning with the seven seals, are nothing we have ever experienced before; all are tied to the Great Tribulation. A second approach, one that I personally favor, is that the events described, especially in the first five seals (though, you could extend it to the sixth seal as well, depending on how you read prophetic language) represent recurring patterns of wrath, judgment, and suffering that will happen, again and again throughout redemptive history, all over the earth. But they will find their last and greatest and most dreadful fulfillment in the events leading up to the Second Coming of Christ. Matthew 24:6-9 says, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.” During the unfolding of redemptive history that God has ordained, there have been and will continue to be regular patterns of what we will see with these first seals, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: peaceful conquest as with the White Horse; war as with the Red Horse; famine as with the black horse; and death as with the pale horse. While all this suffering occurs in every generation, the Gospel of Jesus Christ will continue to spread to every nation and language on earth. Matthew 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” The rise and fall of wicked rulers and the general hatred of the human race for the Gospel result in much persecution of the messengers of that Gospel, suffering in every generation, leaving an unbroken trail of blood throughout twenty centuries thus far of church history. This includes the apostasy of many false believers who buckle under the pressure of persecution going on in their lifetime, in their generation. Jesus said in Matthew 24:9-10, “…you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other.” The fifth seal unveils the ever-growing number of martyrs who will have paid the price in their own blood for the spread of the Gospel. Revelation 6:9-11 says, “When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’ Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.” We see the events of the first five seals repeated in church history, again and again, just as Jesus said we would. He said they would continue until the end of the world, but at the end of the world, in the final phase of human history under the Antichrist, we should expect a great consummation of intensified conquest, war, famine, death and martyrdom. Jesus Himself gives us permission to use this perspective in Matthew 24:37, when He said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came, and took them all away.” That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” I take that phrase, “as it was, so it will be” (or already/not yet) as a guide to look for repeated patterns of these events until the end. I do not think this holds true throughout the book of Revelation. When we get to the trumpet judgments and the bowl judgements, we will see events described that have never happened in human history. Nothing approaching the carnage and ecological disaster of Revelation 8 or the demonic army and the subsequent suffering of Revelation 9 have ever occurred from the beginning of time until now. But we are at the beginning of the story as Jesus takes the scroll and begins breaking open these seals. We believe that God is actively involved in maintaining the universe He created. We are not Deists, thinking that God has left us alone to our own devices and things are running by their own forces. He actively intervenes in everything, including displaying His wrath every day. In Romans 1:18, it says, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” But though it is presently displayed, the final outpouring of God’s wrath will hit levels such as we have never seen before nor even imagined. That final tribulation will begin by following the pattern unfolded in these seals. The First Seal Broken, the First Rider Unleashed: Deceptive Peace Let us now do the best we can to understand each of these seals in detail. The first seal is broken, and then the first rider is unleashed, bearing some kind of peace. Revelation 6:1-2 says, “I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, ‘Come!’ I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.” The Lamb Initiates Everything The first thing we notice, which I will repeat because it bears repeating, is that the Lamb, Jesus Christ, initiates every event that is described. Human rulers may think they are in charge, that they are making judgments and rendering decisions that will change history — that they are the movers and shakers — in reality, ultimately they are the ones moved and shaken. They are pawns in God’s overarching plan. In Isaiah 14:26-27, we read this refrain:“This is the plan determined for the whole world; this is the hand stretched out over all nations. For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?” God has a plan; His hand is omnipotent. He sets the course of human history from beginning to end. We see this as Christ breaks open each seal; events start to move in Heaven first, and then on earth. As He breaks open the first seal, one of the four living creatures is cued to cry, “Come!” His voice sounds like thunder. Often, voices from Heaven have overwhelming volume. It seems that John could feel it in his chest, like the sound of thunder, and flashes of lightning, and an earthquake, and the sound of many waters like a mighty, roaring waterfall. He imparts a sense of a stunning level of power among these angelic beings. In Isaiah 6, when the seraphim were crying to one another, “Holy, holy, holy”, the door posts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke — at the sound of their voices, not God’s. These are powerful created beings; they show us how weak and puny our voices are. As the first creature cries “Come!”, the First Horseman of the Apocalypse is unleashed. The First Horseman Described John described this horse as being white, implying in some sense that it was physically attractive, alluring, appealing. The word “white” is generally associated with godliness and righteousness in the book of Revelation, as we see with the robes given to all of the redeemed from every tribe, language, people, and nation. The rider carried a bow, but had no arrows — no open weaponry. “He rode forth like a conqueror bent on conquest.” He sought to build an empire, but by means other than the usual military conquest. Yet, we could argue, that the bow in his hand implied the threat of a war. The First Horseman Interpreted Many solid, godly commentators believe that this first Horseman represents Jesus Christ and the spread of the Gospel. Their strongest scriptural is in Revelation 19:11, when Jesus is depicted at the Second Coming riding a white horse and wearing many crowns. That is compelling and not off-base to say that the first horse represents the spread of the Gospel. In Matthew 24:14, as we saw a moment ago, Jesus said, “This Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world, as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus if He was a king, Jesus replied, “You are right in saying that I am a king. For this reason, I was born, and for this I came into the world: To testify to the truth.” His Kingdom is built by the testimony of the truth. He said to Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” It is not an earthly Kingdom, so it does not advance in the usual way. However, I do not think that is the best way to interpret this first horse. First, it seems unlikely that the Lamb in Heaven would break open a seal and then show up as His own response, especially since He is coming in response to the living creature giving the command to come, as though the horses are unleashed by the order of the living creatures. Second, and more significant, in my opinion, is that the Four Horsemen should be seen together as one whole package of judgment and wrath on the earth. This first Horseman only appears to be righteous and delightful and alluring, but in truth is not. These four Horsemen bring death and judgment on the earth together. This beautiful Horseman a counterfeit Christ, looking like Christ but without His holiness or power. This theme of counterfeiting is seen throughout the book of Revelation. It will resurface in Revelation 13 with the rise of the beast from the sea, who ends up playing an Antichrist, or substitute Christ. Together with the dragon and the beast from the earth, the three comprise an unholy, ungodly trinity, which is a mocking counterfeit to the true Trinity the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Temporary Success of the First Rider This carries out the theme of already/not yet as well. A kingdom is being advanced by subtle, even treacherous means, that are different from what is expected, but extremely effective: sly treachery and a deceitful peace, rather than by warfare, though with the threat of war thinly veiled and ever-present. In Matthew 24:24-25, Jesus said, “…false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect-- if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time.” He spoke in the plural, not the singular, implying that we would see repeated patterns. Throughout history, there have been devious, wicked, sly politicians, who have skillfully conquered lands by evil and by treacherous treaties and false diplomacy which they later break. This is seen clearly in the Book of Daniel. In Daniel 11:21, Daniel prophesied about one of the successors of Alexander the Great, a Greek king who was to come, in this way: “He [the previous king] will be succeeded by a contemptible [meaning of low birth] person who has not been given the honor of royalty. He will invade the kingdom when its people feel secure, and he will seize it through intrigue.” What is intrigue? It's treachery. It is being a sly politician, possessing charisma and savvy to be able to draw people in under false pretenses in order to gain control. Further, Daniel 11:23-24 says, “After coming to an agreement with him [another king... There's a king of the north and a king of the south who are always battling each other in Daniel 11], he will act deceitfully, and with only a few people he will rise to power. When the richest provinces feel secure, he will invade them and will achieve what neither his fathers nor his forefathers did.” He will conquer by treachery, by deceit, by lulling the people of those lands into a false sense of security. One of my favorite verses in Daniel is 11:27. This is what I picture when I think of the United Nations or discussions between ambassadors of two pagan nations. “The two kings [king of the north, king of the south], with their hearts bent on evil, will sit at the same table and lie to each other, but to no avail, because an end will still come at the appointed time.” This happens often in the political world and other realms (such as business). There is treachery, but one king is much better at it than the other one. This man in Daniel 11 represents an actual king, Antiochus Epiphanes, who was a symbol of the future Antichrist. That is why so much detail is given to him in Daniel 11. He was a real ruler; he rose politically through treachery and intrigue; he made covenants and broke them. He set a pattern that we see acted out in history, again and again. We saw the same pattern with Adolf Hitler in Munich, when Neville Chamberlain, afraid of a coming cataclysm, terrified of repeating World War I, sold Czechoslovakia up the river to get a piece of paper signed by Hitler, saying that Germany would never go to war against England again. In retrospect, we can see what a liar Hitler was. He was happy to sign the false treaty and send Neville Chamberlain home waving the piece of paper on the tarmac, saying, “We have peace in our time.” That lasted for another 10 months before Germany took over the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and the whole country. No one could do anything, and within a year, they invaded Poland, setting off World War II. That is one example of many throughout history that depicts conquest through deception and treachery. This is a recurring theme in history, but will be ultimately fulfilled right before the Second Coming of Christ. The Antichrist will come initially by appearing beautiful and attractive, but his heart is treacherous. He advances and is given a crown and “[rides] forth like a conqueror bent on conquest.” The Second Seal Broken, the Second Rider Unleashed: War The Lamb Initiates Again: the Second Seal is Broken This leads to the second seal being opened, because the unloaded bow is short-lived. Revelation 6:3-4 says,“When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, ‘Come!’ Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.” Again, the Lamb initiates, and then, when He has broken the seal, the living creature cries, “Come!” The Second Horse and Rider Described and Interpreted When the living creature has given this order, the second horse, the fiery Red Horse, is unleashed. There is no doubt how to interpret this one — this is simply open warfare. The color red must signify the flow of blood, especially since the rider is given a sword to wreak massive slaughter. Whatever treaties, whatever promises of peace have been made have all been swept aside, and now, there is open warfare. As we have already seen, warfare has long plagued the human race, stampeding and trampling down the pages of history with bloody red footprints. In Matthew 24:6-7, Jesus says, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” Warfare, with one nation fighting another nation, demonstrates two things. First, Satan hates all human beings; he wants all of them to die outside of Christ. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, it was the Nazis fighting the Communist soldiers. I doubt there were many born again soldiers on either side; the ideologies represented were satanic. Millions and millions of Germans and Russians died in that conflict. Second, this pattern is judgment from God against sinful individuals and nations. Isaiah 34:2-3 says,“The LORD is angry with all nations; his wrath is upon all their armies. He will totally destroy them, he will give them over to slaughter. Their slain will be thrown out, their dead bodies will send up a stench; the mountains will be soaked with their blood.” The blood-red carnage begins with the breaking open of the second seal. There will be an end-time fulfillment of this when the beast from the sea is given power to rule over the entire earth. No human ruler has ever ruled the whole earth. Genghis Khan conquered a quarter of the land mass of the earth, the highest of any nation in terms of real estate. But this beast from the sea will have it all. The people of the earth will not give up their land and power easily, once they realize the intrigue and treachery that have taken place. The Antichrist will be forced to show his military power. Revelation 13:7 says, “He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.” The second Horseman, ultimately, represents the bloody conquest by a final world ruler, who will begin his conquest through deception, intrigue, and false diplomacy, but who will end his conquest by warfare, the swinging of a large, bloody sword given to him for a short time. The Third Seal Broken, the Third Rider Unleashed: Famine The Lamb Once Again Initiates the Next Horse and Rider Following this bloodshed, the third seal is broken and the third Rider, Famine, is unleashed. Revelation 6:5-6 says, “When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, ‘Come!’ I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, ‘A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!’” Once again, the Lamb initiates events by opening the seal. A living creature responds to the Lamb’s initiative by calling out, “Come!” and the third horse and Horseman come. The Third Horse and Rider Described This horse is black, which, technically is not a color but rather the absence of light. It is darkness. The Rider is holding scales, which were associated with merchants in that era for weighing merchandise and money — a rod with platters or plates hanging by chains. The merchants would weigh out their goods and then calculate the currency and weigh it against standardized weights. The picture we are meant to see is that of buying and selling of merchandise. As this black horse and its Rider move across the earth, John hears a voice coming mysteriously from among the living creatures. John does not know who speaks, but the voice is like that of a merchant calling forth his price for his commodities. He is calling for the careful weighing of a quart of wheat for a full day’s work. People will work all day to get a quart of wheat to take home to feed their families. That qualifies as famine. The barley, a little more available, was a lower-quality grain, but three quarts was still not enough. Famine is truly a logical consequence of war. When armies are running roughshod over the countryside, farmers cannot plow, plant, and reap. Consider the famine going on in East Africa right now. Human warfare, resulting in anarchy, has been responsible in large part for that. The same thing happened after World War II; if it had not been for the Marshall Plan and other wealthier nations helping out, there would have been worldwide starvation in a scope scarcely imaginable. BUT the Famine is Not Universal Jesus said that there would be famines in various places. This famine is not universal. The voice that called out the famine conditions limited it, saying, “Do not hurt or harm the oil and the wine!” — referring to olive oil. This famine is not as bad as it possibly could be. It is possible, as some commentators believe, that the more wealthy will be able to obtain provisions but the poor will suffer, since items like oil and wine can be considered luxuries in times of famine. That is possible, though I do not know. This limitation perhaps lends a future aspect to this seal — in the Old Testament, when famine came, no one was able to get any food, no matter how rich. People could not eat their silver or gold. No food meant no food for anyone. The Fourth Seal Broken, the Fourth Rider Unleashed: Death Now Comes the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse! Finally, the fourth seal is broken and the fourth Rider is unleashed. Revelation 6:7-8 says,“When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, ‘Come!' I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.” Like the other three, the initiative is with Jesus. He breaks the seal, the fourth living creature says, “Come!” and the pale horse rides forth. The Fourth Horse and Rider Described Where this horse is described as pale, the Greek uses the word “chloros,” from which we get the word “chlorophyll.” It is a greenish tint, what we might describe as a ghostly green. There is a sense of decay and death. The rider is clearly identified: his name is Death, like the decaying of a corpse. Hades, the grave, follows right after him. The horse and rider together are given power from Heaven to kill one quarter of the population of the earth, not only by sword, with military might, but also by famine, plague, and wild beasts. We truly do not comprehend how much God restrains animals and birds from attacking the human race, but imagine if He did not, how terrifying that would be. Note also that the sword, famine, plague, and beasts are the standard plagues given in Old Testament prophetic books about what would happen to Israel with the invasion of an army. The horror escalates with each subsequent horse. The slaughter of one quarter of the earth’s population is absolutely mind-boggling. Every generation has experienced war, famine, and death to some degree, but this is a scope never before experienced in history. The death toll connected with World War II, including from fighting, collateral civilian casualties, death from diseases that were otherwise curable, and other factors, was at the highest between 60 and 70 million people. The population of the earth in 1940 was 2.4 billion. That is a total of 2.6% of the world's population. This carnage is 10 times that. A literal interpretation of one quarter of the earth’s population from these first four seals renders this a definite futurist interpretation of what will happen right before the end. And yet, Jesus says in Matthew 24:8 “All these are the beginning of birth pains.” Persecution follows with the next seal, but we will cover that in the next sermon, God willing. As a preview, Matthew 24:9-10 says, “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other…” Betrayal, persecution, and martyrdom. Applications Understand the Sovereign Power of Christ Over Events on Earth Here are some quick applications. First, understand the sovereignty of God over all things. The events of today and the future do not happen by accident. This is part of God’s plan for the ultimate consummation of the new Heavens and the new earth, the salvation of the righteous, and the condemnation of the wicked. We must understand the sovereign power of Jesus Christ over these events. He has the right to ordain and initiate these events. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Him. He owns the earth; the title deed to the earth is His by right. As he breaks open each seal, the judgments that follow are his righteous reactions to the sins of the human race. As a Christian, do not fear that the world is spinning out of control, even as we see the beginnings of birth pains: wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes in various places. See the Pattern of “Already/Not Yet” Second, see the pattern of already/not yet in world events that unfold each day. We may even see them escalating, but still the end is not yet come. It is not imminent in that way, though we need to be ready for death and for the Second Coming at any point. Most of these terrors are still in the future. Prepare for the End of the Universe by Living a Holy Life and Spreading the Gospel Third, 2 Peter 3:11-13 tells us how we should think about the end of the world: “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.” It is because of sin that these judgments are coming. Ephesians and Colossians corroborate this: because of the sins of sexual immorality, of rage, and anger, and covetousness, and idolatry, these judgments will come. We Christians should flee them. We should put sin to death by the Spirit, and live holy and upright lives. As we look forward to the day of God, and speed its coming through evangelism and missions. We must take these themes out to people in the Raleigh-Durham area and share the Gospel. Many people believe these things will not happen, but we know that these words are true, and that beyond these events will come Judgment Day. Embrace the Doctrine of the Wrath of God for Sin Embrace the doctrine of the wrath of God for sin. We will see it many more times in the book of Revelation. It is not an embarrassing or dirty secret that God does this kind of thing; it is just and righteous for Him to bring judgments on the sinners of the earth. Once More… Flee to Christ NOW!!! And then, finally, at the end of Revelation 6, everybody is looking for refuge, for a cave or some other hidden place to flee the wrath to come, but they will not find it. This is an appeal to you who are outside of Christ, that you would realize that the time for fleeing is now. The refuge is available now in the Gospel. Flee to Christ. God sent Him, His own Son, into the world, to live a sinless life and die in our place on the cross, that we might have forgiveness of sins. You can escape the wrath to come, not by works — by what you do — but by trusting in Him. Closing Prayer Father, thank you for the words of the Book of Revelation and what we have learned through studying these words today. It's enough to make us tremble, oh Lord, to realize the kind of terrors that will come on the earth. They will be even worse than I have described here. I pray, oh, Lord, that you would please give us strength to read this, and strength to believe it. I pray that we who have already fled to Christ, who we have been delivered from the wrath to come, would realize we have a responsibility to those who have not yet trusted in Christ, to share the Gospel with them, and a responsibility to You to be holy. Thank you for the Word of God, and for the chance we've had to study it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

god jesus christ death father lord israel earth spirit man england gospel living germany kingdom creator german russian kings holy universe satan revelation embrace greek biblical world war ii ephesians human nazis sermon old testament lion lamb millions adolf hitler colossians poland apocalypse judgement root united nations judgment betrayal amen pilates wrath opens lords doctrine end times pattern persecution soviet union warfare munich antichrist spreading surrounding hades communists second coming rider famine heavens his kingdom flee seals east africa in matthew his church in jesus judgment day almighty god four horsemen horsemen in romans genghis khan great tribulation czechoslovakia whitehorse horseman christs sovereign lord patmos creator god lord almighty in isaiah in revelation marshall plan holy life raleigh durham we christians neville chamberlain in job red horse this gospel antiochus epiphanes andy davis my kingdom sudetenland two journeys deists christ now biblical themes by his word temporary success

127 Caroline Winterer, American Enlightenments

Ben Franklin's World

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 28, 2017 56:27

In many ways, the Enlightenment gave birth to the United States. Enlightened ideas informed protests over imperial governance and taxation and over whether there should be an American bishop. If we want to understand early America, we need to understand the Enlightenment. Caroline Winterer, a Professor of History at Stanford University and author of American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason, takes us through her ideas about the Enlightenment and how it influenced early America. Show Notes: http://www.benfranklinsworld.com/127 Sponsor Links DelanceyPlace.com “The Hostility Between Christians and Deists” Complementary Episodes Bonus: Why Historians Study History Episode 085: George Goodwin, Benjamin Franklin in London Episode 088: Michael McDonnell: The History of History Writing Episode 096: Nicholas Guyatt, The Origins of Racial Segregation in the United States Episode 109: John Dixon, The American Enlightenment & Cadwallader Colden Episode 117: Annette Gordon-Reed, The Life & Ideas of Thomas Jefferson Helpful Show Links Ben Franklin's World Facebook Page Join the Ben Franklin's World Community Sign-up for the Franklin Gazette Newsletter Ben Franklin's World iOS App Ben Franklin's World Android App *Books purchased through this link will help support the production of Ben Franklin's World.

#39 Are Our Kids Deists?

Ambassador Talks

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 14, 2017 29:17

On this episode of Ambassador Talks, we discuss something called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. It's wordy, but it was a study done by UNC Chapel Hill about religion and adolescents. Tune in to learn about the state of their beliefs and maybe our own as well.

Atheists, Cessationists, and What they Have in Common

Raised to Walk Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2017 10:56

Atheists and cessationists are those who hold two very different belief systems. One says that there is no God, the other believes in God and Christ as Lord, so what could they have in common? Definitions First, let’s define our terms: Atheist: An atheist is one that believes that there is no God. Buddhism is one of the few religions that believes that there is no God. It is atheistic. Theist: A theist believes that there is a God or multiple gods. Most religions of the world are theistic. They believe in some sort of Supreme Being even if they disagree on who that being is. Deist: A deist is a form of a theist, one who believes there is a God. This is usually explained as being a Creator God but one who is not concerned with His creation. In fact, the idea that this God interacts with His creation is strongly rejected. Agnostic: An agnostic is one who just comes out and says that they have no idea. There are two main forms of agnostics. Some say that they personally do not know if there is a God. Others will say that it cannot be known that there is a God, he may be there but we will just never be sure. Cessationism: Cessationists are Christians, normally in the Protestant tradition, who believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the New Testament have ceased and that miracles are not possible today. Continuationism: In opposition to cessationists, continuationism is the label for those who believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit did not cease, that they have continued since Pentecost, and that miracles are possible today. What Does Cessationism have in Common with Atheism With our definitions in place, how could there be anything in common between atheists and cessationists when one believes that there is no God, the other professes Christ as Lord? Worldviews in a Nutshell: Atheists: There is no God. There is nothing outside of the natural world. It is a closed system Deists: There is a Creator, but he doesn’t bother with us. He went away. It is a closed system not because God is not there, but because He chooses it to be. Cessationists: There is a God and he came to save us, but he doesn’t bother with us anymore. He doesn’t speak to us. There is no prophecy today, and any claim to spiritual gifts is false and from a deceiving source. Christ is Lord, but until we get to heaven, we are living in a closed system. While cessationists do believe in God and specifically in Christ, like atheists, the most strident cessationists argue very strongly against miracles and the possibility of God actually speaking to a person. The cessationist believes in a modified form of a closed system, not because there is no God, but because God chooses it to be so. I recently read a polemic against a popular Bible teacher in which the author comes just short of calli...

The Bible Geek Podcast 16-030

The Bible Geek Show

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 9, 2016

What have you to say about the Jordanian codices? About the disappearance of Deists and the Reign of Terror.

terror geeks jordanian geek podcast deists bible geek

The Bible Geek Podcast 16-021

The Bible Geek Show

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 14, 2016

Have The Christ Myth by Arthur Drews (1910) and Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions by TW Doane (1882) been superceded? Where have all the Deists gone? Do the numerous Moses-Jesus parallels imply that Moses was already viewed as a Messiah? Irenaeus in his Against Heresies (III,11.1) says, "John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men..." What he is saying here is that John was written after to refute Cerinthus which is one smoking gun for the late date of John. There are scholars before and now that contend that it is the case and that John was the judaized and historicized version of Cerinthus' gospel. Are there any scholarly attempts to reconstruct the Cerinthus gospel just like scholars before and now have reconstructed Marcion's gospel of the lord which is being called as the "ur-lukas"? Can we consider the Cerinthus gospel as an "ur-john"? If 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 is not an interpolation, does it really back up the gospelsâ?? Easter stories? The listed appearances sound more like visions, while the rest of the chapter seems to understand the resurrection of Jesus as spiritual rather than physical. Is Mark 16:9-20 more Marcionite or Gnostic? Are the â??hate your familyâ?? passages in the gospels a reflection of the period when the Early Church Fathers are battling the heresies of Gnosticism? Reading the apocryphal "Life of John the Baptist" text recently, I noticed a present-tense reference to Theophilus, who identified as being in office. Is this the same Theophilus mention in Luke, eh? Is it reasonable to suggest that the Passion narratives are not meant to implicate and condemn Jews but rather to say that all humanity must be depraved if even the best of them, Jews, could be so blind to the truth? Iâ??m curious to hear what you might have to say about Lena Einhornâ??s new book, â??A Shift In Time: How Historical Documents Reveal the Surprising Truth about Jesusâ??? Are there links between the NT passages and Isaiah 65, which mentions eating unclean pigs and living in tombs? Is there a correlation between one not being able to look at the face of God and not being able to stare directly at the sun? Is the Deuteronomic prohibition of cross-dressing the product of the ancient Israelite taxonomies discussed by Mary Douglas?

god jesus christ lord israel passion gospel corinthians jews geeks john the baptist israelites baptist nt theophilus surprising truth geek podcast early church fathers marcion jesus are moses jesus deists other religions deuteronomic bible geek marcionite cerinthus lena einhorn

ST615 Lesson 10

Theology and Science

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 19, 2016 30:08

For Copernicus, the earth was in the heavens - the place of perfections - and matter always wants to go to the middle. Copernicus did not give a physics to explain why matter did not do what it was supposed to. The concepts of inertia and gravity did not exist at the time. Copernicus was influenced by the philosopher, Plotinus. Plotinus brought the concept of the perfect good out of the outer realm and put it into the universe. For Plotinus, the sun represented the eternal, immutable God. Copernicus produced a new theory of the universe. His new worldview was simpler and fit his presuppositions about the world, but was worse in explaining the evidence. Changing orbits from circles to ellipses, crushed the worldview of the perfection of the heavens. Old science had an explanation - the heavens were part of the non-brute matter. It had purpose and was perfect. Galileo believed Scripture and science should be compatible. He was told by the Church that he could teach the Copernicus theory but not as the way things really are. When Galileo saw flaws on the moon, it destroyed the old worldview. In the study of our universe there have been additional revolutions since Copernicus. Consider that Newton's Theory of Gravitation provided, for the first time, an explanation for why and how in his Laws of Motion, the planets could orbit the sun. Newton's structure of the physical universe laid a foundation and helped make sense of the Copernican worldview. Newton's system of physics strengthened the argument of the Deists so Newton tried to protect God by putting God into the problem of his scientific theory which ultimately allowed God to be taken out of the universe. Consider that if our concept of what God has done is based on what nature has not done, God is not big any more and is getting smaller and smaller.

god church scripture lesson laws motion newton galileo copernicus gravitation copernican plotinus deists

Do Deists Pray?

God Discussion

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2013 119:32

As freethinkers, Deists have different opinions about what God is -- and they also have unique perspectives on prayer.Regardless of whether God listens to prayers, the act of praying might serve as a way focus thoughts or to cultivate a sense of gratitude. Prayer might be a way to deal with primal fears, such as the fear of death or injury. Perhaps it’s a form of meditation, or perhaps it’s a silent call to a spiritual force.The World Union of Deists’ Deputy Director, Jayson X, admits, “Occasionally, I will ask God for something. When I ask God for something, I don’t expect a miracle. I just hope for one. Maybe God intervenes in the natural working of the universe, or maybe God doesn’t. If God does, God probably does so in a covert way so that, even if God does a miracle, it is debatable whether it was an extreme coincidence or not.”Feel free to call in with your questions or comments.The God Gave Us Reason, Not Religion podcast is a service of The World Union of Deists, a global network and educational outreach for Deism. Please visit the show's sponsor, GodDiscussion.net, for a schedule of upcoming shows. You can also find religious news and commentary at GodDiscussion.com.

god prayer pray maybe god freethought deism deists world union

Do Deists Pray?

God Discussion

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2013 119:32

god prayer pray maybe god freethought deism deists world union

Constitution Study Radio - Myth #15: Founders Were Deists

Constitution Study Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2012 27:00

Myth #15: The Founding Fathers were deists. Through the Constitution with Douglas V. Gibbs

founders politics news study myth conservatives constitution commentary gibbs deists douglas v gibbs

Revolutionary Deists Part 1

Atheists Talk Cable Show - Audio

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2011 27:42

James Zimmerman and Ryan Sutter discuss Deism’s history and Deists in early American history.

american revolutionary deism deists ryan sutter james zimmerman

Revolutionary Deists Part 2

Atheists Talk Cable Show - Audio

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2011 28:08

James Zimmerman and Ryan Sutter discuss Deism’s history and Deists in early American history.

american revolutionary deism deists ryan sutter james zimmerman

The Good Catholic Life #0053: Monday, May 23, 2011

The Good Catholic Life

Play Episode Listen Later May 23, 2011 56:31

**Today's host(s):** Scot Landry **Today's guest(s):** Andreas Widmer, CEO of the Seven Fund, and Michael Miller, Director of Action Media at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty * [The Seven Fund](http://www.sevenfund.org/) * [The Acton Institute](http://www.acton.org/) * [Faith and Prosperity blog by Andreas Widmer](http://www.faithandprosperity.com/) * [Encyclical "Centissumus Annus" by John Paul II](http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html) * [Encyclical "Rerum Novarum" by Leo XIII](http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html) * ["The Birth of Freedom"](http://www.thebirthoffreedom.com/) * ["The Call of the Entrepreneur"](http://www.calloftheentrepreneur.com/) **Today's topics:** The roots of free markets and entrepreneurship in Catholic culture and teaching **A summary of today's show:** Michael Miller of the Acton Institute and Andreas Widmer of the Seven Fund tell Scot that it is a myth that entrepreneurship and free markets are opposed to Catholic social teaching, but in fact are rooted in Christian tradition and are the most effective tools for approaching poverty. **1st segment:** Scot welcomed Andreas Widmer back to the show. Andreas has been on The Good Catholic Life several times talking about his experiences as a Swiss Guard for Pope John Paul II and then his experience at the beatification of Bl. John Paul earlier this month. He also welcomed Michael Miller. Scot said he has know as Acton as an organization that talks about the role of free markets in the creation of a virtuous society. Michael said Acton was founded 20 years ago to look at the intersection of theology and moral philosophy on the one hand and business and economics and entrepreneurship on the other. Most people make their living in business and there's a rich tradition of the Church thinking about these matters. It is an ecumenical organization. Fr. Robert Sirico is a co-founder of the Institute 20 years ago. Father had left the faith as a young man and was very influenced by leftist causes and socialism. He once met a man with whom he had debates about economics and the man at one point remarked, "You know, you're delightfully dumb. You need to read something." And so he gave Fr. Sirico all these books that he began to read and slowly began to have a conversion away from left-wing radicalism to a sense that a free-market that allows people to live out their freedom and responsibility actually helps the poor better than his previous ideas. Then he had a re-conversion to the Catholic faith and entered the seminary where he found a lot of the radical ideas he'd left behind from when he was a leftist. When he was ordained he co-founded an institute to consider these questions. They made the decision to make it broad-based and engage it from a whole Christian perspective. The Institute does many things, including academic articles, books, and films. They are a research and educational institute. They do three main things: 1. Research, including a scholarly journal called "The Journal of Markets and Morality." They have a lot of serious scholarly books, lots of op-eds. 2. Education, including a summer conference of 600 people in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they talk about the moral, economic, and theological foundations of a free society, called Acton University. They also have conferences around the world. 3. Media, including two documentaries, "Call of the Entrepreneur" and "the Birth of Freedom", both of which have been on PBS. They are working on a third documentary now on entrepreneurial solutions to poverty. Andreas said the beauty of the Acton Institute engages reason in such a way as to attract secular groups. Andreas is both a research fellow at Acton and the CEO of Seven Fund. Seven Fund approaches the challenge of dealing with poverty through entrepreneurial solutions primarily from a secular perspective, even though its work is informed by its principals' religious faith. Acton and Seven Fund have collaborated for about five years now. Seven approaches it from a cultural aspect, which includes religion. Before Scot worked for the Church, in his 20s, he thought he might have a call to the priesthood. A number of his colleagues at a consumer goods company told him that he was going from the devil to God. Scot said both Catholics in ministry and businesspeople think the two areas are opposed to one another, but what Scot has always liked about Acton is that it says we should be integrated people, not compartmentalizing work life from family life, and Acton provides help for this project. Michael said business is a moral enterprise, because it produces goods and services people need. People need consumer goods, like cleaning supplies, which is good. Peter Drucker said the purpose of business is to create a customer. To create and sustain a customer you need to provide a value to them. (Setting aside things that are objectively morally evil) Bl. John Paul said, a business is a community of persons who gather to make a livelihood and provide something people need. It provides opportunities for collaboration, for people to work together. Jobs help you grow up, to mature, to fulfill commitments. These virtues can transfer to your family life and social life. In a job you have to deal with other people and learn to control yourself. Business brings a common good. There is a movement now called corporate social responsibility, which currently includes this idea that corporations have to give back to society as if they took something in the first place. But corporations have given back by creating lots of value already. Just by the fact of being a corporation doesn't make them evil. Business can be an opportunity for moral evil, but it's also an opportunity for moral good. Andreas said there is a subconscious attitude that we seem to talk about business as if it were zero-sum, if I make money, you lose it. This isn't true. We "make" money, because we create new value. But the language of "giving back" implies that companies take something without creating something. That's the point of this movie, which Andreas recommends, called "The Call of the Entrepreneur," whose basic premise is that when you make something from nothing, God is present, because only God can create something good from nothing. So if we make a new business and create a new product, we know that God is with us, which makes us co-creators with God. Michael said the zero-sum fallacy--if I have a piece of the pie, you have less of the pie--is a really bad fallacy and leads to some very bad conclusions, including the myth of overpopulation. It misunderstands that everyone used to be poor 500 years ago, so how do you explain growth? Everyone asks the question, "How do you solve poverty?" but that's not the right question. They should ask, "Ask do you create wealth?" If you have a zero-sum game, it makes you defensive, you don't take risks. This is not the Health and Wealth Gospel. We are called to work. Theologically speaking, work does not come from after the Fall of Adam. We are called to be fruitful and multiply and make dominion. The Fall creates the toil of work. But work is a good thing, which John Paul II wrote about often: The dignity of work. All productive enterprise. **2nd segment:** Michael described some of the principles of a free market society and how they are undergirded by Christian principles. We sometime thinks of markets as guys on Wall Street exploiting the poor. While they do exist, markets are really networks of human relationships. They are people getting together and making exchanges for things that are beneficial for each other. In a competitive free market, people make an exchange if it's mutually beneficial. If it's not, then we trade with someone else or seek a better price. This is why a government can't control a market, because there are billions of transactions with all these individual preferences. To have a market economy, you need private property, to be able to have title to property in order to live out your freedom and to exchange it freely for goods and services. In Nicaragua, 70% of the land has no title, they don't know who owns it. If you don't have title, you can't use it as a collateral for a loan, people don't have addresses, you can't get credit. You also don't have incentive to improve it. Private property is not a given in most of the world. In the book, "The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else", Hernando de Soto makes this point. We think private property is normal, like fish don't realize they're in water. Private property is fundamental. Another condition is rule of law. You know your contracts will be enforced. Opportunities can take place because you know there will be fairness. Free association is the right to join together, whether business or unions or charities. There needs to be a culture of trust, a robust civil society, and human beings raised in families looking out for the long term, not just the short term. These ideas come directly out of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It's in the Ten Commandments, it's in the early Church fathers. In 1256, the first argument for free association was by St. Thomas Aquinas. Pope Leo XIII used this as the basis of his defense of unions. The Spanish scholastics in the 15th century wrote that it is wrong for governments to prevent the free exchange of goods if it benefits the common good. Adam Smith, the founder of modern free-market economics, said almost nothing original because it had all been said by the theological traditions of the middle ages. He just said it in a new way. The reason people don't know this is because most of this was in Confession manuals, guides for priests helping penitents make moral choices. The market economy did not come from the Enlightenment, but from the Christian medieval period. Serious scholars know there were no "dark ages". If those were the "dark ages," explain how the Cathedral of Chartres was so beautiful and so many modern buildings are so ugly. This is why good Christians can be free marketers. The Church doesn't have an economic policy, but it does have a moral orientation. People who support markets can be comfortable this a moral legitimate position to hold. Andreas said as a businessperson, it means he doesn't have to re-invent the wheel. The teaching of the Church is a compass he can use in business dealings. He has a compass with a direction, which is good for business. This is a great way to run a company because it makes you live a centered life, so you are the same person on the weekend as you are during the week. It also helps you to run a profitable company. Scot said free markets provide people with the most freedom, which corresponds with Catholic teaching on the dignity of the human person. A free market allows us to exercise our free will in a moral way. With the rule of law, the good actions are positively reinforced and bad actions are negatively reinforced. The Church is primarily concerned with the salvation of souls. She is also concerned with creating the conditions for human flourishing so that people live according to the Gospel. These conditions of human flourishing happen to be the same as that for wealth creation: private property, rule of law, etc. They respect human freedom. One of the problems with Communism was it took away the space for families to live out their responsibility and their freedom. Modern concepts of freedom are very broken and dangerous. The modern concept is that I will do whatever I want. But freedom separated from reason and truth is not freedom. Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) said it's a diabolical "freedom." The free market is not just about doing whatever I want and consumerism and getting stuff. It must be oriented to reason and truth, so it must be in a framework that recognizes who the human person is. Those countries that allow for human freedom are the wealthiest because God made us free. Andreas quoted Bl. John Paul who said, True freedom allows me to do what I ought to do, not just what I feel like doing. Michael said that this is a famous quote by Lord Acton--"Liberty is not the ability to do what you want, but the right to do what you ought," one of the two quotes most people know. The other is "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." He was a Catholic historian in England concerned with the history of liberty. **3rd segment:** "The Birth of Freedom" tells the story of the Judeo-Christian roots of political and economic liberty. It is a myth that it came out of the Enlightenment to free people from the "shackles" or religion and superstition. They told the history of the importance that religion has played in human liberty. Featured in the movie was Rodney Stark, who wrote a book called "The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success", and he makes this case from a sociological pint of view. In the Middle Ages, you begin to see the development of representative government, markets, and capitalism. (Michael doesn't like to use "capitalism" because it's a Marxist term; he prefers "free market".) There was international banking and capitalism in the Eighth Century and in fact the "Dark Ages" were a time of great development for human liberty. It destroys the myth of the "Dark Ages," which unfortunately is perpetuated by some Protestants. The sources of human liberty come from Christian tradition. Scot said the movie answers the question "How is freedom born"? The marketing material for the movie poses the question: >But humans are separated by enormous differences in talent and circumstance. Why would anyone believe that all men are created equal? That all should be free? That all deserve a voice in choosing their leaders? Why would any nation consider this a self-evident truth? In a world that never lived with this maximization of freedom that the United States has over the past 200 years, it seems self-evident, but for most people throughout history it has not been. The Founding Fathers knew they were living off of a deep tradition; it's not a modern invention. Andreas said that while the Founding Fathers may have been Deists, not Christians or Catholic, they were products of their culture. They draw off the cultural wealth at their disposal. Michael said even Nietszche acknowledged that the way we understand a lot of things is influenced by Christianity. But cultural capital doesn't last forever. It needs to be renewed and that's what "Birth of Freedom" is about; to encourage people and teach people to renew these sources of human liberty. It is in the concept of the human person, created in the image of God, with freedom and rights and responsibilities that has been the transforming force in history. "The Call of the Entrepreneur" is based on Fr. Robert Sirico's book "The Entrepreneurial Vocation ". Entrepreneurship is a secondary vocation--after primary vocations like marriage or priesthood--and we are called to respond to our gifts. Our entrepreneurship brings benefits to society. Where societies will go depends on how they view the entrepreneur. They look at three entrepreneurs: a farmer, a banker from New York, and Jimmy Lai, a refugee from Communist China when he was 11 years old. He started working in a factory and learned English and he said for the first time he knew freedom. He came from a land of no opportunity and no freedom to a land of freedom and opportunity and now he's worth $4 billion. He's also a convert to Catholicism. He built not only wealth for himself, but all kinds of jobs and opportunities and better families. A person invests his money in a small enterprise, works hard, sacrifices year after year, struggling to get the business of the ground, hires people along the way, gives them good incomes so they can buy homes and educate their children. After decades of working to build this business, the person is now financially independent and living comfortably and suddenly--to many people-- he's a dirty capitalist exploiter. But what about all the value he's created, all the jobs? Not everyone is an entrepreneur, so we need them to create jobs for others. Andreas said of course there are people in business who have bad intentions. This is why religion is so important in the marketplace. This is why a public moral culture is important. If you are an entrepreneur, you can be an exploiter or a creator, depending on your mindset. What is your goal? To end life with the most money possible? Or to recognize that you are a steward and there is dignity in work and there is virtue in work. Scot said if you view the people you work with as real human people created by God and not just producers and consumers, then you find a lot more people want to work with you. When you have people who love the environment they're in and they like the people they work with and the sum is greater than the parts, then wealth is created. Michael said in order to have self-governance, you need self-governors. For a free market to be sustainable requires free oral people. Liberty is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization (Lord Acton). Immature people are not fit for self-governance. If we live in a dictatorship of relativism we will lose freedom. **4th segment:** Michael said he and Fr. Sirico have been part of a project called "Doing the Right Thing," organized by Chuck Colson and Prof. Robert George. It is an ethics curriculum that deals with many of these questions of business and ethics. * [Doing the Right Thing](http://www.colsoncenter.org/ethics) Another initiative approaches the problem of poverty through entrepreneurship and is called PovertyCure. Scot reads from the website: "We all are called to a loving and generous concern for the poor. Yet while many of us have a heart for the poor, more than 1 billion people--one sixth of the world population--live on about $1 per day. Every year millions of men, women, and children die from AIDS, malaria, and other preventable diseases. Tens of millions lack clean water and go to bed hungry." * [PovertyCure](http://www.povertycure.org/) The typical way that developed economies have responded to the challenge haven't produced results over the past decades. Andreas said the questions is now why there is poverty, because we are all born people and we all started out poor. The question is how to create wealth. To approach poverty as a problem is the wrong approach. John Paul said we should stop looking at the poor as a problem, by start looking at them as an opportunity, people with a latent potential. Scot said it's not about creating big bank accounts, but creating wealth in the form of drinking water and food, clothing. Andreas said we should call it prosperity. It is a complex issue with many aspects to it. We can look at the aspect of the culture, both our own and that of the poor. We as Christians often have a false sense of charity. We see someone who's poor and we say, "I'm going to take care of you," but that's not how it ought to work. In a crisis, you can take care of someone in the short term, but in the long term, if we're creating prosperity, we can't run their lives. We can create prosperity by doing business with each other, by taking our responsibility, exercising our freedom responsibly. Michael said PovertyCure doesn't look at what we what they don't have (water, food, etc.), but what we don't see that they don't have that is preventing them from getting what they need (rule of law, private property, etc.) There isn't a single way to solve this, but it's time to change the discussion from looking at people as "consumers" or "burdens" to seeing them as "producers" and "entrepreneurs." Going from the idea as aid as the model to enterprise as the model. Population does not cause poverty. People are wealth creators when given the right conditions. PovertyCure is doing a video curriculum and a documentary. They have over 50 partners and are looking for more. Join them on the website or on their Facebook page. That will conclude today's presentation of The Good Catholic Life. For recordings and photos of today's show and all previous shows, please visit our website: TheGoodCatholicLife.com. You can also download the app for your iPhone or Android device at WQOM.org to listen to the show wherever you may be. We thank our guests, Michael Miller and Andreas Widmer. For our Production team of Rick Heil, Anna Johnson, Justin Bell, Dom Bettinelli, and George Martell, this is Scot Landry saying thank YOU for listening, God bless you and have a wonderful evening!

united states god ceo new york director health church father english power business education freedom media england entrepreneur fall gospel west opportunities research religion christians michigan christianity mystery spanish market victory study entrepreneurship iphone institute birth confessions jobs journal prof wall street catholic production android private markets aids pbs capitalism prosperity andreas ten commandments enlightenment morality population communism catholics catholicism right thing soto cathedrals tens marxist grand rapids founding fathers middle ages scot adam smith protestants dark ages thomas aquinas judeo christian john paul peter drucker pope john paul ii immature john paul ii communist china acton hernando michael miller chartres theologically jimmy lai chuck colson acton institute catholiclife pope leo xiii robert george swiss guard justin bell rodney stark lord acton anna johnson robert sirico deists andreas widmer leo xiii nietszche acton university western success reason how christianity led

Introduction: The Beauty of the Diamond Today I get to declare the greatness and the glory of the one that called me out of darkness into His wonderful light. I get to speak it, you get to listen to it and you get to rejoice in it too. Isn't that marvelous? We're going to celebrate Jesus today. That's what the text is all about. I believe as I said at the 9Marks Conference two days ago. I had a responsibility of speaking on the topic of preaching Christ from the Old Testament. And I just said it's my duty and responsibility in every text to get to Jesus. Every text. But may I say to you it's sometimes easier than others. And concerning this text, if you can't get to Jesus from this text you ought not to be preaching. This is all about Jesus and the greatness and the glories of Christ. It's my desire that God will just make Jesus shine radiantly in your hearts. I have a number of hobbies. One of my hobbies is I like collecting engagement stories. I like to find out from married couples how they got engaged. Some of them are pretty ordinary and that's fine, it works. A couple got engaged and they get married, and that's fine. Some of them are astonishing, amazing. What some of these guys have done to come up with the way to propose to their soon to be fiancée. I had a friend that I met at seminary who was... This is definitely the riskiest proposal I've ever heard. He put the diamond ring in a very expensive conch shell and just put it on a beach in Northern California and had a friend watch it from behind a bush while he went and got his soon-to-be fiancée and as the sun was setting, they were just walking along the beach and there was this incredible conch shell. And she picked it up and the ring fell right into her hand, not into the sand at their feet where with a flashlight they're rummaging for three hours trying to find it, but right into her hand. Tears coming down, she puts it on her finger and they're engaged. Isn't that exciting? That's fantastic. I mean he swung for the fences and he hit a home run. All right. That was the boldest I ever heard. The most cowardly I ever heard was a man who put his proposal… He taped it on a cassette tape and he had his soon-to-be fiancée play the tape in the tape player in the car there while he got something out of the trunk. And the engagement ring, the diamond ring was in the glove compartment and she listened to the proposal and he came around a minute or two later and all was well. She was wearing the ring. She was smiling. Everything was good. Wow. I said to him, "You weren't even there. When you got engaged you weren't even there." When I was engaged I know it all worked out well. I'm glad. Oh, how our wives have to put up with us. But isn't it interesting though, it's always a diamond ring. I wondered where that tradition came from, and I didn't really track that down, but why is it always a diamond? And maybe it's because of it's the hardest substance that we know. It's unchanging. It's just still looks the same decade after decade. And also just with the skill of a jeweler it can just capture light and cause it to just radiate brilliantly. It's just beautiful to look at. And so it's a beautiful unchanging thing. Maybe that's why it's always a diamond. And I didn't realize this, but it wasn't until the late 15th century that jewelers knew how to grind facets on diamonds in perfectly symmetrical patterns in a way that would ideally capture the available light and just cause the gem to shine radiantly and brilliantly. And it was a Belgian man in particular in 1475 that discovered that diamond dust is able to cut diamond. It's the only thing that can. And so he captured, he made these grinding wheels with diamond dust and olive oil and then started grinding facets, and he worked with it until he came to the realization that perfectly symmetrical pattern that we're well familiar with now, was the best for making the gem come alive with fire, with light, with brilliance. And he was the only one in the world that could do it and a particular nobleman, the Duke of Burgundy paid him 3,000 ducats of gold to make three perfect diamonds, and there are only three in the world like it. Now we're used to it, but it's still the kind of thing you're looking for when you go for a diamond. You're looking for the cut and the facets and how skillfully they're done. And I think as I look at the text of it that's what I thought of. I thought of a brilliant diamond and these various facets that capture the light of God and cause the light of God to come to our hearts radiantly, beautifully. And the diamond is Jesus, and the facets are different aspects of Jesus in His ministry, in his personality there. Some of which are revealed in this text today. Not all of them, but some come alive and are just radiant. And that's what we're going to do. We're going to look at facets of Jesus today and we're going to see how he brings the glory of God just radiantly in our hearts. My goal is simple. I want you to love Jesus more than you've ever done before as a result of the sermon. I want your heart to be captured by Jesus. I want you to know that Jesus is enough. I want you to stop being idolaters. Because if you say in any practical way or any actual way, "Jesus is not enough" you're an idolater. But if Jesus is really enough for you, then you can be joyful and content in any and every situation that Jesus brings into your life and it's He that's doing it. We're going to talk about that today. The sun is the radiance of God's glory. And we're going to discuss how he is that. Context in Hebrews Now in the context this is the beginning of the Book of Hebrews, we did a whole overview of Hebrews last week, but this is the beginning, these are the first words. There's no introduction here, there's no Paul and apostle of Christ Jesus or any of these kind of things. The author, whoever he is, just gets right to Jesus. You see that? I mean just immediately we get right to Jesus. Why? Well because I believe these Jewish professors of faith in Christ were under tremendous pressure from their unbelieving Jewish family and friends and neighbors to turn their backs on Jesus and come back to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. To forsake Jesus particularly. And renounce Him as the Messiah, and come back to the God that they had always known. And so the author is getting right to business, and even with these three verses, how can you forsake this one? How can you forsake the one who is God's final word to the human race in these last days. The one who is the son of God, who radiates with the light of God, and shines God for it, and through whom God made the universe and sustains it, and who alone provided purification for sins and who is, at the present, sitting at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. How can you turn your back on Jesus and go back to anything at all? God will not have it. It can't be like that ever again. It is Jesus now. And it will be Jesus for all eternity. That's what He's doing, you see the context? So right away we are given Jesus. And though we are not Jewish professors of faith in Christ who are under pressure from our Jewish neighbors and friends to relinquish Christ, I tell you, you are under tremendous pressure every day to turn your back on Jesus. Every single day, so we need to hear this too, don't we? And that's what this text is all about. So let's look at these various facets. This flamingly brilliant radiance of God's glory shining through Jesus, a stone with this morning's text, eight facets, Jesus's glory, as the final profit from God, the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, the Heir of all things, the Display of God's glory, the Sustainer of the universe, the Final Priest and the King on His throne. That should be enough for us, don't you think? Tell me, do you think I'm going to get through all this today? I must. I must. We have new things to do next week, so let's go forward. I. The Glory of Christ as the Final Prophet The God Who Speaks The first facet I see is the glory of Christ as the Final Prophet. "In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His son." First of all, God speaks. The God that we worship, He speaks. Francis Schaeffer 1972 wrote a book entitled "He is There and He is Not Silent." It's foundational, it's fundamental to the Christian faith that God exists and He's not silent. The fact is that God is a communicating God, He speaks and we listen. Says, in Isaiah 1:2, "Hear all Heavens. Listen o earth for the Lord has spoken." From the beginning God spoke and created, the universe came into being by the spoken word of God. By the word of His power, all worlds came to be. God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. Seven times in Genesis 1, God speaks and some new aspect of creation springs into being. But most significantly I think to us, God has chosen to communicate to us, human beings. In words. He's talking to us. And He did that from the start. In Genesis 2, He clearly communicated His will to Adam, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die." God spoke that. In Genesis 3, God speaks words of judgement on the serpent and on Eve and on Adam for what they had done. God speaks judgement, and in Genesis chapter 4, God speaks a warning to Cain who is angry with God and with his brother because God didn't accept his offering and He speaks a warning to him. He warns him not to sin. Then He speaks judgement over him when he does sin. In Genesis chapter 6, God speaks to Noah and tells him that a flood is coming and that he is to build an arch to save his family, and Noah obeys God, and so on through. God is a God who speaks, He communicates, He speaks words and His words have power. How God Spoken Then: To the Fathers, at Many Times and in Various Ways Well, how did God speak then? Well it says, "In the past, God spoke to our forefathers…" He spoke to our forefathers. So I think the author to the Hebrews was Jewish and was connecting himself to that ancestry that the Jews hold so dear. That ancestry that descendant from Abraham, the forefathers, the Jews, their Jewish lineage and ancestry. God spoke to the forefathers in the past in the era of the old covenant. And He did so through the prophets, God's spokesmen. They are intermediaries between God. They went and got the Word of God and brought it down, and we heard from the prophets, and the prophets told us what God was saying. It says "at many times and in various ways." Sometimes it would be an audible voice, like when the entire nation of Israel was assembled at the base of Mt. Sinai and God spoke out of a terrifying cloud and storm and spoke the Ten Commandments, and they heard. They heard the voice of God and they were so terrified that they asked Moses to go and hear and speak from then on, and that was how the office of prophet really got established in the nation of Israel. "We don't want to hear this great voice anymore unless we hear and die." But Elijah on Mount Horeb was up in that cave fleeing from Jezebel, you remember, and God spoke to him in a still, small voice. Quiet little voice. So just the range of the voice of God, simplest most common way is just, "The word of the Lord came to so and so and they spoke to Jeremiah or to a different... One of the prophets." Or he would speak in dreams and visions like in Daniel 7:1, "In the first year of Belshazzar King of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he was lying on his bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream." Or in Ezekiel 1:1, "In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month of the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God…" That's Ezekiel. And sometimes God spoke in symbols. He used symbols with prophets. Like He had Jeremiah look and he saw an almond branch. "What do you see, Jeremiah?" "I see an almond branch." It's a symbol that God is watching, because it sounds like the word for watching. And so God's watching over the Jews to see what they're doing. Or then He shows him a pot boiling, boiling pot with boiling water. And it's tipping away from the north and it's pouring out. And God was using a symbol to say that judgement, the Babylonians, were going to come from the north like boiling water pouring over the land. He showed Amos a basket of ripe fruit and said that he time for judgment is ripe on the house of Israel. He commands Hosea to marry a prostitute as a symbol of the fact that Israel had been unfaithful to God. He had Ezekiel draw a picture of the city of Jerusalem and then build little siege ramps and siege works against that little tablet of clay that he had built. So it was symbolizing the siege that was coming on Jerusalem. And then He had him get an iron skillet and put it between him and his face, saying that God has turned his face away from the people, and he will not rescue them. And many times and in various ways. Sometimes by providence, by God just doing things, he would communicate. Like, for example, when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines, you remember that? And it was brought into the Temple of Dagon to show that Dagon had triumphed over Yahweh. No he hadn't. God had a message that day for the people. Because the next day they found Dagon on his face before the Ark. You remember that story? Isn't that great? Like, "Oh, somebody didn't secure the idol very well. Let's nail it down and get it back up." No, no. You got it right. Let's try it part two. This time it fell down and it's decapitated and it's hands have been cut off. "Okay, we get it." It wasn't long before the Philistines were sending the Ark back. This is a great and terrifying God, and the people of Israel heard that story, didn't they. And they feared God greatly. God communicated through providence. Or when Uzzah grabbed hold of the Ark, and he was struck dead, didn't God communicate in that way? "You can't grab hold of me. You have to follow my laws or you're going to die." Poetry, parables, paradox, mysteries, history, proverbs, commands, promises. At many times and in various ways. God’s Final Word to the Human Race: His Son But in these last days, He has spoken to us literally in his Son. That's literally what it says. "He has spoken to us in His Son." These last days, friends, we are in the last days. It refers to the unfolding of redemptive history, and there is nothing left now except the end of the world. That's the next thing that's coming. We're in the last days now. And in these last days, God has spoken to us in His Son. God's final word, then, to the human race is Jesus. I'm not saying the apostles didn't come after and say some things and reveal some things. I'm not saying that. But Jesus is still God's final word. You understand what I'm saying? He is God's final word to the human race. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us and we have seen His glory, glory of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." Jesus becoming flesh is God's word to the human race. Michael Card, who's one of my favorite Christian recording artists, singers, we've had the privilege of having him twice here and one of my favorite songs of his is The Final Word. It's a Christmas song about the incarnation. This is what Michael Card wrote, You and me we use so very many clumsy words. The noise of what we often say is not worth being heard. When the Father’s Wisdom wanted to communicate His love, He spoke it in one final perfect Word. He spoke the Incarnation and then so was born the Son. His final word was Jesus, He needed no other one. Spoke flesh and blood so He could bleed and make a way Divine. And so was born the baby who would die to make it mine. Isn't that powerful? Jesus is in fact God's final word to you and me. There's nothing more to say. And literally, as I said, the author's saying he has spoken in His Son. I'm not saying that Jesus's words, like in the red letter addition of the Bible aren't important. They are. No one ever spoke like Jesus. But that's not all of what God was saying in Jesus. Just his being here, his Emmanuel, his being with us, he's speaking. God is speaking to us. "The Word became flesh… and we beheld his glory." So just watching Jesus was seeing a message from God. Jesus's manner, his facial expressions, his actions, his gestures. All of it was a display of the glory of God. And he spoke most clearly through the cross and the empty tomb, amen? That's the clearest message he ever spoke in Jesus. When Jesus was dying on the cross, God was speaking to the human race of His own holiness, of His own hatred of sin, of His own justice, and upholding the law. Of His mercy and His compassion to us, as lost sinners. Of the fact that we lost sinners can do nothing to save ourselves. It had to come to that, it's the only way. And the fact that in the resurrection, it was effective, forgiveness is ours. Triumph and victory over sin and death are ours. We can have it, and we will not really die. Even if we sleep, we will live forever. The resurrection is ours, the victory is ours. God is speaking in us, to you, and me, the Gospel. The Superiority of Christ to the Prophets And at the beginning, here, I think the author is giving us the superiority of Christ to the prophets. Christ is greater than all the prophets, greater than all of them. His message is greater. It's a better message, a better covenant. The rest of the chapter, the author is going to establish the superiority of Jesus to the angels, angels and prophets together, the mediators of the old covenant. So he's getting very quickly to his real point, the new covenant's better than the old covenant. And Jesus is the better messenger. He's better than the prophets, that's what he's saying here. The prophets spoke in the past. Jesus speaks now, that's what he's saying. The prophets spoke to the fathers. Jesus is speaking to us, now. The prophets spoke at many times, and in various ways, but Jesus speaks to us once for all time at the cross. That's what the author is saying, that's the first brilliant facet. II. The Glory of Christ as Son of God The second brilliant facet is the glory of Jesus as the Son of God. "In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son." The title "Son of God" is greater than the title given to any prophet. No prophet ever could have that title, "Son of God" or "God the Son," never. A prophet was merely a servant, a messenger of God. He was commanded by God to speak, and he could speak only what God commanded him to say. He was a sinner, like all of those who listened to him. But Jesus is the Son of God. We're going to get to this next week in verses 4-5, but this is the very thing the author does immediately after this. "So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs." What name is that? "For to which of the angels did God ever say, 'You are my son, today I have begotten you." The superior name is the name 'Son.' He is the Son of God, and so we see the glory of Jesus in this title, Son. John 3:16, He is the only begotten son. "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." He's the only begotten Son, and the love relationship between the Father and the Son is overwhelming and powerful. It is intimately, infinitely intimate and deep. It's beyond our ability to comprehend. At Jesus's baptism, as Jesus was being baptized, a voice came from heaven, says in Mark's Gospel that the heavens were ripped open. And it's like, God had something to say. And what did He have to say? "This is my son whom I love, with Him I am well pleased." That's what God wanted to say at Jesus's baptism. From eternity past, God has been loving His son. The father has been loving His Son. Before the foundation of the world, He loved him. And on into eternity future, he will love His Son. And we find our salvation in the center of that love, because we're in Jesus, we are loved. That's the love. If you're not in Jesus, you're not loved. But if you're in Jesus, you're loved like the Father loves His own Son. "As the father has loved me, so have I loved you," Jesus said. And so Jonathan Edwards said this, "The infinite happiness of the Father consists in his enjoyment of His Son." That's what makes the father really happy is enjoyment that He gets of his only begotten Son. And he delights in saving us so that we become an image made after Him, that we are redeemed into the image of His son, so that he loves us as He loved Jesus, the first born among many brothers. The intimacy and perfection of their relationship, as I've said, is incalculable. John 1:18, "no one has seen God at any time, but the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed Him," or explained, and made Him known. What an interesting phrase that is, "in the bosom of the Father." I don't know what to make of it, but something like, Jesus is in God's heart. You remember at the last part of the Gospel, at the last supper, you remember when the apostle or the disciple whom Jesus loved, (we know it's John cause he never mentions himself). But he's there at the last supper, and he puts his head on Jesus's chest. Do you remember that, just lays his head on Jesus's chest, his head right there? I get the sense of that between Jesus and the Father. He's in the bosom of the Father. He loves his Father, and the Father loves Him, an intimate, powerful relationship. Perfect intimacy, John 5:20, "For the Father loves the Son and shows Him everything He's doing," everything. III. The Glory of Christ as Creator of the Universe Well, this includes labor on the universe. And so the third facet is Jesus as Creator of the universe. Verse 2, "Through whom He made the universe." The Father made the universe through the Son. Now the Greek word translated universe here, in the NIV, is sometimes translated ages, like eons... So it's more than just length, width and height. It's also eras and eons, ages. He made everything through the Son. Through whom all things were made. Without Him nothing was made that has been made. Colossians 1:16: "For by Him all things were created. Things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him." So what are these prepositions? They're difficult. Through whom He made the universe. By whom He made the universe. For whom He made the universe. All of those things are true. They all teach us different things. I don't know how to conceive of this, but I guess the best way I can think of it is that the Father willed to create the universe and Jesus was the way He did it. It's through Jesus that it got done. That's the best I can make of it. Jesus is the Word of God and through Jesus the universe exists. God spoke and Jesus was the Word He spoke. And so in some mysterious and powerful way, the Father and the Son labored together making the universe. Making light, making the sky, making the dry land. Making the trees and the vegetation and the seed-bearing plants. Making the sun and the moon and the stars. Making the fish and the birds. Making the animals and then making man in their image. You get the feeling of the intra-Trinitarian conversation. "Let us make man in our image after our likeness." And so together they make the universe, Father and the Son. And the Father and the Son delight in their intimate working relationship. "The son, [John 5] can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees his father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does. For the Father loves his Son and shows Him all he does. So they're working together Recently a number of weeks ago, I went over to that Raleigh IMAX there with my kids, and we went and saw this thing on the Hubble Space Telescope, the repair of the space telescope from a year ago and just an awesome, a huge screen and just huge sound and it was just awesome. And it was just through the Hubble really… We were taking a tour of outer space and we're going along this corridor to the constellation Orion, and in Orion's belt, there's this certain place that these Hubble scientists are telling us is the birthplace of new stars. Well I don't know what all that is. All I'm saying is that they're there. The stars had to come from somewhere. Maybe they're still being made. But the Bible tells me that the Father's making them through the Son. Everything that gets made gets made from the Father through the Son, and that's awesome. So I was having a time of worship there in the IMAX. I don't know if anyone else was other than my family, but we were having a good time worshipping the Father's creation of these stars. Now in Isaiah 40-49… Isaiah the Prophet is fiercely monotheistic, because he's fighting against the idolatry of Israel. Fiercely monotheistic. There is one God, and there is only one God and everything else is an idol. There are no other gods. There is no one like God. No one can even be compared to God. And one of the things that Isaiah points out is that God alone made the universe. There was no one with Him, no one helping Him, no one at all. And so he says in Isaiah 44:24 "I am the Lord, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself, " no one was with me. What does that have to do with this passage? Well if Jesus isn't God, then how do you put all that together? I don't understand how Jehovah's Witnesses and friends and neighbors, how they say Jesus is a created being. There's an infinite gap between the Creator and the created. Jesus is God the Creator, that's what it's saying. And the only way we can put it together is with the doctrine of the Trinity: Father, Son and Spirit together making the universe. Hebrews 1, Colossians 1, John 1 all teach that Jesus created all things. Only way you can put that together is say Jesus is God. IV. The Glory of Christ as Heir of All Things The fourth glorious facet is the glory of Christ as the Heir of all things. I reversed the order a little bit, but you'll understand why. First the creation and then Christ appointed Heir of all things. What does this mean that He is heir? Well heir is the one, in that patriarchal system you had the father the patriarch of the family, and then one of his sons would be chosen to be the firstborn in that position. Generally it was literally the first born, but it didn't have to be, and it would be one who would be designated as the heir. And the father would give everything to the first born. The heir would be beloved of his father, would grow up. The father would cherish the heir and train him in all the things he should do, the ways he should go, and there would be two key issues coming from being heir and that would be authority and ownership. You would be the authority in the family when the father was gone, and you would own everything that the father owned. It would all go to you. And if there were other brothers involved, they would get their father's wealth mediated through the first born. See what I'm saying? I think this is precisely why Joseph's brothers hated him for that coat he was wearing, remember? Because Jacob gave him a coat, and I think it was symbolic of his status as firstborn in the family. I really think Jacob was still wresting with what Laban did wedding night when he thought he was marrying Rachel and he got Leah. And it's like he was waiting for Rachel to give him a son, and finally Rachel did and it was Joseph. And Joseph was in his mind firstborn, and his brothers hated him. Another story, another time. But he was the heir of Jacob. Jesus is the Heir of the Father, and He's heir of all things, and He has absolute authority over all things, and He will inherit all things. It's all His. Only one difference, the Father is not going to die. Father is around forever, and so is the Son, and the Son is the Heir. And so Jesus says, "All authority in heaven and earth, has been given to me." God placed all things under His feet, He is the Heir. What that also means is that He has ownership of the universe, everything belongs to His. By the way, which makes Satan's temptation so laughable, "See this little world, that's all mine I can give it to anyone I want." Satan, what a misconception, you're going to hell. Jesus owns everything, and he can give it to whoever He wants. And so if you're in Christ guess what you are, you are heir of the world. Read it in Romans 4, it is through faith that Abraham received the promise that he would be heir of the world. Isn’t that awesome? And so we're going to get good stuff through Jesus. But it all comes through Jesus and no other place. Only unlike Joseph's brothers, we're not jealous of Jesus, we're praising God for Him as Heir of all things and we're going to get a glorious inheritance if we suffer with Jesus. Because it says in Romans 8:17, "Now, if we are children, then we are heirs. Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory." V. The Glory of Christ as Perfect Display of God The fifth glorious facet, is the glory of Christ as the perfect display of God. The Son is the radiance of God's glory, and the exact representation of His being. He is the radiance, the bright shining-ness of God's glory. The only analogy I can come to with this, is the analogy of the sun and the solar system. And the sun shines in the sky 93 million miles away, this raging inferno of fusion released energy, and light and radiation, all kinds of stuff, the sun 93 million miles away. And it's awesome, and its power, seemingly limitless in its resources, it's like God to us in some sense. I'm not worshipping, I'm just saying it's an analogy. And we can't do anything to affect the sun, we can't change the sun, we can't get close to the sun. It is just overwhelming and powerful. But the sun mediates itself to us by light, and heat and radiation. You go out there on a sunny day, the whole world is glowing, don't you love the fall when the leaves are just radiating and it's just so beautiful and then the light coming from the sun. And life comes from that light, photosynthesis is always coming from the sun across 93 million miles. Light, radiation, heat coming in, that's how we relate to the sun. Jesus is that intermediary between the Father and us. He brings the Father right to us. And there is one text, and I've quoted it before, but it's the best to me that explains this. In John 14:8-9 Philip said, "Lord show us the Father, and it will be enough for us." And Jesus said, "don't you know me Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father." Jesus is not the Father, but Jesus came to show us the Father. And for Philip to say, "Show us the Father," is like, "Haven't you been watching me? That's what I'm here for, it's to show you the Father." "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." And He is the exact representation of His being. The Greek word is character, which relates to a signet ring, engraved in golden ring, let's say. And the governor or a king, or a nobleman would have a signet ring, and when he wanted to write out some commands for some that were at a remote distance, he wanted them to know his will. He would write a letter and then he would seal it with sealing wax, and put his signet ring in that sealing wax. And the mark in the wax was the exact representation of what was in his ring. It represented him, it represented his authority. That's the word that the author uses. There's an exact representation of the Father and the Son. The same attributes, the same purposes, the same plans, the same everything. Jesus is as righteous is His Father, He's as holy as His Father, He's as powerful as His Father, He's as loving as His Father. He's as wrath-filled as His Father. They're the same being in their character and essence, just different persons in the Trinity. And some day, we're going to live in a world that will be only radiated with the glory of God mediated through Jesus. We're going to be in the new heavens, and in the new earth. There will be no need for sun, or moon or stars for the glory of God will give that city light, and the lamb will be its lamp. Beautiful. VI. The Glory of Christ as Sustainer of the Universe The sixth facet is the glory of Christ as the Sustainer of the universe. Verse 3, "Sustaining all things by His powerful word." The universe, as I said before, was created by God to be a needy universe. The universe needs God every moment. That Him, I need the every hour, it is an understatement. The universe needs God every instant to keep existing. God created it that way, He did not create an independent universe. Deists, in the 18th century, posited a universe that God created by some physical principles, scientific principles that just kind of run in a mindless machine sort of way. And God just lets the universe run on like that. That's not the God of the Bible, dear friends. Not only does God regularly interfere and do miracles, and do all kinds of stuff and mess things up from the human point of view and step in to time and do things. Not only does God do that, but the Bible actually reveals He is constantly holding the very atoms of the universe together. And if he didn't, it would stop existing. And Jesus is the way by which the Father holds everything together. In Him, Colossians 1, "In Him, all things hold together." Every atom holds together by Jesus. This obviously has profound ethical implications. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, He was in some mysterious way holding the cross physically together and the nails that were holding them up there. He was willing to die, you understand that? I don't either, but anyway, you know generally He willed to die and He held the universe together in order to die. What that means is He will exert effort to keep the universe together in ways that bring Himself and others great pain to achieve His purposes. You may never hear a clearer message on the sovereignty of God over all things than this right here, right now at this moment. Jesus held Hitler's body together while he was making all those horrendous decisions. It is Jesus that holds air molecules together while typhoons and hurricanes destroy property and end human life. It is Jesus that holds bullets together in war zones and during drive by shootings that results in innocent little babies dying. He holds them together, and He will sustain the existence of human souls for all eternity. We preached on hell a few weeks ago, there is no annihilation. He wills to hold their souls together keep them conscious and alive. You can't escape from Jesus anywhere you turn in the universe nor should you desire to because everything He does is good and right and wise. But He holds everything, He sustains the universe by His powerful Word. At every moment you continue to exist because Jesus wills it. That pew you're sitting on, been sitting on for so long now, such a long time, Jesus is holding it together. He wills to keep you up off the floor and He probably wills to keep you to the end of the sermon, but you'll have to decide that. But He wills all of the things that happen to you in your life. I know there's wickedness and evil in the world, and He does not will the violation of His laws and commandments and will bring people like Hitler to judgement for what they do. I'm just saying He sustains the universe, that's what I'm saying. For in Him we live and move and have our being. And you know that He could will Satan out of existence anytime He wants, no effort from Him. He would stop willing Satan to exist. They're not equals, He can shot him down anytime He wants. He chooses not to. And why? For His own glory, for His own purposes. To win a greater more valiant triumph over him at the end. We've described that in talking about the second coming of Christ. VII. The Glory of Christ as the Final Priest Seventh facet is the glory of Christ as the Final Priest. "After He had provided purification for sins…" Why does this matter to you? Well you heard in my prayer, they're two categories of people listening to me today. Either those who are completely pure in God's sight from all of your sins through faith in Jesus. After He had provided purification. One of the messages of Hebrews is once for all time purified. Isn't that beautiful? You are pure in God's sight if you're a Christian. Away then with the guilty conscience, away with it. And away with the sins that defile our conscience too. Amen. Away with it all. After He provided purification from sins, He wills that you be completely pure, not just in standing before God, but just never to sin again. And He is working out a salvation whereby you will be completely pure. And He provides it once for all. Sin is a great polluter, it defiles us, pollution. You guys remember in 1969 when the Cuyahoga River in Ohio burned? You remember that? Because it had all this filth being poured into it and it was on fire. That was a significant moment in the history of environmental concern in the US. How shameful is it that a river that 100, 200 years before you could get down on your hands and knees and drink from was now literally burning because of industrial pollution. That's disgusting, just disgusting. Disgusting that people just usually throw trash out of their windows on the streets and the highways and they were disgusting. I remember in the '60s and early '70s you see trash everywhere. But I tell you there's no pollution as great as that of a soul that sins before God without the forgiveness of Jesus. It's defiled, it's polluted and only Jesus can purify your sins. And so there's is a second category I'm speaking to today. You who have never come to faith in Christ you stand now presently polluted, impure in God's sight because of your sins. I'm no better than you in and of myself and neither is any Christian, but know this you can be instantly made pure if you just come to Jesus. If you just come to Jesus you can be immediately cleansed of all your sins and forgiveness will be yours. VIII. The Glory of Christ as the King on His Throne Final facet is the glory of Christ as King on the throne. After he had provided purification for sins, He sat down with the right hand of the majesty in heaven and from that position, He wields that authority I talked about earlier. From the right hand of God, He intercedes for us, pleading for us, Romans 8. From the right hand of God. From the right hand of God He is enjoying pleasures forevermore, in the presence of God. At the right hand of God from that place He will come back to judge living and the dead. And since then we have been raised with Christ; we should set out hearts on things above, not on earthly things; where Christ is seated where? At the right hand of God. It says that again and again. Maybe 10 times in the New Testament talks about Jesus seated at the right hand of God. From that place, He will watch all of his enemies made a foot stool for his feet, the right hand of God. And the final authority is He will rule over heaven and earth from the throne of God at God's right hand forevermore. IX. Application What applications will come to Christ only in Jesus can you receive full purification for your sins, I've already said that. Don't leave this place in an unconverted polluted state. You don't need to. Just look to Jesus, He will cleanse you of all your sins. And I speak now to Christians. Maybe you came in here with a guilty conscience. Maybe you have reasons for feeling guilty. You've sinned. You've violated God's laws. You've lusted. You've coveted. You've been angry. You've not been faithful to love your spouse and submit to your spouse, or to obey your parents. You've violated God's law in some way. But full forgiveness is poured out on you as you stand in grace. Romans 5:1 says, "Since we have been justified through faith. We have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, and access by faith into this grace in which we are now standing." We're standing in a shower of grace, and you are forgiven. And as Jesus said, "Go and sin no more." And as you look at these, my final application is, can you just worship Jesus? Can Jesus be enough for you in the midst of your trial? And enough for you in the midst of your financial struggle, in the midst of your job problem, in the midst of your relational trouble and your family, in the midst of your health problem, in the midst of your loneliness, you've lost a loved one? Can Jesus be enough for you? Worship Jesus. Go through these attributes. Go through these facets, and let each one glow in your mind and say, "Thank you, Jesus. I praise you that you are God's final word. I want to hear what you have to say to me. I thank you that you're the Creator of the universe. Everything I see is coming from you. Thank you, Jesus." Just be a worshiper of Jesus today. Close with me in prayer.

christmas god jesus christ father lord israel bible spirit wisdom gospel christians creator ohio evil romans satan sin jewish scripture greek biblical jerusalem temple divine jews tree sermon hebrews old testament mt fathers tears covenant poetry new testament adolf hitler quiet colossians triumph babylon prophet iv context amen preaching verse witnesses ten commandments northern california ark hosea faith in jesus incarnation display new covenant generally belgians warnings viii heirs orion jehovah yahweh his son heavens sustaining sinai jezebel spoke niv in john babylonians captured philistines disgusting his father imax ix vii final word hubble in genesis laban many times old covenant burgundy superiority trinitarian jonathan edwards dagon sustainer glory of christ father almighty exhortations hubble space telescope uzzah francis schaeffer mount horeb can jesus at jesus andy davis michael card cuyahoga river two journeys deists biblical themes

Making Magic Amid a Not-So-Empty Nest! Also, a Spiritual Journey, are we Deists?

Dave and Gwen's Baby Boomer Show

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 16, 2009 12:50

We talk about the travails of making magic with our Amazon parrot and our little doggy. We also discuss our spiritual journey and our interest in the deist philosophy. A book we recommend: Haught, J.A. (1996). 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt. Prometheus Books. ISBN-13: 978-1-57392-067-4 Another great resource: http://www.williamedelen.com/

amazon courage doubt amid spiritual journey isbn empty nest making magic haught prometheus books deists

Deism Podcast Episode 8 - No Jealous God For Me Please

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2008

This is Episode 8 of the Deism Podcast produced in cooperation with The World Union of Deists. Visit www.deism.com for more information on the WUD or to learn more about deism.This episode features a dialog from WUD Director Bob Johnson. This week in Deism News, learn about a recently published article about a prominent Atheist turned Deist. Also, learn how multimedia content on Deism is spreading around the Internet.I would like to thank everyone for their support of this podcast. Spread the word of Deism by recommending this podcast to all of your friends and family members. Please provide any feedback or comments that you have to help us improve the show.Deism News:Atheist Changed His MindDeism on YouTube(link shows videos for and against Deism, so choose wisely)Enjoy the show!

culture internet religion creator philosophy religious spread atheists blogger photo id jealous god deism deist deists world union podcast images wud ut3xtbgyfza

Deism Podcast Episode 7 - A Little Talk About Paine

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 10, 2008

This is Episode 7 of the Deism Podcast produced in cooperation with The World Union of Deists. Visit www.deism.com for more information on the WUD or to learn more about deism.This episode features a dialog from WUD Director Bob Johnson. Listen to Deism News for information concerning an LA Time article about Deism. Also, make sure you listen to the Deism News section to hear an announcement concerning the WUD.I would like to thank everyone for their support of this podcast. Spread the word of Deism by recommending this podcast to all of your friends and family members. Please provide any feedback or comments that you have to help us improve the show.Deism News:Article about the Jefferson BibleEnjoy the show!

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Deism Podcast Episode 6 - Remembering Our Natural Rights

Play Episode Listen Later May 26, 2008

This is Episode 6 of the Deism Podcast produced in cooperation with The World Union of Deists. Visit www.deism.com for more information on the WUD or to learn more about deism.This episode features an article written by Brian Black, entitled Natural Rights of Man Rest on Deism. Also featured is the Post I wrote concerning Albert Einstein's religious views.Make sure you listen to the Deism News section to hear one announcement concerning the WUD and another concerning the Deism for The Modern Mind blog.I would like to thank everyone for their support of this podcast. Spread the word of Deism by recommending this podcast to all of your friends and family members. Please provide any feedback or comments that you have to help us improve the show.Deism News:New Content Contributor on Deism for The Modern MindPost Concerning Social NetworkingEnjoy the show!

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Deism Podcast Episode 5 - Deism News: Front and Center

Play Episode Listen Later May 11, 2008

This is Episode 5 of the Deism Podcast produced in cooperation with The World Union of Deists. Visit www.deism.com for more information on the WUD or to learn more about deism.This episode features an article written by Robert Johnson, Director of the WUD, entitled Deism in The Battle Between Jerusalem and Athens. I apologize up front for the reading quality, we had a last minute programing change.I would like to thank everyone for their support of this podcast. Spread the word of Deism by recommending this podcast to all of your friends and family members. Please provide any feedback or comments that you have to help us improve the show.Deism News:National Day of ReasonEnjoy the show!

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Deism Podcast Episode 4 - Deist Radio Interview Part IV

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 27, 2008

This is Episode 4 of the Deism Podcast brought to you by The World Union of Deists. Visit www.deism.com for more information on the WUD or to learn more about deism.This episode is part IV of an interview featuring the WUD Deputy Director with special guest Hans de Veen. This final part of this interview. The interview is especially useful in acquainting people with the basic principles and ideas of deism.I would like to thank everyone for their support of this podcast. Spread the word of Deism by recommending this podcast to all of your friends and family members. Please provide any feedback or comments that you have to help us improve the show.Deism News:WUD Local ContactsInformation concerning the CERN project and their search for the God Particle.The Harmony Project (Note: I have sent an email suggesting that they add Deism to their list of Sacred Paths, but it is an interesting website nonetheless.)Enjoy the show!

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Deism Podcast Episode 3 - Deist Radio Interview Part III

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2008

This is Episode 3 of the Deism Podcast brought to you by The World Union of Deists. Visit www.deism.com for more information on the WUD or to learn more about deism.This episode is part 3 of an interview featuring the WUD Deputy Director with special guest Hans de Veen. This interview contains four parts in all. The interview is especially useful in acquainting people with the basic principles and ideas of deism.I would like to thank everyone for their support of this podcast. iTunes has recognized this podcast as one of the featured religion podcasts due to the number of subscribers and downloads. Please provide any feedback or comments that you have to help us improve the show.Enjoy the show!

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Deism Podcast Episode 2 - Deist Radio Interview Part II

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2008

This is Episode 2 of the Deism Podcast brought to you by The World Union of Deists. Visit www.deism.com for more information on the WUD or to learn more about deism.This episode is part 2 of an interview featuring the WUD Deputy Director with special guest Hans de Veen. This interview contains four parts in all. The interview is especially useful in acquainting people with the basic principles and ideas of deism.Enjoy the show!

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Deism Podcast Episode 1 - Deist Radio Interview Part I

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 15, 2008

This is Episode 1 of the Deism Podcast brought to you by The World Union of Deists. Visit www.deism.com for more information on the WUD or to learn more about deism.This episode is part 1 of an interview featuring the WUD Deputy Director with special guest Hans de Veen. This interview contains four parts in all. The interview is especially useful in acquainting people with the basic principles and ideas of deism.Enjoy the show!

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The Danger, Nature, Motives, and Defeat of False Teachers (Romans Sermon 117 of 120) (Audio)

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Play Episode Listen Later Oct 29, 2006

Introduction: The Spread of Black Death The year was 1347, one of the pivotal years in the history of world civilization, although I'm sure they didn't know it at the time, and many of you may not know it now. But the place was the Crimea, a little peninsula down into the Black Sea, and there was a Genoese outpost, a trading outpost, there in the Crimea. The Genoese were known all over the Mediterranean Sea and on into the Black Sea for their prowess in navigation and sailing, their ability to set up trade routes, even into Asia and India, and this distant trade outpost was very lucrative for the Genoese. 150 years later, their favorite son, Christopher Columbus, established, for all time, and for the history of the world, the prowess of the Genoese in navigation, in sailing. But here was this outpost in the Crimea, distant from Italy, and an avenue of wealth for their home port, but they were in trouble in 1347, for they were surrounded by an invading army of Kipchak warriors. Now, the Kipchaks were actually a Mongol-speaking people who came from the steps of Asia, from Siberia, and were part of that vast Mongol-speaking empire, which is vast as the world had ever seen that established by Genghis Khan, and they're part of what came to be known the Golden Horde, and they surrounded this Genoese outpost, and were besieging it. Within the walls, were some strong warriors, I think they felt confident that they would be able to withstand the siege, that is, until the Kipchaks hurled at them their most... Their deadliest weapon. And I don't think they knew it at the time, just how deadly it was, but they used catapults to hurl over the walls some disease-ridden corpses, and they were ridden with the disease the dreaded bacillus Yersinia Pestis, which is transmitted by the rat flea, what came to be known as the bubonic plague. It started there in the Crimea. Within 36 hours, those defending the walls had large swollen lymph glands under their armpits and in their groins, and within a week, most of them were dead. However, a sailing vessel sailed from that outpost and went back to the port city of Genoa, and that's where the real trouble started. For the next four years, the Black Death, as it came to be known, spread over all of Europe, killing, estimated, between a quarter and a third of the population of Europe. Tens of millions of people died. And it reached everywhere, from the courts of kings down to the dirt-floored huts of peasants. Everyone was affected by it, there seemed to be no cure. All kinds of superstitions came around it, there were persecutions of the Jews and others because they thought that it was brought on by them. They didn't understand germ theory. They didn't understand the role of the fleas and of the rats. All they knew is that people were dying in numbers they had never seen before. It was the greatest plague in the history of humankind, the greatest biological plague, that is. As I look at our text today, Romans 16:17-20, I see a greater plague than this one. For the last 20 centuries, the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been the only hope of salvation for our sinful race. There is no other power of God for the salvation of sinners than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is an irresistible force for the salvation of men and women and children all over the world, and yet, Satan has been attacking it now for 20 centuries. And I think the greatest plague has been what he has catapulted over the walls of the church, and that is false teaching for 20 centuries. For 20 centuries, he sought to attack the doctrine of the Gospel. And I think it's fair to say that there's no specific significant or even some insignificant aspect of doctrine that has not been attacked by the devil, by false teachers. I. The Danger of False Teachers And so, what we have here in Romans 16:17-20 is the deadliest plague. We have the plague of false teaching. We have the Apostle Paul, out of love for this church in Rome, out of love for the people of God, warning them, as he's just about to finish this letter, warning them against false teachers. And, this morning, the Lord... As I was praying for you, the Lord gave me a love in my heart for each one of you, my deep desire is that you would be protected from the scourge, the plague of false teaching, that you would be protected from being destabilized by doubts and fears about the Word of God, that you would hear right teaching, and that you would accept it and understand it to be such, and that you'll be protected from false teaching from this pulpit and any place you go. That's my desire. Abrupt Warning And that, I think, was Paul's desire as well. We come to the danger of false teaching here in Romans 16, and it comes rather abruptly. We had 16 verses of greetings, greet so-and-so, and greet Asyncritus, and Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and all these folks. Oh, and, by the way, I warn you about false teachers. It seems to come in the middle of nowhere, in Romans 16. Some people think that this was not originally written by Paul, it seems so abrupt, but it was. Paul frequently does this. He did it in Philippians 3. Philippians 3:1 says, "Finally, brothers, rejoice in the Lord." And then verse 2, he says, "Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh," the circumcision party. He's warning them about false teaching immediately, right in the middle. He wants them to be joyful. And then he says, "You want to be joyful, then guard yourself against false teaching, because false doctrine robs your joy." Satan a Personal and Worldwide Enemy Now, we have, in this text, a personal enemy, and that is Satan. I don't know if you noticed, but many of our worship songs talked about the power of Satan, and about our conquest of him, our victory over him by faith. But Satan is a powerful foe. It is a chilling thought, when you think about it, that you have a powerful and personal enemy who is seeking to destroy your soul, who is dispatching forces, demonic forces every day to try to make the progress of your soul and of the Gospel around the world impossible. He hates you, and wants to destroy you. But we have a personal enemy, 1 Peter 5:8-9 says, "Be self-controlled and alert, your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering." So there it is, your enemy, that's a personal enemy, your brothers throughout the world, that's a worldwide attack, that is the devil, and the power of the devil. It's even more chilling when you consider just how powerful Satan is. Satan may be the most powerful created being in the universe, he is clever, crafty, and vastly more experienced in spiritual matters than any of us here. He's been at it a long time and he's seen harder than you and he's defeated harder than you. He is deeply malicious, more vicious than any tyrant that's ever lived. We know of the cruelty of the genocidal maniac, Adolf Hitler, and also the cruelty of his contemporary, Joseph Stalin, and others. 20th century was specialized in cruel and brutal dictators and tyrants. But none of them compare to Satan. Actually, I believe he was behind every one of them, the maliciousness of the devil. Satan hates the church and will do anything he can to stop it and oppose it. In 1529, Martin Luther wrote his most famous hymn, we sang it this morning, a mighty fortress is our God, and there, he talked a lot about Satan. Actually, if you look through the verses, there's a good deal about Satan in those, in that hymn. And Luther said, "For still, our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe. His craft and power are great. And armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal." So that puts you in your place, doesn't it? You are not equal to say, "Did we, in our own strength, confide." If you had put your trust in your own strength, our striving would be losing. Were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing, dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he. Lord Sabaoth. Lord Almighty is his name, from age to age the same, and he must win, he will win the battle. By the way, next week, whole sermon, God willing, whole sermon on one verse, verse 20. There was just so much on Verse 20, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet, that I've been working on that sermon for six weeks. It's now 24 pages long. Come ready to listen. I'm just kidding. But I just want to go, using my imagination, to think what life will be like without Satan and his demons. Oh, I can't wait for next week, and I can't even more wait for the fulfillment of the truths that are in Romans 16:20. False Teaching the Most Dangerous of Satan’s Weapons But we have a mighty and a powerful foe. Satan has, as I've mentioned before, and I never tire of warning you, three great weapons that Satan hurls against the church, worldliness, the appeal to lust, and to sin, and to worldliness, persecution, namely, that our neighbors, or the prevailing government would be against our Christian faith, and make our lives so wretchedly miserable that we are tempted to turn away from Christ, persecution, but the third is the greatest, and that is false teaching, and that's what's in front of us today. And why is this the deadliest of all of the attacks? Well, because it attacks that which is the power of God for our salvation. And not one of us has finished being saved. As I've mentioned to you many times before, you need to keep hearing the Gospel, you need to hear it every day, you need to be coming back to the cross again and again, you need to have the full work of the 16 chapters of Romans in your heart all the time. You need to be saved, you're not done being saved. And so, when false teaching comes in, it attacks the salvation process, the very thing which God is working to the salvation of our soul. Romans 1:16, "I'm not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, and then for the Gentile." Therefore, Paul constantly upholds the need of church leaders to fight for doctrine. 1 Timothy 4:16, Paul said to Timothy, "Watch your life and your doctrine closely." Watch it closely. I need to do that. You're never set and done, doctrinally. There's a constant development, constant growing. And we should be developing in our understanding of Christian doctrine. You got to watch it all the time, Timothy, if you're a pastor, watch it closely. Constant vigilance is needed, and why? Because history is full of attacks on sound doctrine. As I've said, there's not a single significant doctrine in the Christian faith that's not been attacked, historically. For example, the inspiration and authority of the Old Testament was attacked by Marcion in this very church, the church at Rome, 100 years after Paul, denied that the Old Testament was inspired. The deity of Christ was attacked by Arius. Original sin and salvation by grace alone, by faith alone, was attacked by Pelagius. The full humanity of Christ was attacked by the Gnostics and the Docetics. The sovereignty of God and salvation was attacked by the Semi-Pelagians. The inspiration and authority of the whole Bible attacked by higher critics and Liberals. The Trinity was attacked by the Unitarians. The imminence and active rule of God and day-by-day providence attacked by the Deists. The rogues' gallery of false teachers is terrifying. In addition to these that are already listed, we have also Joseph Smith, that bizarre dowser, who came up with Mormonism, the strangest new religion in history. And yet, they claim to be Christians, and are not. Charles Taze Russell, who resurrected Arius's old false teaching. And now we have the Jehovah's Witnesses. Mary Baker Eddy, originator of Christian Science. Jim Jones, founder of the Peoples Temple. David Koresh, who persuaded a bunch of people, through his sweet-talking, to fight against the US government, and they died in a fiery conflagration in Waco. In every age of the church, we can trace out a history of heresy, and the attacks of Satan through false teachers, therefore, we must have constant vigilance to maintain doctrinal purity. II. The Techniques of False Teachers Now, in this text, we see, first and foremost, the techniques of false teachers. Look at verses 17-18, "I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them, for such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the minds of naive people." False Doctrine So the first technique of false teaching is simply false doctrine, to contradict the doctrines that were given, to say that is not so, this is so. False doctrine. That is their primary danger because they attack even the doctrines that Paul taught here in Romans. Paul has laid out a majestic structure, doctrinally, in Romans. It's marvelous. And he said, "Watch out for those who contradict the things that I've taught you here. These people will come, and begin to oppose it. Verse 17, They "put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching that you have learned." The greatest stumbling block is false doctrine, it says in 2 Timothy 2:16-18, "Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly, their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some." Now, what a cheerful message that is. You missed it, not just the secret rapture, you missed the resurrection, you can imagine how discouraging that would be. They destroy the faith of some. And so, false doctrine. Deception They also use... Their technique is deception. They use deception. Look at verse 18, "They deceive the minds of naive people." They trick them, they fool them into believing a lie. This is the stock and trade of all false teaching. The first lie is that the false teacher himself is a godly man who has your best interest at heart. That is a lie, he is actually a ravenous wolf masquerading as a sheep. Did you see the picture on the cover? What a chilling picture that is, a flock of sheep, and there, in the midst, a wolf. It's a terrifying thing. And Jesus said, "Watch out for these false teachers. They come secretly disguised as sheep, but, inwardly, they're ravenous wolves." So deception is important, the false teacher has to conceal his real motive, which I'll discuss in a moment, but his real motive is fleshly and self-seeking. He has to trick the people, deceive them, and hide his real intentions. Paul calls it putting on a mask. 1 Thessalonians 2:5 says, "You know that we never used flattery, nor do we put on a mask to cover up greed. God is our witness." So it's a putting on of a mask. This is, literally, in the Greek, the word hypocrite is an actor, somebody who would put on a mask, and play a role. And so these false teachers are putting on a mask, and they're playing a role. They have to use deception. Behind all of it is Satan's alluring deception, he masquerades in enticing form, 2 Corinthians 11, Paul said, "For such manner, false apostles, deceitful workmen masquerading as apostles of Christ, and no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness." Now, you may wonder why does verse 20 suddenly talk about Satan. It's because behind all false teaching is Satan, and all false teachers are servants of Satan. And so they masquerade, they have to act like Satan, they have to hide who they truly are. I mean, can you imagine if Satan came to you hideously? Ugly, powerful, malevolent, and said, "Here I am, I'm Satan. I'm here to ruin your life." Can you imagine if sin just came and told the truth, said, "I know I look good on the outside, but really, I'm going to be poison for your soul." That's not the way. There's gotta be some deception. And so they use deception, they use a masquerade. They also use smooth talk and flattery. Smooth talk is oratorical skill, fine-sounding language. The root word is kindness or goodness. The idea is kindly speech, smooth talk that panders to the ego. Thomas Brooks put it this way, "They know sugared poison goes down sweetly, so they wrap up their pernicious soul-killing pills in gold," end quote. So they're using smooth talk and flattery. The seductive woman, in Proverbs 7, the wayward wife, uses smooth talk to seduce the young man in Proverbs 7. She talks to him with persuasive words, she leads him astray. And all at once, he goes with her, and he doesn't know it's gonna cost him his life. Well, the same thing happens with the false teacher. Or then there's the case of Absalom. Remember how Absalom used to stand by the side of the road, and whenever anyone would come to bring a case to his father David, he would intercept them, and he would flatter them, and say, "Oh, if there was someone that would listen to you, someone that would care about you, someone like me. If they would just come, I would hear their case, and you would get justice from me." And if they would come over to kiss his hand, 'cause he's a prince, he would intercept them and kiss their hand. Smooth talk, flattery. In this way, it says in 2 Samuel, he stole the minds and the hearts of the people. Smooth Talk & Flattery The use of smooth talk and flattery by the adulteress, and by the usurper is nothing compared to the use of smooth talk and flattery by the false teacher. He seeks your soul, your very soul, he wants to destroy you, and so he uses smooth talk. Now, the problem is that people like it. That's the big problem. We like it. We want to hear good things. We want to be told sweet things. And so, it says, in Jeremiah 5, "A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land, the prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way." Even more blatant is Isaiah 30:9-11, in which the prophet says, "These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord's instruction. They say to the seers, 'See no more visions,' and to the prophets, 'Give us no more visions of what is right. Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.' Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel." They don't want to hear it, they want to hear pleasant things. And so, the problem isn't just with the false teachers, but it's with the people who want to hear that kind of stuff. The doctrine that Paul laid down in Romans tells us the truth, tells us who we really are, it tells us of depravity and of sin and that all of our thoughts are turned away from God, unless he moves by grace, we'll be running in the opposite direction. "There is no one righteous, not even one." And it tells us of a bloody sacrifice. Jesus shed his blood on the cross, as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. It's not a beautiful picture, it's actually quite jarring and quite ugly, but it tells us the truth of how the wrath of God was appeased at the cross, and by simple faith in Jesus, apart from any works of your own, you can be completely forgiven of sins. Oh, I pray and hope that if you come here today in a graceless state, that you're not a Christian, that you hear what I just said, all of your sins can be forgiven if you just simply look to the cross. If you just look to the blood of Jesus and trust in him, all of your sins will be forgiven. But it's not a beautiful picture, it's a jarring thing to be told that you're a sinner, and that you need a Savior, and that the Savior had to die in order to save you, but it's the truth. But the people want to be told that they're okay, they're fine just as they are, they want to be instructed on how to find the champion inside you, and those books will sell like hotcakes. These Bible teachers will find the doctrines that everyone agrees about, and they'll preach those. You listen to a false teacher, you can get them on the internet or whatever and just... You just sit and listen to them, and you find yourself agreeing with a lot of what they say, maybe with all of what they say. And then, in the back of your mind, comes that warning that Jesus gave in Luke 6:26, "Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for in the same way they spoke of the false prophets of old." Why would all people speak well? Because they're saying things that everyone agrees about. They are carefully and diligently avoiding topics that divide people. Jesus said, "Do not suppose that I came to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I've come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man's enemies will be the members of his own household." And why? Did he come to do that directly? No. But that's going to be what happens when people hear the truth and they don't want to hear it. Recently, a very well-known pastor was interviewed on Larry King Live. And Larry King asked him, "But don't you think if people don't believe as you believe they're somehow condemned? Like they're going to hell if they don't believe what you believe?" Here's what the pastor said, "You know, I think that happens in our society, but I try not to do that. I tell people all the time, preached a couple of Sundays about it, 'I'm for everybody. You may not agree with me, but to me, it's not my job to try to straighten everybody out. The Gospel is called the good news. So, my message is a message of hope, that God's for you, you can live a good life, no matter what's happened to you, and so I don't know, I know there is condemnation, but I don't feel that's my place.'" Well, Larry King didn't let it go. He persevered. What if you're Jewish or Muslim or you don't accept Christ at all? Oh, be careful at this moment, if you're on TV. Better not to be on TV than to say this. I'm very careful about saying who would and wouldn't go to heaven. I don't know. Larry King said, "If you believe you have to believe in Christ, they're wrong, aren't they?" "Well, I don't know if I believe they're wrong. I believe, here's what the Bible teaches, and from the Christian faith, this is what I believe, but I just think that only God can judge a person's heart. I spent a lot of time in India with my father. I don't know all about their religion, but I know they love God. And I don't know. I've seen their sincerity, so I don't know. I know for me, and what the Bible teaches, I want to have a relationship with Jesus." Wow. Wow. John McArthur commenting on this interview, said this, "Divine truth is more important than anything else. And do you know why Jesus always escalated the conflict? It's because he always spoke the truth. If I ever do end up on Larry King or some other program like that, and somebody says to me, "Will Mormons go to heaven?" I will say, "No." If they say, "Will the Jews go to heaven, who reject Jesus as their Messiah?" I will say, "No." Do I want to start a fight? No. Do I want to be resented? No. Do I want to tell the truth? Yes. That's the issue. Jesus didn't escalate the conflict by being insensitive. He didn't escalate the conflict by being ungracious, the conflict escalated of itself because he spoke the truth." So we've seen the methods of false teachers, they use false doctrine, they use deception, they use smooth talk and flattery. III. The Motives of False Teachers But what are their motives? Look at verse 18. It says, "For such people are not serving our Lord Christ but their own appetites." The word in the Greek is literally their belly. They're serving their stomach, and that represents their drives, their bodily drives, their earthly desires. Lust Like Philippians 3, it says, "For I've often told you before, and now say again, even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ, their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame, their mind is on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven." That's what these people want. For example, lust, lust, 2 Peter 2, it says, "Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures, while they feast with you, with eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning." And so, we see lust. Greed Or then there's greed, Peter calls them experts in greed. Paul says in 2 Corinthians, "Unlike so many, we do not peddle the Word of God for profit," we're not selling it. "…Peddling the Word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ, we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God." these false teachers want earthly pleasure. In order to have earthly pleasure, they need to have a lot of money, and so what they'll do is they tell the people what they want to hear, and the people pay them to do it. Power and Control That's the motive of the false teacher. They also want power and control, they want to be in charge. There's a lust for power, the ability to dominate people's lives. In 2 Corinthians 11:20-21, Paul was talking about false... The false apostles, and he said this, "In fact," speaking to the Corinthian church, "You even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantages of you or pushes himself forward or slaps you in the face. To my shame, we were too weak for that." You see the domination of these false teachers, they like to be in charge, to dominate people's lives, to run them, and so we see the motives of false teachers. IV. The Devastation of False Teachers We see also the devastation wrought by false teachers. Look at verse 19, he says, "Everyone's heard about your obedience. So I'm full of joy over you, but I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil." Here is a beautiful little church, the Roman church, they are obedient to the gospel, they're growing. It's like a little garden of Eden. And here is the serpent coming in, and he's going to bring false doctrines. And so, here is this, sweet growing, healthy, obedient Church, and the devastation that false teaching will bring cannot be measured. It's a strategic church, they're right there in the capital city of the Roman Empire, and the serpent is coming. He's going to bring his false teaching. And so, what is the devastation? Well, people deceive, they're tricked. They give up their faith, people's progress in the two infinite journeys is halted. We're supposed to be making internal progress, to be more and more like Jesus, the Gospel is supposed to make external progress to the ends of the earth, so that unreached peoples hear about Jesus, but false teaching stopped both dead in their tracks. Paul says in Galatians 5:7. "You were running a good race, who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?" Also churches are divided. What's going to happen is some people will believe the false teachings and some won't, and they're going to argue, and there won't be any resolution to it. The church will split. Churches get divided over false teaching. They cause divisions, it says, and they put obstacles in your way that caused you to be tripped up. As a result, the witness is ruined and the innocence is lost. Paul says that false teachers deceive the minds of naive people. He says, "You know, I wish you were naive. I wish you didn't know anything at all about evil." You know, when the Lord's done finishing his saving work, we're all going to be clean and pure as driven snow. And that's what this word means. They deceive the minds of naive people. Actually, the same word is used of Jesus, that he's undefiled as our high priest, he's pure. But this has a sense of immaturity to it. Like these folks are wet behind the ears, they're like babes in the woods, they can't handle the level of warfare that's going to be needed when the wolves come, so they're naïve, and he doesn't want them to be. He'd like them to continue naive to evil, but the enemy is coming. And so we see the devastation of false teachers. What is the remedy? V. The Remedy to False Teachers Well, first of all, he tells them to watch out. Look at verse 17. "Now I urge you brothers, [I beseech you, I beg you to] keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances," literally, to mark them. In some communities, there's laws in which people who have been convicted of child molestation, other sins like that, have to identify themselves to the community. Well, I say that false teachers are far more of a threat to the church than those folks are to the community they're in, and they have to be marked. He says, "Mark them out. Say these folks are false teachers." Paul names names, Hymenaeus and Philetus, whoever they are. Well, I know they're false teachers. Mark them out. Let people know what they're teaching, and be vigilant all the time, watch for it, and be willing to fight for sound doctrine. Jude 3. It says, "Dear friends, although I was very eager to write you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write you and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints." Contend for the faith, fight against false doctrine. The best thing you can do, though, I mean, in every level, saturate your mind in true doctrine, just saturate your mind in the Bible, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, understand the Bible. That's good for all things that's good for growing in godliness. But also, you'll be able to test those who claim to be apostles, but are not, and you will be able to find them false. You remember, in Acts 17, the Bereans, who are more noble-hearted than anyone else because they took the scriptures and they searched to see if what Paul said was true. Oh, I pray that you would do that with my sermons or any sermons you hear in this pulpit. Take them back to the scripture and say, "Is it true?" Is Paul, in fact, warning the Roman church about false teaching in Romans 16:17-20. Don't just assume because I say so that that's what he's doing. Go back and read it yourself, and see if it's really biblical and true. Saturate your mind in true doctrine and right doctrine, and avoid these people, stay away from them. I know you think, "Oh man, I could take them on. Just me and Joseph Smith. That's kind of exciting, isn't it? I can win. Like the ego starts to come up, I know some scripture. Alright. I'm an expert in these things. I can take him on. I'll take on the Jehovah's Witnesses. Actually, I do, I enjoy taking on the Jehovah's Witnesses. I've spent two hours with one in my house, thinking, I'm going to use up all their time. The odds that they're going to convert me to Arianism are close to zero, alright? But, at any rate, at least they're not with someone else, where their odds might be better, but, at the same time, I want to tell you, just speaking of myself, when I first got to seminary, and for the first time, really started reading Liberal theology, it really had an effect on me, it made me feel sick, it bothered me, it hit levels that disturbed me. The attacks on whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch or whether the Old Testament was inspired the way we understand, these kind of things, they hurt me and it became hard for me until I went back to one thing that saved me, Jesus's view of the Old Testament, and that healed me. I said, "Jesus had an infinitely high view of the Old Testament, so should I." So much for the German Liberal higher critics, see you later. Alright, Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you? And so, I was healed. But I'm just telling you, it has an effect when you read that kind of false teaching. So avoid them, stay away from them, he says. But, ultimately, our only defense is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 20, the second half of the verse, "The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you." As I was flying back from India, I was with Jenny, and we had some time. I do not sleep on planes. I envy you brothers and sisters who can sleep on those 18-hour flights, alright? It's nine hours plus nine hours, felt like 1800 hours and I just... You're sitting there. And what do you do with your head? Where do you put it? I would like to remove it and put it in a box somewhere, plug it back in when we arrive, but I just couldn't get comfortable, and I don't think Jenny could either. And so, I don't know. It was just perpetual darkness because we flew before the sun came up, we're going in the direction of the earth, so it was just forever, two hours before sunrise. And it was just never getting any lighter. And then they're bringing us food, and is it breakfast? Is it dinner? What is it? And I can't tell, you know what I'm saying? It's eggs, it must be breakfast, but I have no idea where I am or what I'm supposed to eat. And so there it is. So we started going through. I said, let's redeem the time, so we started going carefully through 1 John, verse by verse, just talking through 1 John. And got to 1 John 2:20, and what a sweet verse. And there, it says, "But you have an anointing from the Holy One and all of you knows the truth." Isn't that sweet? KJV gives us an unction, you have an anointing you know the truth, if you're a child of God, if God's grace is on you, you will know false doctrine when you hear it. And you'll know true doctrine when you hear it. Even if it's something you've never heard before, immediately, the Spirit testifies in your heart, that is true, that is right. You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know the truth. John says, I don't write you because you don't know it, but because you do know it. Isn't that beautiful? So we have the grace of our Lord, and so therefore, we cannot be deceived. If we are the elect, if we are the sheep of Christ, John 10:5, he says, they will not follow the voice of a stranger, because it's a stranger's voice, and they don't recognize his voice, they will not follow. Even when the Antichrist comes with deceiving signs and wonders to deceive, Jesus says in Matthew 24, even the elect, if that were possible. But it's not, because the grace of the Lord Jesus will be with you and he will protect you from false doctrine. Amen and Amen. IV. The End of Satan’s Kingdom Now, the end of Satan's kingdom. Next week, we'll talk about that. Alright, a full sermon. I had some things, but it just developed and developed and I said, "Oh, let's celebrate it. Let's spend a whole day next week celebrating. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. What applications can we take from this? First, come to Christ. I've already invited you. Come to Christ, trust in him for the salvation of your soul. That is true doctrine. Apart from Christ, you have no hope. You will die and go to hell. Your sins will testify against you on Judgment Day, but there is a remedy and the remedy is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you simply look to the cross, to the blood shed on the cross, you will be forgiven of all of your sins, past, present, and future. Come to Christ. If you've already come to Christ, can I urge you to just start by being thankful for the anointing you have from the Holy Spirit, that you know the truth, and be thankful for the gift of God in your life, which is faithful teachers of the Word of God? If anyone is a faithful teacher, Sunday school teacher, radio preacher, a book writer, even if they're dead, had been dead for three centuries, but if they're faithfully teaching the Word of God, they are a gift from Christ to you. Thank God for right teaching. Saturate your mind, as I've said, in good doctrine, and be vigilant against false teachers. I am not insulted if any of you pray that I be protected from saying anything false. It doesn't insult me. I need that kind of prayer. I mean, I've done a lot of talking here in the last eight years. There's got to be something wrong in there. All those hours of talking. Pray that I'd be guarded and protected from saying things that are not helpful to the people of God. But pray also for yourselves that when I say things that are true and right, you put them into practice. That may be the greater threat, because it's a threat for me too. I see what's true, but am I living it? That's the issue. So pray that you put into practice the good doctrines, and rejoice... As we'll get to do for a full sermon next week, rejoice that Satan will soon crush... That God will soon crush Satan under your feet, that false teachers will not, in the end, win over the church of Jesus Christ. Close with me in prayer.

What is deism? What do deists believe?

GotQuestions.org Audio Pages - Archive 2005-2008

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 6, 2006

What is deism? What do deists believe? Is God active in the events of the world today?

god deism deists

The Weakness of God (Audio)