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you should have received a sheet of paper that's got print on both sides it's talking about

what truth is and characteristics of god's truth

i wrote that oh a number of years ago and i found that over the years it's largely remained true that is

the information on it i would still largely agree with because sometimes when you write matters down you change your mind

but

point number seven on the side entitled some fundamental aspects of god's truth point seven reads contends

god invites investigation of his book dot dot dot and on the flip side of it

under what truth is

under the section consequences point t where it says beckons

invites investigation and adherence since it fears no shortcomings or failures

now the one side is truth in its pure abstract theoretical form the other god's truth is what we're going to be dealing with today so those are some

background characteristics of god's truth and we'll be dealing with some of them uh during the week primarily today however and that's for you to look at and see if you think that that largely rings true

just definition-wise so we are on common ground here

i'm using truth in the sense that it's a short form for god's truth and refers to the information and teaching found in the bible

invites

means asks attracts and is used in the sense of cause for or encourages

the term investigation comes from investigate which means to inquire into to examine thoroughly together these three words are saying that the truth of god as revealed in the bible encourages mankind to examine it thoroughly [Music] why

why investigate god's truth

essentially because he invites it he's given us the bible that says come and examine me explore me god invites us to look into his son follow his son invites us to come to himself and to discover what god is really like

so each of these three the bible

jesus god himself these all invite men and women to in investigate to to taste seek find out that the lord is good and has good news to offer

and the

things i want to address this morning you're talking about this truth we're talking about each of these in turn so let's talk about

the aspect of the word

or the bible

the bible fears no investigation because it's divine

god wrote it it's the word of god and it will always be shown to be fundamentally correct and right and true

now many of you will know that over the years the bible has been criticized for a number of things they wonder whether it's accurate or not and there's lots of examples for example they they take luke's gospel and they said there's a fellow by the name of lycenius there that is called a tech croc and everybody knows he was a king and it shows the bible's wrong and after a while they dig up some evidence to find out that there was such a guy who was a tetrarch and luke was right after all little details like that which you get into that finds out that the critics

prove to be wrong when enough information is available

there's similar charges against the bible for discrepancies

for example the the names on the cross the title on the cross they look like they contradict each other until you read the verse that said that the sign that father had written was in three different languages and so as you interpret those three languages you get a resolution of these apparent discrepancies

other challenges too that

are from the higher critics and are from people who really don't want to believe and every time these challenges have been

met and defeated or confronted or given some type of support to justify them let me just list a couple of things

verbal inspiration you know how did that happen what are the mechanics of it well the point is that god breathed

scripture

what about the transcription and translation of it can we trust it there's lots of mistakes well you investigate it and you find out with meticulous care scripture was conveyed through the ages as the scribes copied it

how is it possible that men can foretell the future well the challenges of the datings of the books and by the time you investigate it the answer is it's because god inspired men to foretell the future that's how it's right

about what would happen and about what would never happen

still remains true

we live in a world that largely believes in evolution and chance but when you investigate the evidence you will find it is certainly a world of design by a creator god

some think that the bible is scandalous inappropriate stories i mean how could it write such things the thing is it's writing about human nature that's what human beings can do and be

it points out some inconsequential terms i mean why should paul write about the parchments and his cloaks why should that be considered inspiration well it's a stamp of veracity

and then there's those passages in the bible that are absolutely a mystery incomprehensible who could ever understand that and usually the problem turns out to be me you know i can't understand it doesn't mean that it's wrong just because i can't understand it so every honest investigation vindicates scripture

and a point to make in all this is that the bible doesn't ask us to defend it it defends itself says come on and read me i challenge you to do that

because it claims to be nothing less than the word of god and if that's true

that's an astounding thing and if it's false it's mighty mighty presumptuous you can't have a middle ground in this

it gives us 66 books with all these case studies and says check them out for consistency accuracy uh does it make sense does it ring true that type of thing and in every case that a person has honestly gone about looking for the right information i believe they've been satisfied no one has ever made a case against the authority and integrity of the bible

the writing is unique unlike any other writing of man

example is to attempt the religious style and

in in prose of scripture follows immediately short of what the scriptures say

so i said before the words ring true man is not flattered in this book he's shown to be the miserable and yet exalted creature that he is

and when a student of scripture picks up and starts reading this is more than

than print on paper it starts becoming alive

it becomes a power

this works when a person wants to believe in it and it and it isn't that you become brainwashed it isn't that you read it so many times that you become so familiar that you're you're duped into believing it you become aware of the problems in solution much more than any critic

and it becomes a great conviction

from your association with it

and finally the text itself tells us that the

the reason for the book is to bring about the obedience of faith it commands obedience from the reader

romans chapter 16 verse 26 says that

another place in the old testament the new testament just to read them in entirety from deuteronomy 30 verse 19

quote i've set before you life and death blessing and curse therefore choose life that you and your descendants may live

in acts 17 30

god commands all men everywhere to repent because he's fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness and so the reader of these words is faced with this direct challenge

one day god is going to do this to you the reader

how do you respond to that challenge

we're faced with the issues of life and death and of judgment to come

text itself declares god's word to be true thy word is truth john 17 17 the ordinances of the lord are true and righteous altogether psalm 19 9 the sum of thy word is truth psalm 119

verse

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the truth and the light

so it's not just scripture but a person who declares that he's truth

now which is more important the book or the person

which is more important

he's a hard choice just tell me which is more important the book or the person

the person someone said the book well i will argue that it's the person

because the book itself testifies that the person is more important turn to

second timothy

chapter 3

verse 15.

it's a familiar text

just taking it uh without reading the context particular verse 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation

through faith in christ jesus

so salvation comes through faith in the person jesus so jesus the truth is to be sought above and beyond having an understanding inspire scripture now goes on to say what all scripture is inspired by god and is profitable for these things that's very important but i submit that

the person is more important than the book

now this verse in taunton and john and the way the truth and the life if you take these as three distinct aspects

it shows that more than just truth is involved there's a way and there's a life and it's truth is not the end it's a means to an end

and it shows that there's a path there's a direction it needs to be channeled and

so if three distinct concepts are involved then truth is but one of the three and must not be the only or ultimate pursuit

however if you take these three and and see them as an integrated thought along the lines of the truthful way to life

we find that jesus is saying that he is the genuine path to salvation

so in this sense truth isn't presented in the intangible abstract form like we do in our western greek thought

but as a tangible living being as in hebrew thought

in jesus truth is is alive it's it's it's dynamic it's vibrant he's capable of fulfilling and enveloping and satisfying a person and in this sense i submit that jesus is obviously far superior to the written word and i think there's a reason why god sent jesus

the word made flesh i mean the bible is a wonderful thing we've already seen that but now he sends his son what john's gospel says about it

chapter 1 verse 14

the word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth

and verse 17

for the law was given through moses and think about that that's that's an astounding statement that the ten commandments at the very days that god declared and all the law this is the word of god given to nation just and holy and good

and now it goes beyond that saying

grace and truth

came through jesus christ and that seems to be presented as something even greater words of god wonderful and powerful the son of god more wonderful and powerful yet

so in seeking god's truth we need to go beyond the book itself and find the person of jesus if we limit ourselves to the written word where we're robbing ourselves and missing the very point of why scripture was given we turn over a few pages in john's gospel chapter five

just a few verses here to read about the discourse that uh jesus had with the pharisees he says verse 39 40 john

5

you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness to me yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life

sometimes this passage is misread and is cited as search the scriptures because in them you have eternal life

but it doesn't read that way does it he's saying

you pharisees you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life

but jesus says it's me that gives life not the text not the printed word it's the person

and he says that if if you fail to believe in me eventually you end up not believing what is written and in fact you don't even believe in the word as have you gone says if you don't believe in his writings how will you believe my words verse 46 and 47.

so let us not fail to see this point correct bible understanding is but a step towards coming to a knowledge of the truth it's an important step but recognize that the truth is isn't a set of propositions it's the person of the lord jesus christ

now this confirmation of this found in the letter of paul it's in ephesians chapter four

and again without talking immediately about the context which i will in a moment the verse in mind is verse 21 in ephesians 4.

he's talking about the essence

of what they had been taught verse 20 you did not solder in christ assuming that you've heard about him and were taught at him as the truth is in jesus

now the context of this now

it's talking about both doctrine and behavior verses four to six is talking about the one lord the one faith one hope one baptism and so on that's all doctrinal things as we generally speak about it uh

speaking the truth and love verse 15

let everyone speak the truth to his neighbor verse 25 and most interesting it's in a context of spiritual growth verse 13 to 16. talks about growing up into mature manhood don't be children anymore verse 15 rather speaking the truth in love we are to grow up into every way into him who is the head into christ

so again it's the person that is important here

truth centered in the person of jesus not a point of academics but of relationships

truth is integrated that is it's a composite of accurate teaching and correct living it isn't a list of doctrinal statements

and since a living person is involved the characteristic of integration is to be expected that is we don't have a human being slaughtered into different things we are a whole person

and it can't be owned or possessed

it's to be declared and obeyed

and although it is possible to have a list of correct statements about jesus in one's possession and i think we have that in our statement of faith and although it's possible to preach accurately about christ now we have an example of apollos in acts 18

verse 25

the purpose of the correct accurate divine writing is to bring about obedience to a person jesus christ who by definition cannot be owned or possessed and just to actually read now this passage i cited before in romans 16.

um

verse

26

talking about the preaching of jesus christ verse 25 but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal god to bring about the obedience of faith

so truth is not static but dynamic

contact with true spawns activity it generates change you know contact with christ demands growth

growth which

includes faith and knowledge if we went back to ephesians 4 again verse 13 and 16 they talk about knowledge and that's important that's an important element of it uh joint effort with others verse 16

from whom the whole body joining it together by every joint with which it is supplied when each part is working properly makes bodily growth and that builds itself in love

so can't be sought or developed in isolation

it's the relationship then first with jesus and with each other the relationship with jesus the truth is what enables a person to put off the old nature and former manner of life and to be renewed in the spirit of his or her mind and to put on the new nature created after the likeness of god in true righteousness and holiness which is from this chapter verses 22 to 24.

it's an ongoing transformation not a one-time act

i submit that if we summarize paul's usage of this term

truth it forces us to recognize it that it it's not limited to an intellectual appreciation and and the reason i harp on that so much is my impression that we we tend to think of truth that way it's a head thing rather than a life thing

it's

it requires a commitment to follow to to get involved to do something and again this contrasts uh our westernized thinking where you can think one thing have a philosophy it doesn't matter how you live as long as you keep your mind here you can do anything with your body that's a greek philosophy now the biblical viewpoint on this is that how you believe must impact how you behave

so jesus is not an abstract idea to merely contemplate

he is the christ of god who preached the kingdom repentance baptism and trust in the gospel

to accept his preaching was to accept truth

not theological ideas but jesus himself as the messenger of god and as the means of salvation

romans 1 16 the gospel is the power of god for salvation to everyone who is faith

faith in the message

yes by all means but in the words in the sentences no it's in the person that they were talking about the subject of the message and the source of the message god

now

i've been a bit unfair to you in that i have kept this distinction between truth and the word and truth in a person and it's probably not quite fair for me to make you make a choice between whether the book or whether the person is more important

and i've done this partly for convenience of communication

but largely to remind ourselves that our confidence shouldn't be in this head knowledge of the bible but in faith in the master

i lead up to that because in in john's gospel chapter 8

this is another familiar text you might want to look to that

scripture couples this idea of truth in the word

and

truth in jesus

it's um

verses uh 31 to 36 is the whole context and he says

verse 31 if you continue in my word you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free

don't put the word there but

later on he says verse 36 but if the son makes you free you will be free indeed

so it's one thing to believe that god's word is truth

it's another thing to perceive that it is jesus not bible text that frees us from sin now the pharisees accepted the first they believed that the scriptures were divinely inspired but they were blinded to the second and we shouldn't fall into the same mistake

now sometimes it's been known i think in our community that we're more intent on developing bible students than disciples of jesus

you know it's jesus again i can't emphasize this too much he's the focus of god's book and we must realize that he is the truth of god

when she brings me to

god

the word is true jesus is truth

well the truth because god is truth he's he's the source

god is true

and there's four old testament scripture that that describe

god as being true [Music]

deuteronomy 32 4 says a god of faithfulness and without iniquity just and righteously authorized version has truth instead of faithfulness

isaiah 65 16 so that he who blesses himself the land shall bless himself by the god of truth

this is a different hebrew word amen is where we get our term from it

psalm 35 5

31 5 rather into thy hand i commit my spirit thou hast redeem me o lord faithful god that is god of truth steadfastness

finally zechariah 8 8

behold i will save my people from the east country and from the west country and i will bring them to dwell in the midst of jerusalem and they shall be my people and i will be their god

in faithfulness that is truth and in righteousness

and so truth in the old testament conveys

the sense of certainty

based on the eternal constancy and eternity and faithfulness of god who can't change

now this is important i think

this write-up i had on aspects of truth that's largely my westernized education a list propositions logic things like that bible doesn't present truth that way

it's faithfulness reliability in a god who's certain and always there

that doesn't need mean that my my education was a waste of time or that we can't think that way just to recognize the notions are quite different it's certainly based on a faithful god versus accuracy based on logic

now in addition to those old testament citations there's at least two in the new testament that i could think of that supports this uh second timothy two verse 13

talks about god remaining faithful for he cannot deny himself it's inherent in god to be trustworthy in hebrews 6 17

he interposed with an oath that through two unchangeable things in which it is impossible that god should prove false

so it's an inherent history truth is an inherent characteristic of god

and

then we come

to another place in john's gospel this is in john 4 another passage you'll be familiar with it's in chapter 4 verse 23 to 24.

the hour is coming and now is when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth for such the father seeks to worship him

god is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit truth

it has to follow because that's what god is like god is spirit we find out from another place and so if he's inherently reliable and true he would expect those who worship him to be the same

notice though the coupling here with spirit

you know there's truth and there's spirit

what kind of spirit let me suggest this connection if you turn or you can just listen to this philippians chapter 3

verse 3.

i'm just not going to give you a whole lot of time to get here

but for we are the true circumcision who worship god in spirit and glory in christ jesus and put no confidence in the flesh

the the gospel john 1 the flipping three one another one in romans and you get the idea [Music] that the physical is eliminated and replaced with the frame of mind that gives credit to god

in john 4 then the true worshipers were not jews as opposed to samaritans nor only men as opposed to women but anyone who approached god with the right heart

any man or woman who was humble and contrite in spirit and trembled at god's word

of isaiah 66 that's who god will dwell with now just pause here think about the implications of this teaching

anyone

that was a problem that peter had

remember with cornelius he had had this vision finally his preaching to ornerius he said and i'll just quote from acts chapter 10 verse 35

he said

truly i perceive that god shows no partiality but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him

now see how from a possibly limited set of doctrines teaching it says anyone who believes in this global form

now

jesus is something akin to that in his teaching in the gospels in matthew chapter 10

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of my father in heaven is my brother my sister and mother suddenly you're in a big global plane whoever does the will what does that mean what does that constitute he doesn't tell us

but it does show us the far-reaching aspects of work setting of john's horror gospel where he's talking to the samaritan woman

comes after chapter three where he had his encounter with nicodemus and i i think the reader can't help but see the the obvious contrast between the two nicodemus was the teacher in israel who came to talk to jesus and

and he couldn't understand what he was talking all about bible learning all that understanding he was missing the significance of it wasn't he

and he continued to struggle with it how could a man be born again you know what is this you're talking about

now it took him a while but he finally ends up becoming a disciple i'll contrast that with his samaritan woman she had virtually no bible background and perhaps miscited some scriptures and talking about jacob's will want to get into a religious controversy but

much much sooner that she sees

what jesus was talking about and she became a believer almost immediately

and see the contrast here that the point isn't so much comprehension of the text as it is a response of faith to what jesus himself is saying

now back there to the picture of god god being foundation truth

inevitably jesus must point to god

jesus is great truth but god is greater still jesus is quick to point that out

god sent jesus as savior but god remains the primary savior if you read paul's letter to titus you see the number of places where god is savior as well as jesus being saved

jesus is a great high priest but he's priest of god most high so god is higher still and we know from first corinthians 15 that in the kingdom when all is settled jesus hands it over to his father who's obviously greater

so there's a clear distinction between jesus and god

but

even in the days of his flesh didn't jesus say

he the same mean has seen the father the father and i are one

there is

this equation between the two in that sense jesus manifested god he was the word made flesh and we're going to start seeing some of these equivalencies even the days of these fleshes like that afterwards in hebrews chapter 1 it says

when he made purifications for sin he sat down at the right hand of majesty in high

what was his character then reflects the glory of god and bears the very stamp of his nature

that's what he became [Music]

what i'm pointing out then it's in one aspect of looking at this

when you see jesus you see the father the father and i are one

it's somewhat artificial on my part to say

in terms of truth that there's a difference between them can you find that

a lot of stereotypes

these possible time verses and songs

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[Music]

it's just

if you talk about one we're talking about the other the same for the spirit these two are always interchangeable it says scripture says god says the spirit says

who can escape from god says or who can escape from hot spirits they're living unchangeable as well

so you start getting this equation all the way through

jesus of god now

this isn't leading to any trinitarian aspect that i just want to throw it out because i hope to introduce something here what it tells you is how often

scripture thinks these things and and now

they're all together

they're in this one you're not separating this thing when you're talking about god and talking about his word when you talk about jesus you're talking about the body and [Music]

that's an important characteristic of truth

probably a good time to uh

ask my two helpers

part two of the handheld

[Music]

what you're going to see here is uh is a diagram that looks like a triangle with truth in the middle god at the top jesus and word at the bottoms of the isosceles triangle

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the reason for showing you this

is that all three are one truth

god the foundation

jesus the manifestation scripture being the means of revelation

and together they provide an absolutely wonderful offer to us god himself says come now let us reason together that's isaiah 1 18. come and see says jesus to andrew john 1 39

o taste and see that the lord is good psalm 34 8.

there is no other book like the bible

there is no other person that even begins to compare with jesus and certainly there is no other god

so these three together invite investigation they're not afraid to have any one of these roots investigated because all of them will eventually lead to truth and to each other and they will satisfy the pursuer

now i kind of structure this because i think that it it might be helpful

to visualize things i i see great values in having things in threes in triads

and if you just look at this in certain ways [Music]

here we have something that is

it's also subjective and then it starts

impacting your life

now now jesus is also a judgment says that he was a real historic person continues to exist although none of us have seen him yeah they are there is to establish a personal relationship with jesus

god god is invisible we can't

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not only the relationship that these have with each other but to the degree that you and i plug into this we need to establish some kind of a relationship with them

i'm going to draw a little bit here on the blackboard so maybe you can see it better

look at god and jesus

in the word

that's one way of looking at it probably a better way of looking at it is

if you're if you're trying to view something if you start saying with

the word

here

and it starts providing insight into

jesus who's there who obviously provides insight into

god who's there

so if you look there from the front you get the word

whose focus is on jesus

and god is obviously behind it all

now these are just little pictures there's no any big theology in this but it's just ways of looking how you can uh see the concentrated focus that these things have and how they are uh with each other and to relate and if you look at these things from different points of view saying all right

i want to go through a whole list of attacks on the bible how can you prove that true why you go and and try and look up check out the prophecies and do various things like that one of the uh [Music]

one of the big investigations that has been made and books have been written about morrisons who move the stone let's just look at the text the evidence to see is it likely is it conceivable is it possible is it probable is it a certainty that jesus christ rose from the dead just as a fact of history

and if it's true then the ramifications

if it's not true we are men must be pity said paul doesn't he so that's an important investigation someone did that [Music]

talking about the nation of israel you'll probably see a lot of that in morris's class or something you might be listening that they're witnesses they're called forth as god's witnesses and they're called together to argue a case that's the investigation and that's what god challenges israel to do you see that a lot in the prophecy of isaiah and israel continues to be a testimony to that

there is the

the personal challenge in malachi chapter 3

when they're wondering about how come god's mistreating them god says all right put me to the test put your trust in me and see if i don't fill your barns with things

so he's not afraid of the challenge and if you start putting these various investigations together

[Music] we find that

these truths

prove themselves out

when they're given the opportunity to work and yet they require faith

in order them to

really prove the process

they won't fail god cannot fail

scripture cannot be broken jesus christ was saying yesterday to the world these are solid

they won't let us down

we have our ultimate assurance on that that's truth that's reliability that's what we put our trust in

[Music]

there is a oneness in all those are there

get baptized in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit

commanded to the grace of jesus love of god fellowship of the holy spirit

if any man loves me he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home in him the counselor of the holy spirit whom the father will send in my name he will teach you all things and bring you to remembrance all the things that i've said

you continue to get

these types of interrelations

finally

i think i got some final stuff here [Music]

something that all christians

[Music]

appreciate i believe and that is [Music]

previous century there is a man who

discovered he didn't know a whole lot about the bible and was worried about that because he almost died and he decided he would never pursue anything else really until he got to the issues of life and death his name is john thomas

he began to look into his bible and he talked with people and he did some investigation and he discovered some remarkable things he wrote a book called help us israel the hope of israel one of the key themes in that was

promises of

the god to the woman

seed of the woman in genesis and there's the promises made to abraham

the seed of abraham promises made to david

and we know who that referred to we are

jesus christ

[Music]

fulfilled in jesus confirmed in jesus

and what are they doing

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sin is conquered by this

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we will land promised is an everlasting possession inheriting the earth and there's a throne

throne of david jerusalem and so you get the ultimate promise

kingdom

he has to return it's another promise to be fulfilled

this is a linear picture just a type of diagram like that and again what it does it shows this is old testament stuff

new testament stuff that's that's the word

and then you get another promise who is being fulfilled and jesus and who's the one that started it off who's going to make it all happen eventually in the kingdom of goddess the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge and glory of god and so this book alpha's israel introduces us to all those aspects of truth just what we would expect it fits it rings true

and it's one of the things we've inherited

we christadelphians have a solid

rock foundation of truth because it's built on rock

god jesus

the word

critic to this man

is used by god but our foundation is on something much firmer and much sounder than that

we can always come back and look at this this foundation they're not afraid of investigation we can look fearlessly at it look at it from anyway they invite us to do it

and that's been our strength as a community each brother and sister has the privilege and opportunity to to study the scripture for him or herself to think for him or herself and to come up with an application to your own life

and that's what we'll talk about in the next classes of this week

i wanted to give every class a chance to make some comments or questions [Music]

because i'm not intending to be lecturing actually for every class

[Music]

you need both and for conveniently talkable and separately put the reading together and we should recognize them the word cannot be fulfilled right that's right the word cannot be fulfilled

it's relative to the way we talk

[Music]

that's a great question and i think there will be more answers as the days go on

so i don't need to put you off but i think

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oftentimes use the term truth and own community community

there's there's bible justification for that there's a number of reasons in scripture that there's anything that that is in proper usage

however i think there are far more

is a far larger number that make us look in different areas

Transcript

well good morning again the

investigation of truth is going to look at integration of doctrine this morning

if you remember from yesterday those of you who may not have been here or for those whose brains are now just engaging in the second day

we talked about the bible the word of god

jesus christ and god himself being truth solid truth reliable truth rock truth something we can depend upon

and because of their divine characteristics they invite investigation

in our heritage as christadelphians coming to scriptures and our willingness to to look at what the book says and to see what god offers through jesus christ

this too is sought because it's built upon the foundation of jesus christ and the teaching of scripture and so when we invite our friends to come and sit down and talk about these things with open bible we're not afraid of such investigation because we have high confidence not in ourselves

but in what the truth of the matter is

today's class

gonna be in these three groupings we're going to be exploring particular texts uh looking at truth from its multiple aspects or levels and we're going to relook at our own traditional basis of things in terms of common ground the implications and answering the concerns that will arise out of that investigation

also for some

of where we left off yesterday we were talking about different structures different pictures

uh we we had the triangular one we had maybe the telescopic one

we had

[Music]

there's all kinds of things the truth might also be regarded as three states grilled in the ground to hook onto

the word and god and jesus it depends what serves best in your mind to help convey this idea of

salinity stability steadfastness unchangeableness but whatever you

yesterday we just started talking about one of the great things discovered by

dr john thomas

the seed promises one of the basis of of alpha's israel and i'd written these on the board and these were kind of this was kind of a linear packet structure

the seed of the woman the seed of abraham seed of david they're fulfilled in jesus

um now what were the promises about well there was a victor that was promised in genesis also in genesis there was a land promised

seed for david a throne promised and we know there's a text that's worth reading it's romans chapter 15 verse

8

it reads

for i tell you that christ became a servant to the circumcised to show god's truthfulness

in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the gentiles might glorify god for his mercy as it is written and then he cites an old testament so there you have brought together the truthfulness the promises something that gentiles are welcomed into [Music]

and when you look at this

we know that christ of quality promised to return in acts chapter 1.

because he spent 40 days in 48 40 dice after them just as the 40 days where they were speaking about the things concerning the kingdom and it wasn't time for the kingdom to be restored to israel so the promised return has inherited the kingdom

now we rightly look at this and says say to ourselves because this is a plain teaching a clear teaching ample bible evidence for that what are some of the implications of this

well one thing is pretty certain this this kingdom is a liberal political future kingdom this tv established on earth lots of verses for that daniel 2 44

being one of them

therefore the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of god cannot be the church

and it's taught in other places

so the truth

excludes something else from being true

and you go on in this it's

thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth it's a heavenly kingdom that's its origin but it's to come to earth

and if it comes to earth and since we have something like this land earth the same term

then here's where the reward is going to be

and therefore

heaven is not the reward or the believer

hope cannot be true [Music] and that's a valid conclusion

abram's dead

so is david what the scriptures talk about them in terms that

they will see the promise fulfilled

the only way that can happen is that they must be made alive again therefore they must be raised from the dead so not only you have gone into this the teaching of the resurrection and in fact that's the very thing that jesus argues about god being a god of hebrews for jacob he's the god of the living now the god of the dead and therefore there's a resurrection

it shows that the hope of a man

is that he will rise again

and that there is not something inherent in him that keeps on living for example the teaching of the immortality of the soul that is not part of this if this is true there is no root for the teaching of an immortal soul upon which if a person dies he gets his reward in a way that doesn't fit into this and so we rightfully exclude that type of teaching

and it's proper i think to present it that way here's the good news but the good news excludes some of these false teachings

but

truth invites investigation

let's take a few steps beyond this

here's where i'm planning to have a paramount participation so when i ask what ordinarily would be rhetorical questions and you probably sit there and let me go on i'm i'm gonna expect you to say yay or nay

well it's coming in a moment but i'm just warning this is going to be your time

is it true

that the kingdom of god is only presented as a literal political future kingdom

no

okay if that's not the only usage is what is your evidence that would say it means something more than that

give me some for example why do you say i agree with you

some for instance

translated into the kingdom of god

let's see one of paul's letters right

caution against caution

they were

[Music]

so it's not necessarily a future kingdom it's in the past but there's a very political one

[Music]

okay and that's in luke's gospel both chapters 16

[Music]

did jesus say that i am the kingdom of god

uh he might have but i don't remember where

but i said he said something is comparable to that

well mark's gospel jesus comes and says the kingdom of god is at hand

and then it becomes what did he mean by that and i think he's talking about himself okay so kingdom advantage

that you will be able to be sacredly scribbling but that's that's all right yes you can see every amazing jake

yeah that's referred to the future

or

matthew 23 jesus says that the pharisees shut the kingdom against men

there's no way that they could do that in the eternal sense that matthew 23 13

here's he's trying to shut the kingdom of god and

if you want some of these verses i can give them to you afterwards but this is sufficient i think to point out that there are other usages of the kingdom that could not refer to a measurable future political one it must mean something else and as ron has intimidated at least one aspect is the presence of jesus himself he's representing the authority or the kingdom or the sovereignty of god

and that's

what begins to take place in the life of a believer that god begins

to have a sovereignty over a man's life

or a woman's life so if you get on just the basic principle which is right if this is true there this will happen

that doesn't discount these other things from being true as well

so that's just a little bit of an expansion of a uh first principle now let me do a little bit of a shift here for you and i'm sorry if something you can't see through the podium but i tried to write this up pretty high these references down here the points have been made

suppose we look at

what's called the c promises or what i call the seed promises

a lot of times and i was certainly nourished on this the promises to abraham are the key bible promises

well there's at least two others

but that's okay because it's all part of one thing and that's kind of what it means anyhow

in fact when you look across these these are all key promises return promise

that's important as well so there's at least four key promises but my question now is and now it's your opportunity are these the only

major significant promises made by god in scripture

no okay for example what are some other key promises that god has made

the flood made to noah and the animals into all the earth who never do that that's

that's a promise that affects us directly that's in genesis

for the major tenets of the gospel

[Music] okay the promise of us being a new

creature i don't think we have explicit terms that put it that way but i i would agree with the idea i'm looking for something that would really be determine the promise but that's still correct

and forgiveness of sins all right

a couple heads up over there you just have to call up the blood of the everlasting president

good point and i'm going to talk about that next so we'll put over here

blood however

let's put that on the shelf we'll come back in a second

the resurrection

he who believes in me though he died

[Music]

never leave me nor for safety

i think that starts first

with god's promise to joshua i remember and there's other places that talk about it is picked up in hebrews

okay there's one more that was contending with that promise

okay but that's that's good enough these are good in fact uh

i didn't thought about some of these i thought about this one and i thought about this one it was the third one i thought about

that uh

okay

it was close there's actually a combination of these two it's where jesus in

john 14 says that i and my father will come and abide in you

which is a good thing i looked at my notes again because i wanted to expand into that for a second it's in john 14

remember where he says

we will come again and make our mold with you we will tabernacle with you

here's the dwelling of god

coming to be with a man

or a woman that believes in him

and that's not surprising because isaiah 66 2 said that that's the type of person that god would dwell with those who believe in him in his word and it's not surprising because that's how the ecclesia is built it's a spiritual ruling place uh for the spirit of god ephesians 2 22 i think it says that

what we're getting into here is a couple things first of all there are other very significant and important promises in scripture

and they lead to things like

the promise of the resurrection and the promise of forgiveness and the promise of dwelling in us now i mean this is a promise that's fulfilled now in our life

if you uh would reference in

points in john's letter his first letter or he talks about we are children of god now we have eternal life now

of course we understand that in the sense that this is a reality that's conditional upon faithfulness to the end

but once you put it in its proper context

it's already think that way this isn't a radical departure from

baseline promises which are very important

but you get into another level of facts and you start getting immediately into an application to your own lives

now we come to

the blood of the everlasting culture where is that verse the gospel the blood of the everlasting covenant remember it's in hebrews right 13

something like that

okay here's my question

where does the bible first mention

everlasting covenant

yes tom

genesis

genesis 17

in association with

abraham i submit there's a earlier place

but that's a good guess that's where

that's true that's associated here i'm being very picky this morning though i'm looking for the words everlasting covenant to be part of the verse itself

the rainbow one where's who's after

that was the noah right so it's in genesis chapter 9.

so the everlasting covenant begins not with abraham

as i used to think for years

but at least the first bible usage of it is with noah

and in fact when you take out your concordance and do a bit of investigation let me tell you some other places where you find everlasting covenant the one with noah is genesis 9 16

there's one made with aaron for israel leviticus 24 verse 8

perpetual priesthood for phineas numbers 25 13

a covenant to all who come to the lord isaiah 55 3 on the same lines as he did with david and a similar everlasting covenant to spiritual israel isaiah 61 8 and is confirmed by jeremiah 32 40 and ezekiel 16.

there's a bunch of everlasting covenants though i think you would agree that after you investigate them some of them tend to be more important than others but key question why is it called the everlasting covenant

it's a simple answer why do you think it would be called the everlasting covenant

because god made it and it can't be broken right because god's an everlasting god

and that's the primary meaning of the everlasting covenant it can't fail because god has made it

so you look look at these promises see promises

very important

but now

if we were to look at these just themselves

and this is perhaps an unfair question but i'm going to ask it anyhow

which of those three promises

is the most important

[Music]

right if your sins aren't forgiven if you don't live on forever to enjoy it doesn't matter if there's

the land so this is more important i think than these now

i'm cautionary i don't want to make one more important he's not contending with each other but from our own minds we need to see it needs to start with this if sin isn't conquered if christ doesn't defeat that

then the rest won't happen and it doesn't affect two comings of jesus he dealt with that one first that's been established

it's coming to fulfill the other two

now

todd treadway this one's yours

you know i don't want to ask don't you

sure you do

talk about the promise to abraham here in the land promise okay in the promises made to abraham what are

what is probably the key point in all of the uh

of the uh the promise uh

todd and i were at the bloomington study date and uh he was writing the answer he came down there and i put him on the spot and said that there was probably a better answer so he i hope doesn't mind me doing it again

you'll get in with me god

the point is

here is generally for years the promised media amen was the land everlasting possession and that's correct

but if you look at all the things that god says to me for him and if you look at what in other places in scripture god promises you'll find that the more fundamental idea of what god says to abraham is that i will be your god

and your people will be my people if you get out your concordance and try to find all the places where that idea

is you'll be amazed and you'll be well rewarded by your research because what happens is that you stop thinking about a territory a specific reward and evolve into the right thinking that here in this promise is any as a relationship an eternal relationship an everlasting relationship promised to us

to let god be our god

we will be his people and by the way that's not saying the same thing two different ways that shows god's willingness to be identified with us and it shows the necessity for us to have god to be our daughter

it's too hard lots of fun and exploration reward there and what i'm trying to show you is that you can start from

basic teaching and once excluded from it and you build on more expansion the kingdom of god is more than just something in the future something now in fact there's a promise now big promises now more than these even when you look at these it's more than what is the basics

it's something to get into and investigate and that investigation leads to some just marvelous things

so what i would like someone to tell you right now

[Music]

this basically summarizes a number of the things we've been talking about but i didn't want to give it to you too early

it'll give me a chance to

talk about some of the implications

of these things

so while they're handing them out i'll just read some things here

basic idea of the kingdom more than one aspect

principles are more than facts they lead to areas which require appropriate changes in thinking and behavior and quickly lead to immediate personal applications

we talked about the

see promises leading to bigger and greater teaching scripture itself urges us to get into the exploration of such teaching hebrews 6 1

therefore let us leave the elementary doctrines or first principles of christ and go on to maturity we're encouraged to grow

and in fact all of these tied together you know for convenience we've been talking about different aspects but it's really integrated doctrine they're all together

and we should be surprised then if it's not simplistic

simple to understand but not simplistic

because it deals with life it deals with the whole of life and we know that life is not simplistic

and the complexity is not there to challenge to discourage us but to challenge us it's been already cited proverbs 25 2 it is the glory of god to conceal things

the glory of kings

is to search things out

and that same applies to ourselves as written by the apostle paul he writes in first corinthians 2 verse 10

quote but we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of god which god decreed before the ages for our glorification

quote from isaiah 64 4

what no eye has seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man can see what god has prepared for those who love him and a quote and then paul continues

god has revealed to us

through the spirit now this

first corinthians 2 context is talking about believers being greater than earthly kings and the secret or mystery is revealed so that we can understand it the means of revelation is by the spirit which was a first century revelation and by comparing spiritual things with spiritual things as verse 13 in that setting talks about and that's something we can do this is comparing scripture with scripture

again the context which shows that applies equally to all brethren

all of whom are insignificant but whose call is from god so that no man could boast that's colossians 1

26-31 so the context again is important and what that leads up to is we know as a community there there should be no special status of leaders no hierarchy in a christ had an ecclesia that's what the theory is sometimes in our community practice it's not that way but at least that's the way the scripture presents it

and because of these things that we can understand these mysteries that all are on the same level when it comes to investigation there's not one of us in this room neither brother nor sister nor interested friend

who should hesitate to go back to basic tenets of teaching and look at them again

because you won't break them you won't find out that they're wrong you can only find more good quote stuff in them things that are helpful for ourselves

now

i want you to all pay close attention to what's going to happen i've seated two people in the audience to come up and perform a task for me so if they will do it i want you to just watch what happens

now

we've all seen the same thing right

let's investigate the truth of this matter

what happened someone over here in this time tell me tell me what happened any volunteer 40 words or less

paul zimmer i pick on you because you're my brother-in-law and i can live with you what

uh happened woman stood up on the left side of the uh

about the right side and both watched the front and it'll be the book exit to the left side

okay

[Music]

and i bet if i kept on asking

every one of you he will be saying something pretty close to that

or you might think that i'm asking you devious questions and you start interpreting it right

and you would be right

because this little object lesson that i want to explore now for a few minutes

will tell us very plainly that there's many viewpoints and all are equally valid

some of them would be fuller and clearer than others due to the attention like someone was nodding off to sleep when this was happening because they had a chance

we can we can deal with that now

should we try to investigate this further i mean did they spontaneously get up or by my request well i told you that i'd asked them so you know

what was the book that they gave me

okay

were they returning it to me or were they giving it to me

if they're returning it why did they borrow

if they were giving it why did i want it returned and when did i want to return

who published the book why does it make a difference the thing is what you observe is you need to ask to get more information don't you

it can go down to many levels

into many areas

example let's deal with the concept of grasping my book

is is that important

what what about all the muscular details of grasping

no one was in the right hand on the left hand is there some significance there one was a man and one was a woman it was that important it didn't matter where they placed the book you can

you can really get down to an area where you have to be careful because you you get off the initial point

and into areas of insignificance in fact that's a very good question to ask to begin is this just a trivial event or is it something that requires interpretation well let's assume for a moment that requires some interpretation

is it significance that there was a man and a woman involved

you know one went on

from all the way around and one just went back the same path is that significant

one used the left hand and one the right hand is that

you think you got it okay

so

without further information it's only valid to say that

what paul basically said without anything further it's just guesswork isn't it and there's a danger of going too far for example maybe maybe there's some conspiracy between the three of us maybe we've talked earlier about this maybe maybe there's some deep dark secret and even if you ask this if there's a dark secret would we tell you [Music]

of course we wouldn't uh now come on delivery of two handbooks of two hymn books in public at a bible school i mean is that really grounds for a conspiracy you can see how something that's so

improbable or impossible it leads to absurdity but it does show what the human mind can do if you want to start looking for bad things

it shows that we can go through the motions of wanting to find truth without really wanting to find the right answers for it

so quick recap here everyone in the group can have a valid viewpoint to a greater or lesser degree and discussion among the observers and further inquiry of the walkers is bound to get closer to the full story or truth of the event and assuming it was worth further investigation the resulting conclusion depends on what line of reasoning or questioning was taken

relevant questions and valid reasoning will keep the investigator on a meaningful and logical path

but even with the best intentions and effort the conclusion or interpretation will be limited to the information available and in fact may be biased by several factors such as our background our experience our training our age our sex

so we need to recognize that the pursuit of truth is limited to the available resources

and possession of truth is marred and clouded by human nature

full comprehensive truth has many aspects many angles many suit pursuits are possible it's complex it's integrated it's contextual that is you need to know what the context is and and therefore no single human being has a market on truth that is no person or group will ever have the total complete picture

at best

some people have or groups of people have a better approximation of things than others

there's still a version or approximation of the truth and it can undoubtedly be improved and so although full complete truth of god exists

we humans live with something less than that i call it my notes here working truth that is the information or knowledge sufficient for living and for discussion and for arriving at a correct or better information we humans settle on understanding and say close enough for me

and this makes sense otherwise we would be forever asking questions and trying to come to knowledge of the truth which is impossible anyhow

so now with that we come up to number three

let's talk about some of the common ground that we have and in case there's any misunderstanding of what i'm trying to communicate here it's uh

i'm not suggesting

that there's any inadequacy or fault in god's truth

i'm not suggesting that all truth is relative or that we kristadophians should never claim that we have the truth although that's an improper notion i i mentioned yesterday just let me briefly read

from john's second letter first four verses

the elder to the elect lady and her children whom i love in the truth

and not only i but also all who know the truth because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever grace mercy and peace will be with us from god the father and from jesus christ the father son in truth and love

i rejoice greatly to find some of your children following the truth just as we've been commanded by the father so it's okay the way we use it as a community what i'm trying to point out is that there is a bigger picture that needs to be looked at and i'm trying to point out that we have limitations in the matter

for common ground a further investigation then we got our bible 66 books all the case examples given to us to be examined understood obeyed and every disciple has the duty and privilege to search the scriptures for him or herself there is not one brother or sister who is infallible on this matter so [Music]

we have no hierarchy everyone i believe is capable of learning and determining what correct bible teaching is and once understood the disciple is obliged to live his or her life in accordance with that teaching

now we have a standard approach to this doctrine is both belief and behavior

and groups of disciples which have agreed to associate on a common understanding of key bible teaching or go first principles

still go back to scripture itself for verification and for evaluation

example that is we have a statement of faith that we use for convenience but when an issue comes up we don't say see this is so the statement of faith we should say see it says there in the bible

now

there are some implications to this

and here's where you're going to participate again first question if there is a conflict in teaching between the words of a human author and a book of the bible

which must be taken as authoritative

right so when we come to things in the book of mormon and joseph smith and he talks about the immortal the soul we say that's not right because that's in direct contradiction with the bible

now let me read you these words and you tell me if they are correct

foundation

that the book currently known as the bible consisting of the scriptures of moses the prophets and the apostles is the only source of knowledge concerning god and his purposes at present extent or available in the earth

what's right or wrong actually what's wrong with that statement

it's incomplete that's right and it's incomplete because it flatly contradicts what scripture says because psalm 19 verses 1 to 4 make it very plain that the heavens declared the glory of god and are a source of knowledge and information and this statement would exclude that

moreover it thinks that

only apostolic writings are scripture

was luke an

apostle i don't think we have any explicit text that says so does that suddenly mean that his gospel and acts are no longer scripture

you know where i read this from

sure it's from our statement of faith

now this is much less serious than say something in the book of mormon and not that i'm particularly knocking that because it is uh

our own foundation basis contradicts scripture and leaves out two books of the bible

but we know what it means what it's intended and so that's okay this is a good approximation of the truth and we can go forward on that

but in case anyone wants to make a good case for the statement of faith we're off to two strikes against us on our foundation you know kind of wobbly

and please you know i'm not knocking that i just if you want to be really technical about it here's where it comes down to but that's not the issue is it

now i have a whole series of yes no uh questions and you can answer yes or no because if you want to but i need to really get through these

the question is if there is a conflict in viewpoints between two brethren

or sisters

we should accept as being correct the one who

is older

his order in terms of years baptized

spoke or wrote it first

spoke or wrote it last

spoke wrote it better

is a brother versus a sister

is an elder in the ephesia versus a new convert

reason the better

here getting closer provided the more evidence

provided the more bible evidence

provided the better relevant bible evidence and it's really only the last one that you can say yes to

the point is it's bible-based valid evidence that makes it right none of the others

can both be correct

can both be incorrect

yes

can both be partly correct and partly incorrect

so there's valid alternatives in some cases right is correctness the only criteria to consider

is there a bigger picture to consider sometimes

is the matter that critical to fully resolve

right the point is there may be a more important overriding thing now here's my third question

if there has been a traditional interpretation of a particular passage or series of passages around in the christodolphin community for say 50

years

and a brother or sister publishes a different viewpoint

we should regard the different viewpoint

with suspicion because it's new

with suspicion because it's different

as a possible valid alternative given a solid bible case

as a possible better alternative given a solid bible case

as a possible necessary replacement of a wrong viewpoint

see you have to investigate it before you make the decision

start getting kind of scary down here because

there's got to be some concerns going through people's mind does this mean and i i was going to ask you for what your concerns are but you'll probably tell me afterwards i thought of at least five and i'll try and do them here in the time allotted

i thought there was only one truth that doesn't change and that truth's already defined so how can there possibly be another viewpoint

well the assumption behind that is we in fact have the full complete comprehensive truth

i've already argued that that can't be the case

we might have a good approximation of it which i think is true

but

the question then becomes but which group of christadophians

should you be listening to in this because we got several choices don't we

you know even there's other like-minded groups that don't carry our label what about them

it also assumes that truth to be understood as process as uh it's propositional truth that's uh that is there's a list and and i think we've shown that that's not correct

um

truth is more than propositions and it's not a matter of possession that someone has so a second concern might be

you know is it is it conceivable that we've been wrong for the last 50 years

the assumption here is there's something terrible with being wrong

really

no we we've been wrong about a lot of things over a lot of years i mean what's big news about being wrong

ah but wrong about critical things well what's defined as critical well first principles doesn't the bible really provide a list well does it can you find a list of first principles in the bible we we've been trying to do that for years well suppose there even is a list that could be agreed upon by christodians

talk about modern day miracles

but but now one of these is determined to be wrong all right

being wrong on one point does that make everything else wrong

does being wrong in one point make everything else suspect

well wrong thinking produces wrong behavior you gotta agree with me there yes

and it's important to contend for brightness

but my experience is that right thinking also allows wrong behavior in me this is the perversity of human nature there's no particular shame in being wrong

well what about

third question if entertaining the new the new viewpoint isn't being isn't this being disloyal to the truth and the assumption behind that would be that the traditional viewpoint is equivalent to truth

and of course this shouldn't be axiomatic because tradition of the pharisees for example was wrong but we could save ourselves but ours ours is a crystaldelphian heritage it was bible-based but so was the pharisees but the christian of imposition we would argue is clearly provable i mean look at all the texts we can do but maybe there's a better way the the new wine

but you're being disloyal to our pioneers

but it might be a misplaced loyalty our lord isn't to them it's to christ and it might be a time to move on john the baptist was a forerunner and then it was time for his disciples to move on

but still the concern aren't you introducing a seed of destruction to the ecclesia

well

it's a seed of growth i mean the inception of the new testament church even of our own community was that something was found to be wrong and it started again so the point is that a new viewpoint isn't inherently a bad thing you need to evaluate it

i'll skip one other concern here uh the last one if every point of doctrine is up for grabs will we be repeatedly shaking our very foundations and that's obviously destructive and disruptive and i agree if everything is up for grabs then this isn't a good pursuit but that's not the case we've got a foundation not everything is up for grabs it's the new viewpoint and how it fits or doesn't fit

we will have seen in the beginnings of this yesterday

and certainly from our own understanding that when jesus presents himself as truth

he definitely did disrupt the status quo of the pharisees and sadducees and did destroy their position in the community and jesus was the source and cause of contention and families since the issue came down to truth versus

whatever else and the point is encounter with truth does create such upsets

but if our foundation is sure as it is in jesus the bible and the rock god then we have nothing to fear

i think my time is up

Transcript

before i [Music]

formally begin i'd like to share with you some things that have been shared with me

first being todd treadway

after me being somewhat unkind to him yesterday was very kind to me and came out and made a good suggestion

about whether or not we should fear our foundations even being investigated that he said well norman look at your bible and we looked at haggai as the reference and then in hebrews chapter 12 where it's cited and verse 27

is an interpretation on the quotation from haggai where the very earth is shaken by the lord god and it says this phrase yet once more indicates the removal of what is shaken as of what has been made

in order that what cannot be shaken may remain

therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and let us offer to god acceptable worship with reverence and awe and i believe his point was

there's no fear of looking or investigating or our foundations being shaken because there build on the rock of god so even if some would say well let's even go and look at the foundation again there's no fear of it being overturned

now the second has to do with

this

two-page handout that's got the elements of logic it's out of a textbook that i had when i was in college and as you can see from the greek on here that it was probably taught in greek two but um all these fancy names for example this uh petition principy

my english pronunciation is far from good i'm sure begging the question we would call it reasoning in a circle and there's a good example of that on page two

very evident now some of the other things on the front sheet that said non-sequitur that's a fancy way of saying it doesn't follow it isn't necessarily true and they got a whole bunch of latin names down there one of them is

in english the argument from authority that is because i have a function a title a status what i say must be true

and that's a fallacy it doesn't matter who says it it is the evidence for what is said

i gave you this to just show you some of the things that do exist in terms of fallacies and you would be surprised

at how much of this fallacious thinking

is in print today and is in conversation today and our own community is affected by it

now the third

thing was without giving credit to who suggested i do this but credit to the artwork which is heidi oppens

you can see this very clear

simplistic diagram before you [Music] because it really only has

circles and squares and triangles

and if you know that pattern that key to get into it it's just a matter of breaking this down it's just a matter of layering these things but you can pull them off maybe the different colors associated and what appears to be incomprehensible or complex

given a certain amount of patience and the right keys you can go in and unravel it or it makes sense and certainly that's true in scripture you can start at one point and you start pulling it out you can understand that point oh it's connected this one so you put out i can understand that point and you pull it out a little bit more and pretty soon you start seeing the pattern but you're understanding all these things all the parts of the big puzzle the little puzzles that paul was telling us yesterday

so those are just some preliminary things that i thought i'd share with you because we didn't have a tank to discuss

matters yesterday but those were some feedback

now this is the general topic today truth confronts

and

for some of you who i know

haven't been here because you took some literature let me just ever so briefly review how we got to this class three

the first class discussed a very important characteristic of god's truth namely it invites investigation

the bible the lord jesus christ and god himself encourage examination ask seek knock it will be given you will find it will be opened

god's truth is based on the solid evidence of the bible is laid on the rock foundation of christ and is built on the certainty of the one and only faithful god

these three are reliable unchanging and sure

to believe this and to know the only true god and jesus christ whom god has sent is eternal life

the second class which is yesterday began to investigate the bible teaching concerning the promises of god we had them written up there and the inquiry led to wider understanding and better appreciation of well-established first principles

and this pursuit of ours followed a standard christodophian practice of fearlessly looking at a number of relevant questions in light of scripture

truth has no fear of investigation and has many wonderful secrets to reveal to those who ask seek and knock

and if you recall our class ended by considering some of the possible concerns

and objections to re-examining our traditional understanding of bible truth

i believe that

the christian dolphin community has a

good working understanding of bible truth

and i believe that we try to practice it

and this is cause for great rejoicing and thanksgiving we cited a passage in

2nd john yesterday just let me read one from third john today that two is is relevant

the elder to the beloved gaius whom i love in truth

beloved i pray that all may go well with you and that you may be well in health i know that as well with your soul for i greatly rejoice when some of the brethren arrived and testify to the truth of your life as indeed you do follow the truth

no greater joy can i have than this to hear that my children follow the truth [Music]

and so we use that term in that way and it is cause for great rejoicing when we have a baptism when we see that someone's overcome a great problem in their life when we see cooperative things bear fruit this is cause for great rejoicing and our respective communities have great strength in these areas

so it is not at all my intention if it has at all come across that way to say look at all that's wrong with our community and look at all that's wrong with our understanding that's not my intention

and it certainly wouldn't be something that one would want to do from the platform in any case

but truth invites investigation [Music]

and sometimes we're confronted with hard sayings as our exhorter on sunday morning and speakers in various times and classes have said

wow if it means this what manner of people ought we to be in terms of holiness and so on

so please accept that that is my motive in tackling some of these issues

truth confronts

it's another important characteristic of god's truth

by its very nature truth

is antagonistic against non-truth

[Music] what is non-truth well i suggest it's

all that is in the world

the works of the flesh

for those who are outside

in the definitions of that of course from the first john 2 16 the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes the pride of life general statements galatians 5 19-21

works of the flesh immorality impurity licentiousness idolatry sorcery enmity strife

jealousy anger selfishness dissension party spirit envy drunkenness carousing and the like [Music]

those outside

the cowardly the faithless the polluted murderers fornicators dogs that is sodomites sorcerers idolaters all liars that is those who love and practice falsehood you know where that last reference was from [Music]

from the book of revelation [Music]

and that's where it talks about those being outside

in fact the first

phrase that i remember that defines those who are quote outside

comes in mark chapter 4 verse 11 you might want to look at this because it's something that jesus says

it's about those who hadn't sought to follow him

[Music] and it's in verse 11 mark 4

he said to them to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of god

but for those outside

everything is in parables so that they may indeed see but not perceive and may indeed hear but not understand unless they should turn again and so be forgiven

now that to me comes across as a pretty face slapping statement

you mean there's someone outside who's someone who's not in the way of salvation that you can tell someone that they're on the way to perdition

and this is a verse that would indicate that

and it's our their abolition it isn't that you allocate them to to that fate

so

this is important because to be a non-inquirer of truth

means you won't perceive the secrets of the kingdom

and so be saved

so non-truth i suggest is the practice of contrary people

defined by jesus in another place as

he that is not with me is against me he says that in matthew 12

30 and luke 11 23

now this whole list that it gave you about what non-truth is

may have surprised you in the sense that we ordinarily look at truth in an abstract way as here's truth and here's air and falsehood well even scripture says here's truth as opposed to those who practice

falsehood so it's not just an idea one against the other

obviously truth is in opposition to much much more than abstracts

i would say that truth is not a matter of accuracy per se but of lifestyle and consistency with the calling of the gospel

if you were to read colossians chapter 1

5-6 and verse 10

ephesians 4 verse 1

and first thessalonians 2 12. i just cite them for the tape all of these say

to live a life worthy of your calling

according to the gospel of truth

or words to that effect it is important to be consistent with what we believe

now these other things like those who are outside and making things so black and white that's wrong behavior kind of

is this is uncomfortable and this idea of contention

leads to controversy and that also at best is unpleasant and often is greatly upsetting

but we've already found in the second class in paul's class

that christ presents himself deliberately as a controversialist

he deliberately confronted people with the fact of himself and forced them to consider the situation and their relationship with him

and every disciple is faced with the same challenge

and we in turn be disciples

are obliged to give the same challenge to those around us to preach the challenge of christ to the world

the obligation very plainly said contend earnestly says the authorized version for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints

now that interestingly enough is in a context of contending for it in the ecclesial world as opposed to those who weren't in the euclesia

now what this contention means and how it should be conducted i'll talk about today but probably more about it tomorrow

for right now i would like you to pick up the handout

that i've initially given you it should read on the front side of it truth invites investigation answers of jesus what this is is a copy out of the bible of chapter 7 to 11 of john's gospel

and i've written some comments in the text

and what i want to do just briefly is is kind of walk through some of these chapters

and will direct your attention to the notes at the bottom

what i'm wanting you to see is this largely is one event

one encounter with jesus up until at least the end of chapter nine and then in chapter 10 there is another add-on to that

from verse 22 on but up until that it's all largely one event

and i think it's very instructive to see how jesus meets opposition and how he contends for truth how he doesn't back off

but also how he is gentle in doing it

now i won't go through every little note that i have here because it will take too much time but i'm giving it to you as

it's kind of a mapping a good guideline that we can follow

first of all his brothers in verse 4 and chapter 7 they said look no man works in secret if he seeks to be known openly and so you have a false accusation from his brothers and he answers and she gently says you go on ahead if you want and he comes up later on

verse 15

jews marveled at these things saying how is it that this man has learning when he has never studied and this is a false assumption that they have

they

don't

go and ask them directly they just decide that they're going to find out the truth of the matter by talking amongst themselves this is one of a number of places and i've got to know their 7 12

32 35 to 36 and 40 to 41 they keep on saying how is it that this can be right how is this true

and they never went and asked him

you'd think if they really wanted to know they go and ask them but they never did

how strange

no how typical

[Music]

now some of them did ask when you get to chapter 8 verse 13 they they come up and says

look you're bearing witness to yourself your testimony is not true

and verse 19 uh

trouble reading my fine print there they said to them where is your father and so on verse 25

who are you they said

they finally came and asked him

but it's plain from the context

that they really didn't want to know

these are defiant questions these are our

attacks

rather than the queries that they have

now

jesus just picking up from from even this last

place verse

23

[Music]

in chapter eight just where the uh keep on asking him and who are you before that he says you are from below i am from above you are this world i am not of this world i told you you would die your sins for you will die in your sins unless you believe that i am he and they said to them who are you jesus said to them even what i've told you from the beginning i have much to say about you and much to judge but he who sent me is true and declare to the world what i have heard from them and i declare to the world what i've heard from them

and so on hear

truth confronts non-truth the ignorance of his brothers early on the evil and deceit and the prejudice and even the arrogance of these pharisees

interestingly enough uh the notes here 7 18 38 and 8 14 show how truth comes out truth is in the word of god truth is god himself and this is the passage of course where jesus says if you if you continue in my word you will know the truth and the truth will make you free and the son will make you three free that's the

equations of truth

[Music]

jesus also argues that his reasons from scripture if you look for example in chapter 8 verse 17

you can see the little arrows there where he cites scriptures and there's two places earlier on

uh in 7 24 and 8 17 but

it says in your law it is written the testimony of two men is true

so he he appeals to objective evidence and to their sense of reasoning if they in fact wanted to find these matters out

now if you flip over the sheet in fact if you you do it the right way if you hold it like this

like this it's upright for yourself what i usually do i usually turn it this way and then i have to turn upside down and it's very confusing so

you look at it that way this is the story of the man born blind

and the healing and this this is a wonderful just wonderful story about how the ordinary man

with his simple understanding and very simple logic

confuse the learned authorities

he devastates them

because he says something like this

they come up who healed you

was jesus how can they possibly be you know and they're on top of jesus and he says

well

how could he have done it unless god was with him well we know that this man is a sinner and he doesn't follow our traditions he doesn't obey the law and he said well you know this this is a marvel never since the beginning of time and effect has this ever happened and a man born blind has been healed and this has happened to me and now you see there's something wrong with the guy i mean that makes no sense and they said and you would teach us get out you scum and they they kicked them out of the synagogue right and you know the story well and there's it's just wonderful that the fallacies that are in here and and the um

the argument from authority that they say well we know such and such is true says the pharisees and they didn't know they didn't have a leg to stand on and they intimidated the parents they tried to intimidate this man but he stood firm

because he believed in

jesus who hadn't seen yet physically with his eyes

when he came back and there's that nice lesson you have seen him

when he asked who i should believe in and by the time the chapter ends it's very clear

[Music]

which people

are right in the matter and it's evidently in the man because the faith that he has has borne fruit

and the refusal the blatant refusal or the pharisees

to look fairly at the matter

means that their guilt remains

so a blind man has his eyes opened

and the men who claimed that their eyes were wide open

were dreadfully blind

[Music]

simple logic by a simple person reflects faith

prompts belief

and is rewarded

it was for the glory of god says chapter nine it begins and this was bearing fruit for god and i think that's one measure of truth then jesus says it in matthew 12 33 and it's also in colossians 1 10

you will know people by their fruits that is how they believe in what the outcome of their teaching is especially in the lives of those who follow it

truth cannot be a companion of the works of the flesh like party spirit

enmity party spirit by the way you know isn't having a great party it isn't that

uh that's probably more carousing it's being partial only associating with a particular group the circumcision party in acts was like that

enmity anger dissension envy

all those are characteristics the works of the flesh are are found in this section in john in the lives and in the statements and the thinking of the pharisees

[Music]

if you were to look for example in chapter 10

verse 33

listen to this throughout the stone jesus

and they answer him we stone you for no good work but for blasphemy because you being a man make yourself god and jesus answered them is it not written in your law i said you are god's if you call them gods to whom the word of god came and scripture cannot be broken do you see of him whom the father consecrated and sent to the world you are blaspheming because i said i am the son of god

if i'm not doing the works of my father then do not believe me this is the witness this is the fruit here's his behavior

but if i do them

even though you do not believe in me believe the works

that you may know and understand that the father is in me and i am in the father

so even though he's confronted them even though he's telling them they're still their sins

even jesus wonderfully marvelously

he wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth

as his father does

he makes this appeal even even if you can't stomach me

even if you can't stand what i'm representing as a person

at least look at the obvious miracles and let them convince you

the rightness and worth of a teaching will be demonstrated sooner or later in the life

and associations of the proponent

as i said in this case jesus and the man are obviously on the side of truth [Music]

anyone who decides to take a stand for truth is

bound to encounter a certain amount of agitation and simply because truth

disrupts the status quo

[Music]

and it's interesting that the brethren who claim to represent truth and that includes myself up here

contend that the whole truth should be considered and that all the bible evidence should be weighed

and let us remember the bible warns against false teachers and those who cause dissentions among you and so on and

it's very easy to say

all those people who are talking a viewpoint different from me

because i'm talking about truth are obviously the ones the bible talked about as being the false teachers i mean that logically follows doesn't it no it does not that is a fallacy but

this is evident this is a a very easy trap to fall into

and it's especially easy to fall into when we come up against that problem that i introduced yesterday and that is what happens

when you have two brethren or two groups

who claimed to have the truth who claimed to have good solid bible evidence and they got two positions and they both cannot be true this is not a case where they could be partly right partly wrong

there might be a higher principle that they both should acknowledge to resolve it but what do you do when you have this this head-on conflict

how do you figure out which is correct

i've already suggested from this handout that one way is to [Music] look at the fruit that's born that is you need to have a little bit of time

or you can evaluate the spirit

of the preacher or the contender because it should be gentle and patient and apt to teach and if there's correction involved it should be with gentleness and so on

but there's another way isn't there

another way to figure out who's right in a matter

and you know it well it's

like this you pick up the book for yourself and you open it up and you look up the evidence and you say

this one makes more sense than the other one [Music]

it's as simple as that

you gotta check it out for yourself

there's no magical answers in evaluating what's right and what's wrong and you really shouldn't have someone else try to tell you

you need to determine it for yourself figure out who's got the better bible case

now here is your time for participation [Music] here's a time to deal with a real

live topic

because

it's a practice in our community

called domestic missionary work

or domestic evangelism uh with the connotation that is pain that is someone who goes with the impeacher and they paid his expenses

now there has been some

rather come out strongly against us

in these sites ii thessalonians chapter 3

verses around verse 10 it says

if anyone doesn't work don't let them eat

and they interpret this to be directly against

this activity [Music]

okay

okay uh just just to show you how strongly they feel on this it reads we wish to notify the brotherhood of a very dangerous practice in which a few creatures are now underneath the endeavor established domestic evangelism this is how it works my brother will volunteer to be a full-time outreach evangelist he features wishes involved with papers room board and transportation

this system is clearly a form of organizational pain ministry and he cites sec second pillars thessalonians at 10 to show that this should not be practiced

so this form of pain ministry is not only unscriptural but it is detrimental to the spiritual warfare of ephesians well

so first of all it's wrong on the bible grounds secondly it's wrong because uh affects

others

in ecclesia that doesn't make him lazier and the last point it makes pain ministry is one of the hallmarks of the heart system and her daughters that is other churches [Music]

now [Music]

on this side

i'm going to ask you to help me develop for a few minutes you have to do thank you

there is justification for this

now i'm going to help you a little bit with this exercise because

this is a it's a

strong word you know you heard the word i i debated whether i read it or not but i thought i would never speak herself

if this is true

we better stop this

and he he said in scripture so where would be the obvious place to walk

start looking at the sanded by the legs

okay

do you know the context of what's going on in here what's paul saying in this passage

you can look it up i'm not expecting there's no commentary but if anyone knows what's what what does paul mean when he says if anyone doesn't work don't let them eat

[Music]

exactly exactly and if you could hear that just i'll try to summarize you're talking about the the near duals guys who were sitting around on a chair all day and doing nothing they weren't working they were uh sponging off the ecclesia

uh sharing that were having things in common and so on as a person who literally wasn't doing any work making no contribution [Music]

and i believe that's the obvious context so the first question is

is that a reasonable relevant verse

to cite if you argue against this

i mean is it even a relevant citation

i would submit

one other aspect

look that we set an example for you that we did not need anyone spreading that pain for us we kept warning you because we might not be a partnership okay good we should ask

[Music]

and he cites that as well and that's that's fair now

what was the example of all it was that he

worked

so that he might not burden anyone

did he do that all the time

just some of the time didn't he

did paul ever get assistance from the kitchen did anyone ever pay for his food expenses and so on

yes he did

so this isn't a universal principle at all

in fact if you look it up you will find that paul says yes

i have set an example this that you should labor day and night

but and if you look i believe it's in corinthians that he's arguing about this [Music]

he says and it's in first corinthians chapter 9

verse 9 which is cited by this there is a a bible precedent

that it's a preacher's right to expect material support

paul however said that he did not do it for a specific reason it was his boast

that he could be different

so that he could undermine the claim of false apostles

but a point to consider in all this it talks about those who labor in the lord and we don't have time to look it up but in

well i this is important enough we should do first timothy chapter

5 verse 17 and 18.

let's look at three verses here

it says let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor especially those who labor in preaching and teaching

or the scripture says you shall not muzzle an ox when the destroying of grain and the laborer deserves his wages

so those who labor in preaching and teaching that is working in the lord that is

so it's not talking about people who don't work these people are working and it's for the lord which is even a higher thing it's like sitting at the feet of jesus only they're trying to help someone else it says they deserve their wages

and in first timothy chapter five

prime minister right there it was in first thessalonians 5 i meant

verse 12.

this too is in the context of verse 14

we exhort you brethren admonish the idol which he does in his second letter but verse 12 says in first thessalonians 5

but we beseech you brethren to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the lord and admonish you

and then first corinthians chapter 6

verse 16

only that's not going to be it

it's going to be chapter 8

verse 16

uh for if i preach the gospel gives me no ground for boasting for necessities laid upon me oh to me if i do not preach the the gospel

but he goes on to say

oh i'm in chapter nine i have misled you i apologize for this

first corinthians chapter 9 and it's verse 14

in the same way the lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel

should get their living by the gospel

seems to me that that's pretty clear this is by paul so when you start looking up all the places where paul talks about it would seem that this is a

legitimate practice

now i think that this is well taken

if it's going to make everybody else lazy then this is not a good thing i believe the experience has been in every case this activity is actually fueled others to get involved

other churches do us

does that make it wrong they read their bibles too

this is a classic fallacy

classic fallacy

and it should be recognized

however if other people do it and if that is determined to be wrong then we shouldn't do it

that's the reason to reject it

so

you've obviously seen which side i've come on but you want to look at the testimony and i thank you jane for adding that other one here that's that's true i didn't want to try and shortchange this it's pretty easy to set up a straw man and destroy it but uh here is a publicized imprint strong warning against activity which i think from some of the classes we've had today that says

we need to preach and this is a way of preaching it strikes me as being something to uh confront and say i don't think that is correct

have you thought of calling in philippians 4

which links up to the situation uh i haven't but i will cite them again philippians chapter 4 verses

10 to 17. it is a is a linkage uh yeah i there are some other places too where he says plainly that he received

um if you looked at my notes i have uh philippians 4 15 to 18

and i just hadn't cited that but that's good he's only too glad to have his needs supplied by others thank you brother

that's right for even in thessalonica you sent me help

people go outside though good point i had missed that and that really makes uh uh a torpedo doesn't it

it's in philippines chapter 4 verse 16

where paul says even in thessalonica you sent help once and again so if his practice was in thessalonica to to not receive any help but only labor with your hands this verse says but that isn't what he was practicing therefore you must understand his admonition to the thessalonians as

those who are being lazy not working at all and not in reference to those who are laboring to preach the word

go ahead john i'm going to ruin my time frame today

post scripture like we should also be careful of what we're accusing because paul is accusing people of being lazy

uh near some of your illusion eyelids and her busy body is not doing any work

that's whose attention and what we're doing is calling what you would say is a domestic missionary a lazy busy body not doing any work yeah

several times yeah i think it's a false accusation and needs to be recognized for what it is all right let me uh hasten here i need a couple of part two

so you have this in your hand

because i'd like you to look at that

what i hope that you saw here is that

so we we who are ordinary people i think

uh can in fact investigate these matters for ourselves

sometimes we're intimidated by by things in prince or by learned brethren i know my wife tells me that i intimidate people and

i don't intend to do that

and and we need to look hard at this business because we are just ordinary people scripture tells us that just because it's in print or because a widely respected brother has said it or because an elder in your ephesia has pronounced a verdict that doesn't make it right

now let me qualify that however

there's no reason to find fault with everything that's in print just because you want to scrutinize it and respect is due to some people because of past service and performance

and it's likely that they are in fact correct in the matter now we just read the passages from first timothy five that would indicate that and the younger are urged to submit to the elders

but as elders who rule well

if they're not ruling well

that becomes a different issue so i'm not advocating a criticism syndrome find fault with everything but rather as far as the rightness of a position is concerned

no one's more learned than this than anybody else it's a fallacy

now in order to help you in that area and i hope it is about this second handout

it's got two sides look at the side that has 12 points on a truth invites investigation now i was hoping to be able to read through all of these points and try to have a comment on them but i can't in terms of time so let me just hit some of the high points number one is by far the most important i believe you need to pray to god for wisdom to accept his word as well as to understand it

it's one thing to understand it but you want it to be accepted in your life so we'll begin to bear fruit

you need to read it carefully for yourself point three

allow the text to explain itself point four

and use simple clear passages as an aid to unraveling the meaning of less clear or more complex passages that's our illustration there

check out the cross references we just did that with the philippians 4 1.

figure out what scripture meant to the initial readers

what it meant then and see if it can apply to ourselves we need to be consistent

with other known information

we can consult with other writings books talk amongst ourselves and we have some here today and again points 11 12 realize that even the study now the discovery here is a means to an end it's not an end in itself it's meant to lead you to a life worthy of the lord and to bear fruit for his glory and those are relevant passages down there now we have some what i consider investigation type books available in our community and i've cited them down there from exploring the bible by brother whittaker [Music]

a biblical approach revelation study a couple of brother norris is understanding the bible i have a mistake here i've attributed him the name about every name as a book it's wrong it's what is his name

apocalypse for every man is is an interesting one too in the sense that one of his contentions and he can certainly confirm this if you want is

everybody has got a good

opportunity to understand it for themselves it isn't a book limited to just a few learned people

and brother alan hayward's book is particularly helpful

god's truth good supportive evidence there for it god is

his latest one creation and evolution the facts and the fallacies i'll talk a bit more about that later but he in writing that burst all kinds of wrong notions that norman fidel had a very disruptive book

he set me straight on a number of matters that's not a pleasant experience let me tell you

flip flip over the sheet [Applause]

some extracts from a little booklet of a person that i know well

just let me read one of the paragraphs that's cited here because it's about john thomas and his rediscovery of bible truth

he was a man who was not afraid to pursue truth regardless of personal cost

john thomas was a pioneer

was not inspired but he approached his bible with a teachable mind

he was not divinely appointed but he often experienced the hand of providence in his life

he was not a genius or a superman but thomas utilized what talents and stamina he possessed in pursuing and working for what he felt was god's truth

no one can have a higher or more noble quest

no one can have a more demanding or satisfying toil

the person who so searches and so works for god will have his reward both in this life [Music] and in the life to come

the work and spirit of this man is greatly to be prized

however i think that some brethren in our community have

missed the point when they assert that we are no longer a community of truth seekers

like brother thomas

but of truth keepers that is he it all and we have yet to maintain it

now there is a bible point it's in first party second timothy 1 14

that we are to guard the truth that has been entrusted to us

but i don't think that means defending it in his purity i believe it means in our own lives we are to make it work rightly

in the sense that we no longer have to investigate bible teaching for ourselves or that we should not question the validity of pioneer works this viewpoint is quite wrong and is quite wrong for two reasons it has a misplaced sense of loyalty to those men certainly john thomas he did not at all approach his investigation that way and the last thing i believe he would have imagined is a group of people who took what he had and decided to squat on it and do nothing more i can't imagine him doing that um

that's like trying to protect their investment by burying it in the ground and we know that that doesn't work

uh what we need to do here or the second reason that i have is it i think it flies in the face of plain bible evidence you know truth invites investigation it demands growth in the disciple it confronts the status quo and it doesn't mean again that what we we formally believed or inherited is wrong it just means that there may be better

interpretations or explanations because we have more information available

brother thomas

did exactly the right thing he pursued his investigation and used all the available evidence

but he was wrong in some matters especially the return of christ how do i know that because christ hasn't come back yet that's how i know he was wrong and submitted he was wrong but am i am i trying to grind him in the ground no

he made a mistake

brethren make mistakes i make mistakes you make mistakes we'd be perfect people if we didn't make mistakes

it was just incomplete because we've got more information today than he had so we must go on

we must realize we're shortchanging ourselves if we don't incorporate new and helpful information in our understanding of scriptures in both our personal life and in our prophetic outlook

you know women's place in society changed a lot the arabs role in the middle east just to cite two things and it's not an abdication of past teaching this isn't like removing the ancient landmarks it's a continual upbuilding on a foundation and that foundation is christ not the righteous of men and if we come across material that doesn't enhance the the building then we throw it away if we come across material that does build upon it let's keep it and incorporate it our job is more than maintenance

our job is development

realize there's a balance in scripture you can find one verse that says judge not lest you be judged and judge among yourselves

don't answer a fool answer for you can find balances in scripture he that is not with me is against me he who is not against me is for me you know you need to reconcile those those are apparent inconsistencies but they're not there are some viewpoints that are not mutually exclusive

to strengthen the things that remain is not mutually exclusive from go out and witness and let your light shine both are necessary both complement each other

and finally we must realize our obligation to be personally preparing for the coming king

if we're growing spiritually

it's inevitable that our thinking will mature

and that means that our understanding will be constantly changing and that means that our appreciation of god's truth will be constantly changing and our preaching efforts will be adapted accordingly

to not be changing is a sign of stagnation deterioration and ultimately death

we cannot depend upon the oil or someone else we must individually grow an understanding and grace

in order to be prepared

Transcript

porterson pointed out to me just an excellent verse it's in second corinthians 13

verse 8.

when we're talking about contention and controversy

paul writes and i won't deal with the context here for we cannot do anything against the truth but only for the truth

it's akin to his writing to the philippians chapter 1 15-18 where he says

i'm in jail and some are preaching christ to make me

uh afflicted

and

they do it out of contention but

whether it's at a contention or whether it's at a good most of motives i rejoice because at least christ is being preached

concerning the issue of paid ministry one of the reasons i raised it is because it was publicized it's been in print and it's a direct charge in our community and i think it's a responsibility for brethren to investigate such serious charges

in fact i've talked to some of the people involved in it and i have in fact corresponded with them so i just wanted to alert you that it wasn't setting something up just to attack [Music]

one of the references i was making in it i'd said first corinthians chapter 6 16

it's actually first corinthians 16 16

you understand the embarrassment if you find out what's in chapter 6 16.

basically what it says it was should we support such workers or laborers and the verse reads i urge you to be subject to such men and to every fellow worker and laborer and it's in the context of giving the contribution to the saints in jerusalem so it's a monetary matter but also for timothy when he comes put him at ease among you for he's doing the work of the lord as i am and i think putting him at ease doesn't necessarily make him feel comfortable in your conversation as it is you want to put him up you want to take care of him

and finally for the

the list of suggestions that i gave yesterday at least for how to uh things to go about and discovering your bible please take that as a guideline not as a directive it's a list of suggestions to consider these aren't the step-by-step things to go through in fact i know some of you will have discovered if you're planning to get the tapes there is a lot of information on the notes and you really need to have a copy that and if anyone orders these tapes and doesn't have the notes they can order them from wcf i think they're kind of important obviously i haven't taken the time to read through the points

that's just supplemental information

you won't necessarily have the totality of things on the tape

so yesterday we determined that truth confronts

that is it challenges each person who comes into contact with it we know that the bible obviously challenges the reader

obey the word of the lord

and jesus certainly challenges his disciples know if any man would come after me let him take up his cross and follow me

and god definitely challenges people in malachi put me to the test see if i will not open the windows of heaven for you

yet in the challenge is the appeal to investigate and thus truth invites investigation

and yesterday's class also began to discuss how you can determine the validity of a viewpoint by measuring it against your own bible understanding something that you can and should do

today we'll build on that and discuss specifically what i mean by validity and how to develop a valid argument using relevant bible evidence let me give you some definitions

argument a reason offered in proof for or against a thing from argue to prove by reasoning to discuss to persuade by debate

valid

sound or well grounded capable being justified [Music]

evidence that which makes clear to the vision obvious ground for belief testimony proof information in a case attestation corroboration

relevant

bearing upon the case in hand pertinent

now sometimes when you hear this word argument

oh no they're a fight this is that fist the verbal fisticuffs here well

let me issue a preliminary caution here

when we argue

we shouldn't presume

that because we are a say christadelphian

that we're right because we happen to have that label or position we found out from yesterday some of the fallacies because you have a certain label or status that isn't what makes you right

it's whether you can reduce

the best or the better bible evidence

so you must be willing to demonstrate the correctness by developing and presenting valid bible evidence and be willing to defend your case by relevant references and or examples

now in argumentation there's a there's a plea i would make as well

it's a plea for gentleness no paul is an excellent example of this i think uh through the acts we find that he was arguing pleading debating for the sober truth the references there are acts 17

3

17 18 4 19 26 24 25 26 25 explains peru's confronts

and yet he wasn't hostile or abusive in any of these things when they had the big showdown and acts in ephesus he was exonerated he never brought any thing upon any bad sayings against the uh diana the the false goddess and the and the people itself and that's in acts 19 37 and 23

29

so in spite of the hostility that paul encountered

he would write this and he writes it to timothy ii timothy you might want to look this up but i'll read it verses 23 to 25 and i know it's been referred to already in this bible school

have nothing to do with stupid senseless controversies you know that they breed quarrels and the lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone an apt teacher

forbearing that is being patient

correcting his opponents with gentleness

god may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth now this is important sometimes this is read as uh we're talking about opponents who need to repent and come to knowledge of the truth therefore this must apply to our conversations with people inside the christodolphine community but that's not true

the context of this is how timothy is dealing with the problems in the ecclesia

so it certainly refers to our

[Music]

presentation of our beliefs to people outside in fact this is somewhat ironic you may have perceived this but for example we might have an individual come to our ecclesia and visit and and we're kindly and we fall over them and welcome them and so on like that

but

if there's someone from another ecclesia or horror is another fellowship that comes and sits there

you won't give them the time of day pretend they're not even there

cold

hostile

and that's not right is it

this says we shouldn't be that way

certainly if they're wrong in whatever state they are we are to because we're under an obligation here behave this way towards them so finally in talking about argumentation an exhortation for humility

you

and i when i say you i'm talking about myself here should be willing to acknowledge that the wholeness has not been mastered which is a very fancy way of saying you don't know everything

and that a better understanding of a subject is always possible

now

i've got another handout i waited until

a few side

and if i can get a couple of colors

what you want to do is look at the sign that says

ways of reaching a valid conclusion

and although it might be really difficult for you don't turn it over and look at the other side

this is an exercise in self-control [Music]

what this page is

are some things again this is not a comprehensive total list and you shouldn't go away feeling ah now i've got it down i know just follow these steps and i never have to think about it again not so these are suggestions

basically it's in two parts on this page the the first and i've got them itemized from a to j these are

examples of what i mean by evidence and argumentation

and then the second part is i've tried to illustrate what i mean by the foregoing and at the bottom i talk about some approaches that i'll talk about in a moment

let's just go through that from the top

explicit text which includes the terms or ideas under consideration

an example i'm going to be using through all this is using the the serpent

and what i mean is when you look up the verse in the argument it should use the term serpent in the verse that's explicit it's got the term in it

b definitions given in the text itself or from the same author in a similar context and all those points are true

an example for this that the serpent being a literal but subtle creature says so in genesis 3

symbolically the deceiver of the whole world and that's explicitly given in revelation chapter 12.

now in dealing with this term devil it's used as a label

described as the accuser of our brethren that's in revelation 12. we have other places where definitions are used judas is a devil

woman slanderers

right

now point c original language meaning as verified by bible usage

and i've listed there the hebrew terms for serpent

and also the greek one interesting when it comes to devil it's only a new testament term it's not in the old testament but they are distinct terms with distinct meanings although obviously they have a connection

point d multiple lines of confirmation from context that is the media versus around a passage and cross references here's where your marginal cross references and your notes that you take from bible schools and bible classes these are wonderful things to have

and

for examples here it's the serpent is a deceiver and an accuser it says so revelation 12 a liar and a murderer from the beginning john 8

a lawless one from the beginning first john 3

associated with human nature and you'll see that the equivalence of the numbers in john passage i'll talk about that in a moment symbol of human nature the seed of sin and you get that by the equivalence of hebrews 2 and romans 6 and 8.

so you sort of jump around and you try to put things together to see if they fit

now there's this thing called inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning points e and f and it's basically how you approach something whether it's from a set of logic rules or whether there's a number of cases that you do inference from

and the examples here under e and f

the serpent is a creature

used to illustrate the innate hostility of human nature toward god

the devil is a term

used to personify human nature in his various manifestations like other references there and so i think that this serpent is the basis for the devil you certainly and for the for sin you get this in the numbers 21 passage john 3 hebrews 2 and roman 8 so there are passages that you've encountered before you can see that obviously none of these references overlap

and inductively apparently deductively the temptation of jesus it's from within you know he's tempted by the devil doesn't say and yet we know from james 1 mark 7

that all temptation comes from within from your own human lust and so on

so it's first the natural then the spiritual that principle in first corinthians 15.

[Music]

point g reasoning from a demonstrably parallel situation

jesus reasons against the pharisees that they are in fact murderers like their father the devil in john 8. and paul is concerned that the judaizers are the serpent beguilers in second corinthians 11.

point h reasoning from a type or example jesus does this explicitly

he quotes moses raising up the serpent in the wilderness as an example of him being raised up on the cross and the picture that this conjures up in my mind is you have a dead serpent on a pole

and jesus equates himself with a dead serpent on a pole now the equivalency between those two has far reaching consequences which i don't propose to go into

point i harmonizing with previously known or agreed upon texts and doctrines an example here

adam was the one that brought sin into the world not the serpent and not the devil

it's a well established teaching i think romans 5 12 says explicitly and jay

it doesn't conflict with established first principles and this is a good one the illustration here is we know that god takes full responsibility for all the evil that's in the world not sin but all the evil that's in the world and i cited isaiah 45 7 which in the authorize is clear and amos 3 6 which talks about is there not evil in a city and there's a number of passages like that god says i bring evil upon mankind he does this in the context of duo dualistic uh deities that the persians had a god of god a god of evil god of light a guarded darkness and god said uh-uh there's only one god and i do them both

therefore this is in the argumentation against a devil which is kind of a pseudo god

it isn't any devil running around that causes evil in the world god says he does

so points a through j are some ways that you could identify valid evidence and string them together in an argument

and there are some basic general approaches and i know virtually all of them i got here except possibly the last one have been discussed here at the bible school over the years this uh deductive versus inductive reasoning i know it's been talked about who will forget brother todd treadway's explicit versus implicit classes

techniques asking the right questions

this is something that brother whitaker presents in his exploring the bible

using the right model this is a good example by david levin let me illustrate because not all of you would be familiar with that he said

you've got right doctrines and right behavior and they're kind of on a teeter-totter with a fulcrum in the middle now which is more important right teaching

or right behavior

how do you bounce up where you put

the trick with this is it's the wrong model

that is the bible doesn't present truth that way as behavior and beliefs that's true that belief and behavior are together for they're not put in a balanced situation truth is presented

as a tree

all the fruits of the spirit up here it's rooted and grounded in love so that's a model or the picture that the bible presents and so we although it's convenient for us to have little models or pictures to help us understand we need to make sure that we are not introducing an inappropriate model or a skeleton or structure or paradigm whatever term you want to use when we come to look at scripture

now what i've done

is i'm now going to introduce a term that some of you will already know from my ezekiel study but it's a term i call goodness fit

that is how well does the conclusion you're proposing or arguments you're proposing fit with other known information does it fit the pattern is it the same as others does it ring true

and there's some uh corollaries to this

one measure

if this is true does it lead to confusion or inconsistency or or even to an absurdity that's one logical thing you can take someone's argument and syllogistically go through the logic rules and end up with an absurdity or a known falseness you can say aha the conclusion is false therefore you go back and you knock out the initial premise and defeat a person's argument

is the explanation unnecessarily complicated

if it is and i find this in myself if i start

blathering on here and multiplying words it shows that i've got a confused mind which is true

and it shows that i don't really understand it that well and when you find something that comes across complicatedly all the time

like it might be me it might be you but if all the time is that it sort of says this probably isn't quite right it's gotta be an easier way now i say that notwithstanding remember we had yesterday truth is complex it's got many angles

many approaches there's only one truth and that is unchanging because god is one and he's unchanging but the way we as human beings approach it or understand it there's a motive to the ways there

so

you can still find simple things and layer them on and come up with a complex situation

and finally is the interpretation dependent on information outside the bible itself that's what i mean by extra biblical information it isn't extra bible information it's information outside the bible

so

i tell you all that

so i can do my little comparison here now those of you who are here in the introduction talk i will try in four minutes or less to describe when i'm trying to stay here this was some of the conclusions that i determined after reading the columbus article looking for the true landfall which is totally inconsequential but it's not a bad model for me

intentions for this they just blew the other guy out of the water by saying that's obviously wrong you don't even have to consider that

they brought in an expert who was a biographer of columbus and he said there's one another place it's wattling

he's a scholar he published the stuff he sailed through his bahama track once and he looked at the ferris wheel and that was good that looks good and we brought it up

and he assumed that the

going across the atlantic ocean that there was negligible effect by wind and current and he just happened to be an admiral he had two other

guys in the same status as him so the case was shocked

until ordinary people came along and said

that isn't right

for these reasons

and by the time it was all over their proposal said we'll take columbus's law and translate it for herself and make sure we got all the right-based information they found independently two sources of the exact measure of the league in terms of nautical miles

they decided you have to account for the current and the league were addressed

i mean that's real life you can't say it's in concept but so it is

so they took all their figures and they just adjusted them and they reconciled by all the columbus sightings of attitude and multitude

they used computer simulation to break up these numbers and also that these masses he labeled with the ottoman square what probable forces were and they sailed their proposals several times and they stopped and got out went in the island took the side into the from the uh beaches and dark places in the sand and see it right

they cross checked all of this from a certain crossface that was a common ground to everyone

and came up with this being an answer

plus what they're going to do is confirm by building a whole black community starting off from the canary islands and sailing and seeing where they end up they might hold us up on their eye they don't know either but they're willing to go check out and what i was trying to deduce from this is

just because it's imprint by scholars doesn't make it right

now this is not chevy work don't get me wrong

and they did the right thing this was the best information they had available

and they fit a lot of the points to us no he went out in the chest he sailed to the track that's all right

but

it turns out that there is a better way

of looking at the situation

no we've got computers down here we didn't have any computers back there i think we have simulation graphics

but we got better tools so why not use them

truth invites investigation so he was something good

he didn't have that before morrison did not now they got some real issues they got a critical piece of information that was missing before

one of the reasons why he didn't want to make an adjustment that's a lot of hard work to go through every one of those daily sightings and translate and reconcile it's a lot of work to do he said negligible but it isn't so we got the tools to do that

hard evidence they went through several times to do it check it out cross reference nurture and what this in my mind is a demonstration of goodness fit

this fits a lot better than this

with a caviar there maybe when they do it from the original all the parameters are the same they might even find a better sign

not that it may seem a difference in that case so they're still willing to investigate the matter

well now is where i'm going to get some participation from yourselves this is why i wanted you not to turn over the sheet so if you've turned it over and are peeking at it

turn it back over so you won't know this

i'm going to apply this goodness fit model

to understanding some of the things in the book of revelation so you ready

first question

and this is one of our guidelines what did the book mean to the original recipients

it's my general question

and actually you don't have to answer a couple of these things here and these are going to be more rhetorical for the first part

um

verse 11 in chapter one [Music]

says that the whole book it isn't just seven letters that were sent to the seven equation write in a book and send it to the seven churches

it was events that would soon take place verse one in chapter one

and that in fact the whole book had to be understood and applied by the seven ecclesias is confirmed by revelation chapter 22 verse 16.

testimony for the churches

all right

the the evidence there the whole book is relevant to the initial hears

since that's true

if the traditional continual historical approach is correct

then the original recipient of the book

his understanding of revelation would be

the futurist interpretation right

that's syllogistic logic and you can't get out of it

but so what i mean what have i proven there all i've done is taken maybe a little point and said all right the guys who first got it if everything is really all future as demanded by continuous historical then they have a futurist outlook

oh that says well of course

there's nothing wrong with a label called futurist or praetorius or continue historical because you have any one of those interpretations doesn't make you right or wrong we just use it for convenience but sometimes and it's been in print that they say whoever is a futurist

is bad

and they got all these connotations that they built on it well brothers and sisters the original recipients if continue historicals right we're all futurists at the beginning

they had to be

that's what logic will lead you to anyhow

but much more relevant what what information and here's where you can participate if you were a believer in ephesus

21st century

regardless of the date of this because there's two of the 80 70 80 96 because it's a time of persecution what information would you have

to understand this book when you got see you got the book comes in what other information would you have in your opinion book stall or your home library to check this out

[Music]

you know this from your your bibles

you have people with a spirit and you find the inspired people around it could help you check it out that's right

apostolic input all right so there might be some people that will help you understand it i'm thinking of some uh

tangible evidence

go through the 66 books of the bible starting from the new testament and there is one thing there that would probably

and

an event took place in apps where your elders went to top

right acts chapter 20

where paul tells them things that are going to happen in the future

so if you got the old testament prophets and if you got

them on all the prophecy you got apostolic input from paul who's given a warning and he's got that in a letter that he's written to you and he's got the advice to your elders who are there and you may have had timothy on her off the spot

you've got a lot of things going for you and suddenly you get this book it's got specific information for you and you're a pleasure you're the first one but the whole book

how do you fit that information

things shortly to come to pass

well i think

that their connection say with the monolith prophecy and how jesus

outlined that

he talked about a lot of things that appear in the book of revelation

in a very abbreviated form and one of the things he obviously talked about in the mount of prophecy was the impending overthrow of jerusalem

and all the ramifications of that

so one piece of information and you see this in my notes this might be a good point to consider

if you were a first century believer to understand what this book meant

and may in fact help determine how we should date the writing of revelation whether it was an early 80-70 date which would then allow for the fall of jerusalem interpretation or whether it was a later one which interpretation better fits the evidence

now the second area

we know that revelation is a book of symbols

apocalypse is a term for use

if you were to pick

one prophet or book in the old testament that provides the most clues

or keys to understanding the book of revelation

but what would you choose i'll listen to some suggestions

daniel and who is another another ezekiel oh my do i like you uh daniel made lots and lots of diagnosis and one lone ezekiel voice and you weren't even at wilmington oh do i like you

well it's so good because you're you're going to uh lead into my point here obviously daniel is a source i mean you got the beast they come right out of daniel and you've got the time periods michael the archangel got these pictures of angels the manifestations of the angels whether it's from chapter 1 or chapter 10

and by the way if you're not too familiar with the contents of the book of revelation that doesn't matter you don't have to know that to understand what i'm saying here

but after that there's not a whole lot that daniel really says

that is explicitly or even implicitly brought up in revelation except that there's going to be a kingdom and so on however when you look at the book of ezekiel

you start at chapter one two and three and suddenly you get whole chapters

multitudes of references in fact my study on it there is probably only five or six chapters out of 48 in ezekiel that did not have a specific tie-in with the book of revelation and one real good example is

john is in patmos in exile

ezekiel is in exile isn't he

we know what ezekiel's message is he's outside the land

writing to people who are also outside the land and what's his subject matter

the impending fall of jerusalem

the gentile overthrow

the repentance and the restoration of israel

he's caught up in the spirit of the lord's day you see all these visions of the caribbean

he sees heavenly jerusalem later on he sees this temple and just multitude of things

john [Music]

writes to ecclesias who are outside the land and now this might begin to be the pattern what can be what could be his subject matter it could be if he's patterned off of ezekiel talking about the impending destruction of jerusalem

and the gentile oppressor in their repentance

and their eventual restoration

and i think there is a much better goodness fit between ezekiel in revelation than daniel daniel isn't inconsequential don't get me wrong but ezekiel is a much better fit provides what i think a much better pattern and we will see this in a moment or three

conclusion of that point however is

there's a pattern

that is helpful

just like the mount olivet prophecy has at least two applications whether you take the whole prophecy and apply it twice first to the initial years and then to the last days or only go through part of it and say that applied to the first century in the last part the last days

that's the the praise here the book of revelation it's jesus prophecy in the book of revelation and there's all kinds of correspondences between the two we would expect therefore to have more than one application of the book of revelation and ezekiel therefore supportive of the oliver prophecy which makes that [Music] dual application

a good fit

now

here's something for you to answer

in the book of revelation

who is the real enemy of the believer

what does the enemy defined as being in the book of revelation

the beast that's one candidate

anybody else the beast persecutes the saints

that's a good choice any other suggestions

[Music]

and i believe that's right it's in chapter 12. in fact the text says so explicitly and the reason i felt that this was a fair question is we just went through all the references in the handout on the front side right what does it say

it's talking about the war in heaven verse 9 and the great dragon was thrown down that ancient serpent who is called the devil and satan the deceiver of the whole world he was thrown down to the earth and he's described further in verse 10

the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down he accuses him day and night and how was this dragon devil serpent conquered

by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony for they love not their lies even unto death

now if you can get out of your mind whatever you think chapter 12 means

because it's highly symbolic you don't have a great red dragon with these seven heads and horns and throwing down a third of the stars of heaven it's obviously a symbol of something but we got the text defining what it is it says it's the ancient serpent it's the genesis serpent by the way it's called the devil oh it's also called satan it's the accuser of our brethren and [Music] this this is a symbol for sin isn't it

so the real enemy in the book of revelation is

sin

where's sin dwell

right here

that's the enemy the real enemy in the book of revelation it's always been that way from genesis is that way in the book of revelation

why then do you think that someone would take revelation chapter 12

and not emphasize that point

this is the first principle isn't it

so they certainly could have understood it that way in the first century we can certainly understand it that way and alternative interpretations and i'm going to speak whether they're right or wrong

if they don't get this first principle emphasize and say here's the real enemy not the beast not some political power not some perhaps arguable religious system that's not the enemy of the saints the enemy of the saints the enemy believers is

yourself

that's what's covered in this book

so what i'm saying

if of all the chapters i think chapter 12 is one of the most symbolic ones

but it defines itself

i mean the definition is really clear there i think and we don't have to go outside the bible to figure out what this is talking about

it tells us itself

but you might be thinking

what about

the heart

and the persecution of the saints got the blood of the saints in her so it says

beast is also persecuted saints by the way and the heart it is never said to be an alliance with the beast although it fornicates with it to the kings

and

there's this said about

the harlot and i'm going to cite some verses

here chapter 17 verse 5

which is verse 6 saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of jesus

and verse 24 and chapter 18 in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who've been slain on earth

where must every prophet be killed according to

jesus he said a prophet it cannot be that a prophet die away from [Music]

jerusalem matthew 23 verse 37 confirmed in luke 11

verse 50 and 13

now this great city in the book of revelation described in chapter 11 verse 18 says

actually verse 8 sorry chaplain forsake and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city and this is where the two prophets were killed

chapter 11 the two witnesses the two prophets

lie in the street of the great city which is allegorically called sodom and egypt allegorically called sodom and evil egypt you need to find some place in the old testament where a city is called sodom

or egypt you might look at the reference in isaiah chapter one of that but in case we couldn't find those it says where their lord was crucified

and what's the answer to that

okay that was pretty easy and you're right

now regardless of any interpretation of the book you've got these facts these are facts bible facts and you need to fit your interpretation around them

if you're just reading the book and you come to chapter 17 you come across

a woman verse 3

sitting on a scarf beast which was full of blasphemous names and did seven heads and ten horns and john to see this is carried away into the wilderness

where if at all do you encounter a woman in the book of revelation previous to this

it's in chapter 12

and you left the woman in chapter 12

fleeing into the wilderness so you pick her up again in chapter 17

as being in the wilderness

and it's a woman you would think then there's an obvious connection between the two and there are so again any interpretation must make that connection

how was the woman described

in chapter 12

well you take the symbolism of chapter 12

hold with

son moon on her feet 12 stars associated with her you know where in the bible you start getting that terminology and you can see again there's at least an israel connection there might be more but there's at least that now

one other thing

when the harlot is destroyed in chapter 17 it's destroyed by the beast and the horns says so in verse 16 they're devoured desolated burned with fire

however in chapter 16

the great city is destroyed by the great earthquake which splits it into three parts god remembers great babylon to make her drain the cup of the fury of his wrath

now the question to ask

are these destructions the same

or are they different

if they're different then how do you account for the difference

well i'll leave you hanging on that one

that is said

to clearly represent rome because

of the seven hills characteristic rome is the only reasonable city that has that characteristic and notwithstanding what some brother has suggested that jerusalem when we sit in on his and he tries to scrounge over seven that doesn't satisfy nearly enough is rome being probably the best candidate

reminding that interpretation of rome being that characteristic i think happened many years after the book of revelation was said but

look at what the book says

it says

seven hands

represent seven hills

they also represent seven kings or kingdoms

since five are past one is and one is future

it goes on to say

because the woman is seated

on the hills

it's equivalent to many walkers

which are interpreted in your text to mean

peoples multitudes nations and tongues

in other words

the text in talking about seven hills is not referring to topography at all it is not talking about seven literal hills these are symbolic of something and what are they symbolic of the text says many waters that is people as multitudes nations and towns as distinct from israel these are gentiles

well how does that fit with these 17

year kingdoms five past

it's not too difficult to find

five kingdoms or empires

are to run rome will be the one that is and we start going backwards what would they be you know persian right back in greece

[Music]

all gentile oppressors

one future one to come one last day application that we don't know

and a critical point that is often not perceived where is the harlot

seated which is on the beach right

on the back of the beach right

wrong

it's on the hills

but the nose are the hands the woman's on the heads

where the horns are and that's what destroyed her it is not a picture of a harvest woman in control of the beast but a heart of woman who is about to be destroyed by your lovers and that's a very different picture the text says so this is not my interpretation

so

given those

what is a goodness fit well let's look at ezekiel

ezekiel says something about harlots

and the land being the mother of hearths in chapter 16

ezekiel says a lot about a harlot jerusalem being destroyed by her lovers so there's at least two real clear connections with that

jeremiah 25 talks about a cup a cup of abominations a cup of fury that starts first with jerusalem

and is handed around all the gentile nations in babylon is the last one to drink it ah so there's a distinction between jerusalem babylon and that's right

it certainly was historically but it gives us a clue

as to the two destructions of jerusalem because if you've got a jewish occupied jerusalem

that's destroyed by her lovers as one in ezekiel and the beast takes over the throne of the beast is set up it's gentile occupied

it's babylon babylon aspect then is now not jewish but gentile when christ comes back

montevallo's split

it is the throne of the beast that's destroyed it's the gentile aspect jerusalem and that's the chapter 16

destruction

there's other things that i could induce to that but basically

[Music] i think i'm one minute over time let me take one more minute here

those are some facts to fit i think there's a goodness fit for jerusalem and the harlot here but the point of it the real enemy then is not some system it's not a political system it's not a religious system [Music] it's in ourselves jesus prophecy matthew 24 luke 21 matthew 24 3

time says

watch out for false prophets they can deceive even the elect and i'm not trying to minimize that there are false religious political systems there are apostate people i'm not trying to say there's not what i am trying to point out is the personal application to ourselves and jesus and his luke 21

discourse put it this way

but take heed to yourselves

lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life and that they come upon you suddenly like a snare for it will come upon all who dwell upon the face of the whole earth in other words watch the real enemy yourself

how do you watch it

watch at all times praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that will take place

to stand before the son of man

you can turn over your sheets now and see what i say