Spiritual Blindness - A Thorough Understanding of Error – Purity 973
Purity 973 02/22/2023 Purity 973 Podcast
Purity 973 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the sun shining over the Atlantic
Ocean from the point of view of the Springmaid Pier in Myrtle Beach SC comes to
us from yours truly as this New Yorker was delighted to be experiencing 80
degrees and sunshine and had to capture the moment as my wife and I checked out
the immediate surroundings of what will be our home away from home for three
nights.
Well it’s Wednesday, and even though we just got
here yesterday, we will have already reached the midway point of our stay by
day’s end and so I would remind each one of us to appreciate today for what it
is because no matter where this last “hump day” of February finds you
physically, emotionally, or spiritually, time will keep on marching forward. So
we should appreciate where we are and try to find peace now, joy now with a
sense of gratitude and contentment.
No, my vacation will not last forever but I get to
enjoy it today. And as hard as it may believe, for those of you working, some
day your job and career will come to an end, even if it means your life should
expire before you retire! So whether you
are working or not, realize that the joy we have in life is greatly affected by
our perspective or our world view.
Last night after surveying the lay of the land near
our resort, I lead the participants of the
Freedom in Christ course that I facilitate on Zoom to consider the “world’s
view of the truth” and how it presents false equations of how we can feel
accepted, significant, and secure. The
lesson demonstrated this with the following equations:
· Performance + Accomplishments = Significance
· Status + Recognition = Security
· Appearance + Admiration = Acceptance
These equations can seem to make sense and cause us
to try to earn our significance, security, and acceptance in the world but the
truth is revealed when those equations don’t add up. The biographies of over achievers and the
best and brightest among us often reveal that even the ultra rich and
successful can be thoroughly dissatisfied with their lives even after they
accomplished all their goals, were admired by the masses, or had all the financial
resources to keep them in the lap of luxury for the rest of their lives.
The reason why these equations don’t add up is
because they don’t seek to answer the big questions of life and death and their
ultimate purpose and meaning according to the Creator of Life, God.
This weeks lesson also looked at the different world
views in regards of science, spirituality, and relativism by examining the western,
non-western, and post-modern world views and how they present a false picture
of reality. According the lesson:
The Western view generally bases their view of
reality based on what can be determined by science (what’s observable) and it
tends to all but deny the spiritual or supernatural possibilities of life.
The Non-Western worldview – on the other hand while
it may believe in science and what’s observable, not only believes in “spirits”
or the supernatural aspects of life but believes that those forces should be
respected and can be manipulated for good or bad.
The Post modern world view tends to be relativistic because
it tends to define its “own truth” based on personal experience.
All of these views offer up an explanation of
reality that would deny the truth of God’s word and the Biblical worldview. The rules of science, the practices of
animistic or pantheistic religions that seek to manipulate the “spirits”, and “doing
whatever is right in our own eyes” would
not lead one to the conclusion that eternal life is secured through faith in
Jesus Christ. The truth of God’s word,
in the Bible, is the only source of truth that would lead one to the ultimate
acceptance, security, and significance that we all were made to experience. God’s equation for obtaining acceptance, significance,
and security is for us to receive them from Him, the creator of all things and
the author of life and truth, through the way He established – through faith in
Jesus Christ.
As Christians, we understand this and we are
increasingly experiencing the reality of it as we grow in our faith. Our deepest desire is to help other people to
“see the truth” too!
In our discussion, we addressed the fact that our
modern society has muddied the waters of “seeing the light” because it presents
the view that “all roads lead to heaven” and that one view of reality is as
good as any other. But as nice as the
idea of ‘coexistence” can be, the fact that all the different religions and
world philosophies about life present alternate explanations for “the way
things work” indicates that they can’t all be true.
One of the men who works with youth as a counselor
was particularly concerned about how several of the youth has counseled seem to
have a well grounded understanding of the various religions and philosophies
out there but seemed to be completely oblivious to the possibility of the objective
reality that there really is a God that they could have a relationship with or
to consider that they will be accountable with what they do with their lives to
Him.
This man’s description of his counselees indicated
that everything is just a theory to them., that they seem to have a such thorough
understanding of all the possible explanations of reality out there but it doesn’t
seem that they have considered that only one view could be true, and that they
would thus be subject to that truth. On
the contrary, their lack of concern of being “right with God”, would indicate
that they are incapable of believing that any of the possibilities are “real”.
They can tell you what the various religions believe but they couldn’t tell you
whether or not what they taught was true. Their thorough understanding seemed
to stop shy of evaluating the truth claims of each possibility to determine
what was true. They essentially have a
thorough understanding of error and thus are all the more spiritually blinded
to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Their “open minds” would in effect keep them closed
off from salvation because they have made the personal decision that there is no
absolute truth, that somehow the contradictions and inconsistencies of the belief
that all points of view are equally valid when it comes to ultimate reality
didn’t penetrate through the accumulation of understanding the different views
of life.
This all of course reveals the reality of the
spiritual forces of darkness, the powers and principalities, that would raise up
any other possibility except Jesus to lead the people of this world to
destruction.
2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (NKJV)
4 For the weapons of our
warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,
5 casting down arguments and
every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing
every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
While only the Holy Spirit can reveal
the truth of the gospel to anyone to bring them to salvation, our part is to
lovingly stand in the gap and to point out the inconsistencies of the world’s
various views of reality and lead people to consider the truth of God’s word
and to apply it to their lives personally.
We are to cast down the arguments the world makes by telling the truth
of Jesus Christ and imploring them to make a personal decision to apply it to
their lives by making Jesus the Lord of their lives.
There are various theories of how to do
evangelism of course but the emphasis should always be to present Christ as God’s
answer for life and how we individually must examine this thing called life and
choose what we will believe, not in theory, but in practice because it will be
what we do with what we have learned that will be what determines the quality
and future of our lives.
So keep walking and talking with God and be ready to give an explanation for the hop you have in Christ because when you can tell someone why you believe and what your faith in Christ has done in your life, you may be used by the Lord to open the eyes of the blind and to set the captives free.
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Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verses are:
Philippians
4:8-9 (NLT2)
8 And now, dear brothers and
sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and
right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are
excellent and worthy of praise.
9 Keep putting into practice
all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me
doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.
Today’s Bible verses remind us how to
think as Christians and calls us to be “real” in our faith to receive the fruit
of the Spirit of peace.
The Apostle Paul presents us with the
means of having peace. We are to think on things that are true, honorable, right,
pure, and lovely, admirable excellent, and worthy of praise, the things of God
as revealed in the Bible, and to put everything
we learn from it into practice. TO have
peace, we need to believe and practice what the Lord teaches us.
That’s what being a disciple of Jesus
and finding peace is all about. So think about those things and do those things
that the Lord would have you do and share the recipe of peace that comes
through faith in Jesus Christ to the world that desperately needs it.
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink’s “The
Sovereignty of God.”
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage all to purchase A.W. Pink’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available on
many websites for less than $20.00.
THE
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
By ARTHUR W. PINK
CHAPTER SEVEN
GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY AND THE HUMAN WILL
2. The Bondage of the Human Will
In any treatise that proposes to deal with
the human will, its nature and functions, respect should be had to the will in
three different men, namely, unfallen Adam, the sinner, and the Lord Jesus
Christ. In unfallen Adam the will was free,
free in both directions, free toward
good and free toward evil. Adam was created in a state of innocency but not in a state of holiness, as is so often assumed
and asserted. Adam’s will was therefore in a condition of moral equipoise: that
is to say, in Adam there was no constraining bias in him toward good or evil, and as such Adam differed
radically from all his descendants, as well as from “the Man Christ Jesus.” But
with the sinner it is far otherwise. The sinner is born with a will that is not in a condition of moral equipoise,
because in him there is a heart that is “deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked,” and this gives him a
bias toward evil. So, too, with the Lord Jesus it was far otherwise: He
also differed radically from unfallen Adam. The Lord Jesus Christ could not sin because He was “the Holy
One of God.” Before He was born into this world it was said to Mary, “The Holy
Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow
thee: therefore also that Holy Thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).
Speaking reverently then we say, that the will of the Son of Man was not in a condition of moral equipoise,
that is, capable of turning toward either good or evil. The will of the Lord
Jesus was biased toward that which is
good because, side by side with His sinless, holy, perfect humanity, was
His eternal Deity. Now in contradistinction from the will of the Lord Jesus
which was biased toward good, and Adam’s will which, before his fall, was in a
condition of moral equipoise—capable of turning toward either good or evil—the sinner’s will is biased toward evil, and therefore is free in one direction only,
namely, in the direction of evil. The sinner’s will is enslaved because it is in bondage to and is the servant of a
depraved heart.
In what does the
sinner’s freedom consist? This question is naturally suggested by what we have
just said above. The sinner is ‘free’ in the sense of being unforced from without. God never forces the sinner to sin. But the sinner
is not free to do either good or evil
because an evil heart within is ever inclining him toward sin. Let us
illustrate what we have in mind. I hold in my hand a book. I release it; what
happens? It falls. In which direction? Downwards; always downwards. Why?
Because, answering the law of gravity, its own weight sinks it. Suppose I
desire that book to occupy a position three feet higher; then what? I must lift
it; a power outside of that book must raise it. Such is the relationship which
fallen man sustains toward God. Whilst Divine power upholds him he is preserved
from plunging still deeper into sin; let that power be withdrawn and he
falls—his own weight (of sin) drags him down. God does not push him down
anymore than I did that book. Let all Divine restraint be removed and every man
is capable of becoming, would become, a Cain, a Pharaoh, a Judas. How then is
the sinner to move heavenward? By an act of his own will? Not so. A power
outside of himself must grasp hold of him and lift him every inch of the way.
The sinner is free, but free in one
direction only—free to fall, free to sin. As the Word expresses it: “For when
ye were the servants of sin, ye were free
from righteousness” (Rom. 6:20). The sinner is free to do as he pleases,
always as he pleases (except as he is restrained by God), but his pleasure is
to sin.
In the opening
paragraph of this chapter we insisted that a proper conception of the nature
and function of the will is of practical importance, nay, that it constitutes a
fundamental test of theological orthodoxy or doctrinal soundness. We wish to
amplify this statement and attempt to demonstrate its accuracy. The freedom or
bondage of the will was the dividing line between Augustinianism and
Pelagianism, and in more recent times between Calvinism and Arminianism.
Reduced to simple terms this means that the difference involved was the
affirmation or denial of the total depravity of man. In taking the affirmative
we shall now consider,[1]
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