A.R. & Jamaal Bernard | "Kingdoms In Conflict: Part 1" | Christian Cultural Center

lord god how true that song is how consistent you are always thinking about us your consistent love for us in spite of who we are what we have become what we have done you don't hold that against us when it comes to your love so lord react that you just continue having your way throughout the rest of this service touch somebody's heart to let them know that you still love them and put them into a place where they can receive the rest of this word lord reacts that you just anoint every individual that's watching this service touch them from the crown of the head to the soul of their feet touch their mind so they can understand how things relate to the here and now how relevant your word is to the to today so lord we ask that you have your way anoint pastor as he brings a word in season we actually say thank you for who you are and what you are so you lift this up into this precious name amen amen amen amen i'm excited that's that's one of your favorite songs yes right oh for a long time should die hey okay no no no watch one day i'm gonna come out singing i'll be able to hit a real note oh i found a note called the jail i believe in miracles oh why are you doing that i do i believe in miracles see you know so me saying it's gonna be america i didn't say that yeah but did you did you know that back in the days my dad used to sing i was i was the choir yes you were just me you know i was the praise and worship and then i'm excited whose birthday is tomorrow yeah yes i'm gonna be what 35 40. okay well i'm excited i'm excited you said something in your prayer i think it's so beautiful because you captured the essence of the christian faith when you talked about god always thinking about us it's in the eighth psalm that david expresses the words what is man that you are mindful of him and that's double reference to humanity at large but also a prophetic uh pointing to christ you know um but still yeah christianity unlike um every other religion where man seeks god christianity is about god seeking man yeah him he coming after us that's one of the problems that the muslims have that god would either even come to an incarnation called jesus immanuel uh to visit us uh it is very hard for them to comprehend uh based on their view of allah and things are changing people are rethinking um what they have believed we are coming out of a actually you know the last century was the effects of the enlightenment you know uh 1800s and the 1900s you know evolutionary thought and how that influenced the church but uh i was reading an article that there is now a decline in belief in evolution yes yes there is there is i'm going to ask a question why is there a decline well well one there are there are strong arguments against the whole idea of the uh the idea of evolution we got to separate that we can't just talk about evolution because then you gotta you got the macro evolution which talks about the the the larger picture of evolution you got microevolution microblast is something that's still accepted because it talks about the evolving of the species you know so the the whole idea that darwin used to talk about the hold it um we need to get let james put that into the chat macro evolution yes and micro evolution yes so macro which means the large expansive yes micro which means more local and focused all right so go ahead so you're looking at the primordial slime they call it or the big goo in which everybody comes out from uh you know everything evolved from there the big gun yes the big goo the big bang in the big goose yes and you know so they say uh you know um that that's where we derive from you know then you go talk to going towards what one's telling me but that is this that's the part that they they're really going away with within microevolution darwin used a finch to talk about uh the whole idea of evolution at a macro level but he was also he was only really talking about the micro evolution so the fences beak and garden increase in size and density based on the dirt and the density of the dirt and how deep the uh prey or the bugs that they were looking for to eat so when that changed uh to soften up based on the rainy and stuff like that they evolved so the evolution process happened microwise and to this day i still say a fence is a finch you know it never changed i think there's still a fence you know there shouldn't be any finches left right right exactly you know if everything evolves why do some things not evolve why do we have the consistent age of creatures that have remained the same yeah so then you gotta talk about irreducible complexities and irreducible complexities wait wait wait wait wait wait can i hear that irreducible complexities my turn irreducible complexities and that just talks about reduce that all right so uh the best idea i can use is a car all right and you have what they call a six cylinder engine and a eight cylinder engine right an a7 engine in order for you to get uh eight sun the engine into uh six on the engine is is is impossible because the the makeup of that engine in order for it to work has to be changed all the parts at the same time based on evolution it's a gradual change so if you if it happens gradually then uh it is antagonistic to the whole idea of the well the way our dna is made up right right so a six cylinder engine won't evolve into an eight cylinder injury no it is impossible it's fixed it's impossible because you have to change so many components at one time in order to get that something to happen yeah yeah yeah that's that's that's that's good stuff people all right thank you boom thank you boom yeah i give you a boom thank you i got i get a boom are you getting bored because i i was going to talk about the cosmological argument okay wait a minute the cosmological yes argument and that derives from the uh actually muslim philosophers came up with that and uh and and it talks about the fact that there aren't um it talks about it breaks down time because it really talks about metaphysics and and and time and and uh the affinity effect and stuff like that so what it talks about is basically saying okay uh if today happened right so so because the argument is against infinity like the world always exists right right so that's one part of it so if if we're living in infinity yes it never happened till they won't happen tomorrow will never happen right right yeah everybody's always listening now currently uh so that's a part of the argument but then it really takes in the part the the of it's called the causal principle come out of what you face the causality look you know dealing with causality and basically everything that began to exist had a cause and began as a key component uh because we got we keep god because people ask who who created god and the principle is everything that began to exist and this is cause and effect science uh teaches this and so everything that began exist had a cause right the world began to exist therefore it had a cause or the universe organic science causation yeah so in order for uh something to begin to exist whatever began to exist the thing that caused it to exist has to be outside of the very thing that was created which is speaks to our christian beliefs we believe the in cause and effect and we believe that god is the first yep of course of course yep so we say well what caused god no he's the first cause and even if it was explained to us all right we're talking about knowledge information far beyond our capacity to embrace right yep so the easy statement is uh out of nothing comes nothing yeah okay you know and that's and so evolution you know it because they can't explain the thing that started the big bang right right right because wherever whatever reasons they come up with they always start with something you know and it's very hard for them to and that whole line of thought is by faith yes yeah they well and that's the thing you have to believe evolution is a religion yeah in its own exactly it's a set of beliefs yeah set of beliefs beliefs you have to have faith in order to uh adhere to the principles of it but then you talk to evolutionists and you say well uh the dna is called the the the the book of life mm-hmm and every book has to have an author so there's so many different ways to that's good stuff man it's good stuff we gotta you know let you unpack that in a special session and we are talking about doing some special study sessions yes to really dig deep into uh a lot of the questions that have been coming up they've been fantastic they're from very good questions uh and you know so we're looking at doing that in addition to the sunday service outside of the sunday service you know maybe during the week or we'll we'll set something up you know we got to do a spiritual warfare class wow well someone asked a question yes that very good question we'll touch on well there's a number of questions uh let's steal some of the questions ironically the bigger questions is more about spiritual warfare because they believe that there's a spiritual component that's at play right now right now not just on on on on a local level but globally there's some turmoil there's something going on right that is being meant you see it manifest in the natural and a lot of questions are coming about spiritual warfare yeah what's going on and then when you started the conversation about satan in the garden garden you know mentioned the serpent uh and people okay we need to experiment because it really rocked uh and challenged a lot of uh uh people's either theologies and or perception you know on how do you write descriptions i i'll tell you we we try to make sense of certain spiritual things from a natural perspective and it doesn't always work nope you know the world in which we live is limited in its ability to explain a bigger much bigger dimension of existence and a much bigger reality you know a much more advanced reality when you're talking about the angelic world and that's the biggest problem scientists have with christianity ah okay okay so what was the question about the satan satan the serpent well there's a couple of questions one was basically the they put the two words together serpent and snake so therefore they use serpent and you snake in a picture of this snake this belly falling yeah uh uh animal uh then uh the whole idea of of now to imagine how did the serpent the snake because remember they lean on a snake a lot you see all the paintings and the pictures you know historically and i'll behave you know because we're not going to talk about the white jesus paintings but yeah the uh the uh serpent is depicted as you even see the painting with the serpent has the apple you know once again they think it's an apple and the bible says recruit so that whole thing of what the church has brought to the forefront as being the depiction of what the bible is saying has really caused that to be the foundation of a lot of people's theology i will tell you the brilliance of the genesis account of creation of of the the earth the universe uh and humanity uh is just that it it's brilliant in that you know it's a simple story and yet we can keep digging into it but it's so much discovering so much that's god where we can look at that story again and again and again and discover so all right so the serpent is the craftiest cunning beast of the field it was prudent the the the name is nahash that's the term that is used that's the hebrew name and remember the serpent was part of god's good creation so it wasn't an evil beast of the field all right it was part of god's good good creation he created everything right uh genesis chapter one and he pronounced that it was good yup right the beast of the field good so when adam named the animals he named based upon certain characteristics and qualities so he named it all right uh the actual word is aram you know where we we understand serpent but it has more to do with the characteristics and qualities of this particular piece of the field we're assuming that the original um the original beast was like a snake but no that's if if that is indeed all right the cursed serpent that the scripture talks about all right we cannot come to any conclusion based upon that snake that's crawling around and we tried to think about what it looked like before it was cursed we don't know does it happen exactly it it it it could talk all right but now we have to talk about that because do animals talk all right and reason the way we do because you know that's that's another yeah uh issue of of creation the fact that they're levels of existence right in belmont's existence the plan animal kingdom the plant kingdom humanity right so so the the emphasis there is less about whether it was a snake with legs and stood upright okay we get we get we missed the whole thing no what it's saying is that there was this beast of the field we don't know what it looked like but it was assessed to be the most prudent the wisest because it is not an evil description it becomes evil when somebody takes it over yes and uses this animal all right in a conversation with eve now we have to fast forward to the end of the book revelation uh chapter 12 where it's verse nine where it talks about that ancient serpent the devil all right so now it identifies this being not the animal but the being that was using the animal it's like when jesus turns to peter after peter says you know you're not going to die on the cross we can't let that happen and what does jesus say he said get behind me satan yes he wasn't calling uh peter literally you know satan the devil or a divine being no peter was a human being right that's a historical record but he was referring to some entity that was using peter using his humanity and his love for jesus to make that kind of statement all right so now we go back to the serpent the serpent was some kind of a beast of the field that had the most prudent and wise qualities and now you have this entity take over this beast and engage in a conversation through this beast with eve who was not shocked or surprised and that's another thing that came up in the conversations that was i've been having on social media is that that the fact that they didn't think about that eve has had prior conversations some type of interaction with this beast exactly prior to that exact time exactly so it you know she was not apprehensive it was and also adam had interaction with this beast because he named it and i think in my my opinion and you know this is not theologically you know uh supported or my opinion is that that that that beast was seeing which one he can pick up first pretty much because you know the devil i love that walks around like a royal life yes he he takes a look he understands human nature and our woundedness our brokenness our disorder our dysfunctionalities and praise was adam and eve broken and wounded at such well remember the scripture you know describes eve as what is called a weaker vessel not that she was weaker in an intellect or anything like that all right but her makeup physically and emotionally was different from that of adam yes so he's this satan all right considered her most vulnerable yep that's that's what criminals do mm-hmm they you know this is a crime of opportunity and and and proximity actually that's the one that one is weak yes i'm gonna use that one yeah they say on the streets that criminals flow like water they look for this easiest path that's it that's true that's you know and that's another thing that we have to talk about in terms of you know crime and situations within our our community but but so something happens in that garden and we have to say okay so this being because of what it was engaged in all right expresses that that was already in a fallen state not the beast of the field right but the entity the being that was using this piece of the field which we find out in revelations was saying exactly this entity seeks to undermine the authority of god in the lives of adam in the life of adam and and that of eve and to disrupt something and the question is why was this hostility towards these human persons and when did this being become that you know fallen state yes that it was in all right so the scripture speaks about talks about angels you know uh good angels bad angels holy angels unholy angels demons you know fallen angels i mean there's a whole world that we that we open up there yep all right so i i all right so this because this isn't going to dig into this yeah we need to because what i i realized that uh this the questions weren't coming from um uh being combative or whatnot they said they really truly want to learn yeah so this is a design and we you have to all right so so look we can't we'll go as deep as we can okay all right all right in this setting yeah all right and that's why when we did this virtual warfare class we had people sign up yep because that meant you chose to enter that environment yes so if you couldn't handle what was coming down don't get mad that was your choice okay so that's very very important so let's think of what the scripture says originally about angelic beings okay all right they all originally served and worshiped yahweh all right their creator so there had to come a point in time where something happened to change not all of them all right because they're still good angels because he was saying one-third is the number well now you're jumping into revelation there all right so first let's establish originally yes all angels created by god right served and worshiped yahweh that's why they were created for the purposes of their obedience to him they also were created as free-will agents they had the power to choose right yeah then they wouldn't be falling exactly they wouldn't be falling if they didn't make a choice that put them into a particular condition did they know what that condition would be like no just like adam and eve had no idea what death was yes until they sinned and now they experienced this thing called death it was foreign to them and the first the first uh experience was feeling naked and ashamed yeah yeah it affected them spiritually emotionally intellectually all right and ultimately physically all right and and their choices their motivations you know um scripture reveals that these angels who exists in another dimension of existence outside of the physical realm of humanity all right this world but they've always been curious about god's creation in the book of job where he talks about the creation of the earth laying its foundations when the morning stars because angels are also referred to as stars all right uh and morning simply means the rising of the sun the brilliance of and beauty of angelic being they were there watching god create the earth and they're watching him and they're curious they're wondering they they can be curious they they want to know right because they're not all knowing nope so they're watching god lay the foundations of this new thing called the earth right they also see him create humanity they see something set in motion all right by yahweh and they're wondering there's a beautiful passage in first peter we can look at that first peter chapter one let me try to get there no this is so good first peter chapter one oh man let's see concerning okay verse ten i mean i'm reading in the new international version all right and peter is talking about the saving of of souls right and he says in verse 10 concerning this salvation all right salvation of the soul that christ came to exact for us right concerning this salvation the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you all right because it says grace and truth came by jesus christ the law came by moses so even the prophets were products of the law but they were prophesying about something called grace yes so even the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you searched intently and with the greatest care trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the spirit of christ that was in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of christ and the glories that would follow so they were isaiah says who has believed our report to whom is the arm of the lord uh revealed all right then he grows up as a tender plant and then he gets into he's wounded for our transgression bruised for our iniquities chastisement upon of our peace was upon him with his strike revealed he was his soul was made an offering for sin all right he gets into that and david talking about how they pierced his side you know they gambled over for his clothing all of these prophetic things were being spoken and they didn't know they didn't understand what it was pointing to nor the circumstances and conditions not only the time but the circumstances and conditions in which these things would happen yes so the prophets were looking into it trying to understand how this was all going to go down verse 12 it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you and peter's talking to the church the body of christ when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the holy spirit sent from heaven and here's the catch the rest of it even angels long to look in to these things so angels are curious yes about humanity and what's going on within human history they don't know how things are going to turn out they're watching it develop over time they can read they're highly intelligent highly powerful one angel took out 185 000 syrians back in in the old testament you know so if one angel took out 185 000 men you know just a handful of angels can do some serious damage yes all right so so the angels are curious they want to know because they're not all-knowing they're seeking to understand how all of this is going to play out they're watching what's going on right now and they have no idea because i'm sure after all these thousands of years of humanity of human history they're still asking okay what's what's yahweh up to yeah yeah because that's right because too often they credit satan with the ability to be all-knowing he's not you know that's why he went through the process of tempting jesus that's why he went through the process of of of a you know killing off you know x amount of babies uh you know when jesus has done it too the question if you are the son of god he he was checking yep he was trying to say okay i've been watching are you seeing some things and then he referred to when he tempted jesus to throw himself when we took him up to the uh the pinnacle of the temple and said throw yourself down he said it's written yep from psalms all right it's written that he's given his angels charge over you so he knew that prophetically satan knew prophetically that there were certain guardian angels that would be assigned to protect jesus in his humanity all right he understood that so he was trying to get him to act recklessly that was the temptation but he was still speaking out of prophetic utterance and he didn't know he wasn't sure he was trying to figure it out and you know angels are not all-knowing it's like when um jesus comes to the the the gathering all right the man in the tombs yep right and this guy's too much nobody can take him down and jesus deals with the the legion of demons in him and what do they say they say what have we to do with you yes jesus the holy one of god have you come to torment us before our time which means they know that there's a pending judgment yes on these particular fallen angels but they don't know when that judgment is going to be they're convinced that he is the messianic one he's the one right and that's why he would say when he would heal people sometimes you say don't tell anybody yes all right because he didn't want it to come out and interrupt what he had to accomplish before his death so so they didn't know they had no idea because they're not all knowing so when we think about you know how did they fall and we have to break down because you have good angels you have holy angels you have fallen angels you know you have angels that are being reserved in chains of darkness in a particular prison all right that we have to understand that language you've got ranking of angels yeah the hierarchy of angelic beings they're principalities and powers rulers of the church yes archangels yes you know uh and and we have to look at the literature not only uh in in scripture all right but also in ancient writings even in the writings of the fathers you know the early church fathers yes because everything was not contained in scripture and john said you know these things are written that you may believe that jesus is the christ the son of the living god but uh all the books of the world could not contain no not at all everything that he said and everything that he did so we have it captured in the four gospels which which is beautiful all right but but uh interesting passage if we to unpack this all right is in first timothy see if i can go to it first timothy chapter 3. first timothy chapter 3 verse 6. right let me see if i have the right text okay so here timothy's talking i'm sorry the the letters written to timothy about uh overseers and deacons people who are going to be put in positions of responsibility over the church right in leadership verse one here's a trustworthy saying if anyone sets his heart on being an overseer a bishop all right he desires a noble task now the overseer must be above reproach the husband of but one wife temperate self-control respectable hospitable uh able to teach oh man this is this is bad news for some people yeah i know because some it's bad news for some people i've been watching uh you know instagram and it's just not giving the drunkenness not violent but gentle not quarrelsome not a lover of money uh-oh uh verse four he must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect if anyone does not know how to manage his own family how can he take care of god's church so this is talking about human leaders human individuals who are being considered for positions of leadership in the church and verse six is critical key he must not be a recent convert or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil that's a totally different message in in in in another translation it says the sin of satan which was pride out of his pride well actually it's probably was his motivation all right but the sin was sedition it was an act of sedition that he engaged in and it spread to others so the the greek word there the condemnation of satan is the word uh clima k-r-i-m-a beautiful k-r-i-m-a yeah from where we get our our english word crime all right so it literally means a wrong or unjustified action an illegal act that is punishable by governmental authority so you're in violations of government yeah all right when when you this is the the level of offense that they're talking about here so the crime of satan was sedition all right and it was based on pride so sedition is the overthrowing say in west edition tradition based on pride yeah it was driven by pride because pride is the strength of sin unbelief at the basis of sin pride is the strength of sin all right deceitfulness is the character of sin wait you just do that out there why first of all you said james was typing right and and responding and putting the notes up you got it out there a little slower so so so paul paul was essentially saying that satan engaged in an act of treason sedition his objective was to overthrow the government of god yes overthrow the government and and it was fueled by pride if we go back to the old testament we can't get into those texts without you know yeah you know we're going to have to have more than things you know but it speaks of of of of this being yes all right who's was wise and beautiful in the garden of god eden the garden of god and his wisdom was corrupted because his heart was filled with pride and this is where we talk about the cosmic level of sin exactly exactly so it's the undermining of authority and it was done previous to adam and eve because when this being appears he's already acting seditiously and trying to ally adam and eve the new creation in his position yep all right i got some of the angels i didn't get all of them let me try to go after the new creation exactly and you have uh passages like in in revelations chapter 12 verse 4 and 9 where it says well gosh yeah i'm going to okay we better go there revelations 12. that's the last book in the bible by the way verse 4 i mean revelation right where are we 12. so i can talk about the one-third now four yeah all right so so we we see this verse three then another sign appeared in heaven and an enormous red dragon with seven heads ten horns seven crowns on his head and this is all symbolic language because horns and crowns were all symbols of authority and power and leadership right his tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth now this can't be talking about literal stars because a star falling to the earth would blow the earth up forget it we depend on the sun which is a star it would actually damage the earth before he even touches it exactly before he even collides yep the power of the star rated destroyed it comes it is damaging yeah so we can't take this literally all right uh his cell swept the third uh of the stars out of the sky and flung them down to the earth the dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth so that he might devour her child the moment it was born let's go to verse nine very quickly and i'm going to get into who the woman was and all that verse seven and there was war in heaven michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought back but he was not strong enough and they lost their place in heaven the great dragon was hurled down that ancient serpent called the devil or satan who leads the whole world astray he was hurled to the earth and his angels with him so he was able to ally a portion of the angelic beings all right to join him in his rebellion they became fallen angels well one group of fallen angels yes because there's more than one group of followers why are you doing that to the angels why are you doing can satan influence christians absolutely absolutely we see it now look at all the stuff that's going on with tapped into their own ambitions their own lusts all right because we're broken and wounded individuals we are vulnerable to that so yeah he can tap in and he can influence but there are certain people who believe that they just can't be influenced

Channel: Christian Cultural Center - Brooklyn Campus

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Keywords: #church, #A.R. Bernard, #Jamaaal Bernard, #Christian Cultural Center, #church online, #love, #Bible, #fatherandson, #heaven, #God, #Kingdom of Heaven

Id: fCXrbmnhMr8

Length: 36min 37sec (2197 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020