Dr. James White - The Preeminence of Christ

this evening I'd like to talk to you about the radical nature of the Christian faith if you turn in your Bibles to Paul's epistle to the Colossians now I will I don't know it's the professor in me it's the apologist in me that always wants to make sure at least the people in my church and when I have opportunities of trying to bless others and help others to to help them as well most the time when the enemy attacks the faith the attacks were based upon our own ignorance --is either of our own faith or of the standard criticisms of our faith so for example a lot of Christians are surprised and are somewhat befuddled and are pushed back and don't really know how to respond to the fact that there are many people today who would have what's called a reduced Pauline Canon whoo reduced Pauline Canon what the world is that mean well people like Bart Ehrman only believe that we have seven genuine epistles from Paul so they don't believe that they that Paul wrote the pastoral epistles for a second Timothy Titus they don't likewise believe that he wrote ephesians or colossians that these are our forgeries basically in Paul's name now why is this well the problem is when you deal with liberalism in our day liberalism spreads not by force of argument but by repetition and so what happens is you go to a seminary and the professors there say X Y & Z and it's taken that if you want to be in the forefront of theology you need to agree with what these people are saying and so it's just accepted I to a Seminary that is much more liberal now than it was in the 1980s when I went there but even then it was way off to my left and basically when I would challenge things a lot of times people were like well I'd never thought of that before you know it just simply said scholars say and then you believe it and so scholars say that the early church looked like this and Ephesians and Colossians seems to be addressing a later situation and therefore it must have been written at a later time and so they've taken a theory their own theory and read it back and then you you do with the Bible what you need to do to fit your theory well that doesn't really work but as long as it's repeated over and over again that that's what's happened so I'm often said by the way that one of the most dangerous places if you listen to dividing line you've heard me say as many times one of the most dangerous places spiritually for a Christian is a Christian bookstore do you have Christian bookstores okay now are they bookstores or they Christian trinket shops there's sometimes it's difficult to note they're both okay yeah it's got Jesus soap-on-a-rope yeah it's not really what we used to call a bookstore but the the store shelves especially the commentary section in a Christian bookstore you in mentally what you need to be thinking of our coil vipers okay you down here or if it's since we're in Australia whatever those crazy spiders are okay that you've got all over the place that can like eat your face and things like that I've heard all sorts of stories about that and they really your Chamber of Commerce needs to do some damage control because outside of Australia there's all this stuff about how you know even in the airport there's stuff that can kill you as you walk by and things like that so you might want to work on that it doesn't help the tourism industry at all but anyway that's what you need to be thinking though in the Christian bookstore because the those commentaries especially Old Testament commentaries we sadly gave up most of the Old Testament field liberals long long time ago and you you think you're just buying a good commentary on a book of the Bible and you get it home you start reading it and oh my goodness there's all this stuff in it you had absolutely no earthly idea about and so whenever I even turn to like Colossians or something like that I want to sort of take a moment to warn people by the way there are people out there that will that will hit you with what you know Paul never wrote that I mean if you want to stop a conversation just just have somebody say well you know it says right here in Colossians well you know that that's that's forgery and if you've never heard of that before you're this left silenced you don't even know what to say you know the response would be well that's a very modernistic idea based upon certain theories that have been put forward but there's really no historical basis whatsoever for rejecting the Pauline authorship of Colossians I mean it's consistent with every other book that you that you accept as being Pauline it was accepted by everyone in the early church in that way you have absolutely no attribution of any other authorship whatsoever you have a circular argument there and then they're left going ah so so it sort of works both directions along those lines so when we look at the book of Colossians I need to give you a little little quick historical background thing here before we can actually look at the one text I want to look at and put it in its proper context I would think that one of the most and I'm sure that you all probably already know all about this because because brother Craig has has made sure that you would have this and if I recall correctly I think it may have actually come up in the debate and everyone remembers everything that was said in the debate five years ago so because I'm sure you watch it you know at least once a week just to just keep it fresh but I've actually never even watched it so don't feel bad if you didn't because I was there I went through it once didn't want to necessarily go through it again but anyway the background the Book of Colossians I think is important for you to understand especially this first chapter because scholars have looked at this and if you read through it you see that the Paul's talking about this worshipping of angels and and and people who who think that they sort of are are doing something that's that's religiously good by denying their physical bodies and there's something going on and and what what's going on here well most people believe and I think it fits accurately that what what's going on is is coming into the churches and remember Paul didn't found the church colossi this was a sort of a second generation church he had found the church in Ephesus the gospel goes up the Lycus River Valium and lo and behold a church is founded there and so this is sort of how the church is going to be spreading and it's it's off more to the east and coming out of the East you had something that eventually would be known its fullest form as Gnosticism now Gnosticism if you want to insult somebody in a really cool scholarly way you go amen you sound like a gnostic you know and and they'll go what and and in seminary it's really cool to do that it's it's almost it's almost never accurate but we do have have a few Gnostics running around Oprah Winfrey gets in the Gnosticism every once in a while but but anyway she gets into pretty much everything at some point or another but Gnosticism I have to be very brief about this but Gnosticism is basically a dualistic system that which is physical is evil that which is spiritual is good and so man's problem is you are good on the inside your spiritual self is good but you're trapped in this evil body and salvation is to get out of this evil body and to be your you get that spark of the divine within you to be absorbed back into the one sort of sounds a little bit Star Wars ish and a few things like that so there's there's elements to that but but do you absorbed back into the one the Greeks were duelist and that's why when Paul on Mars Hill talks about the resurrection of the Dead he used the term Anastas as that which died coming to life again they mock him because the whole idea of salvation is not that which died coming to life again it's if it died you want to keep it dead and you want to let the spirit get out be absorbed back into the one and find its true self in the one great being etc etc and so by the second century there was this fully developed Gnostic concept where you had the idea that people had said well if God's all good in the in matters all evil then had the world get created and so they came up with this idea that there are all these intermediary beings come down from God and as they get each one gets a little bit farther a little bit farther a little bit farther away from God finally you get down to a being called a Demiurge that's still divine and still has divine power but it's far enough removed from God now that it can become evil and create the physical world and so the the Gnostics eventually would believe that the God of the Old Testament was an evil God because he was the creator of all things and that the God who created the world was very different than the God the father of Jesus and so they had this all these intermediary beings by the way were called the play Roma the fullness and you'll notice that Paul uses the term fullness a number of times even in Colossians chapter 1 he's using their language against them and they were also because they also had to ask the question well if that which is physical is evil then how could Jesus have been a good a fully good person and yet he was physical and so that actually very early on people develop the idea what's called docetism from the greek term kind it seems they're the ones that would tell stories about how jesus would be walking along with the disciple along the seashore and disciple turns around and there's only one set of footprints it's not that corny poem about well it's because it was a tough time and Jesus carried me no that's that's a that's a whole different weird unbiblical thing but anyway it was because Jesus doesn't leave footprints in sand because he only seems to have a physical body duck hein seems it seems to have a physical body and so you'll notice for example that John is very concerned about this that's why in first John that which we have seen with our eyes which we've handled with our hands concerning the word of life and what does he say is the Antichrist in first John anyone who denies what that Jesus has come in the flesh and so this is it this is a very early heresy and early falsehood that is being taught and that the church had to struggle against and it had its roots within this this dualistic Gnostic type of thinking and it would become one of the primary enemies of the Christian Church in the second century in fact that a guy around 150 ish flourished in Rome by the name of Marcy Owen and Marcy Owen was a gnostic heretic and for the next hundred and fifty years if you were a Christian writer you wrote a book against Marcy oh I mean I we've lost track of how many books were written against Marcy on he was he was the most popular guy to write a book against for a very very long time and that's what the church was fighting against well Paul is warning against an early form of this as he writes to the Colossians and so notice in a chapter one that he is giving thanks chapter 1 verse 12 to the Father for what the father has done that is in in strengthening us literally that we might have a part or a share with the Saints in light and then verse 13 who delivered us from the literally the authority of darkness and transferred us or translated us into the kingdom of the son of his love and so you've got the father he's redeemed us this is what he has done and now we're talking about the son in whom we have the Redemption the forgiveness of sins and so we have gone from the one who's the root of our salvation into the one who has accomplished our salvation we have in him the redemption that is specifically the forgiveness of sins who is and now you have the description of this one who is the eye cone the image of the invisible God so there is you've heard of icons in Eastern Orthodoxy for example and here the son is being described as the image the Icahn the one who reveals the invisible God now in in Colossians chapter 1 and Hebrews chapter 1 in John chapter 1 interestingly enough in each one of these opening sections of these books we have an emphasis upon the fact that it's the son who is the revelation of the father we know the father but what is what is John 1:18 tells no one's seen God specifically the father at anytime it is the manag and a stay asked the unique God who is in the bosom of the Father he has made him known so what we know of the father we know because we know the son because he is the perfect revelation here he's described as the image of the father in Hebrews chapter 1 he's the exact representation of his person is the type of language that is used so this invisible God which from the nikitha what the Gnostics believed in mind this invisible God is known because this one Jesus has come and revealed him now immediately the gnostic goes the wait a minute no no no he's one of the lesser beings so notice how Paul is going to use their terminology and very spits specifically close the door upon anyone believing what these people are saying he does not he does not leave open the possibility that in the church we can have all these different views of who Jesus is you can have a divine jesus a semi-divine jesus and not divine jesus no there's there's one it's one thing to talk about having the ability to discuss non definitional things within the church and to have different points of views on things but there are certain things you simply can't have different perspectives on and still have something called Christianity and in our in our day we're being told well whether you believe in the deity of Christ or the Trinity or the atonement the reservoir you know it doesn't matter let's just all be one one what massive confusion that's pretty much all you're going to be if you don't have any definition to what the faith actually is and so Paul is is going to be closing the door he does he's what fellowship can darkness have with light in this situation so he is the image of the invisible God and and one of Jehovah's Witnesses favorite phrases in all the Bible you do have Jehovah's Witnesses here right ever been woken up on a Saturday morning by Jehovah's Witnesses and you just you just weren't quite in your theological mode of thinking at that particular point in time well it is the term prototokos passe to says it's that's a it's a hard word to say especially when you're feeling just a little bit jet-lagged in the evening it is the firstborn of all creation and the Jobos witnesses understand firstborn to mean first created the first created thing of all the creation so so Jobos witnesses believe that Jesus is the first thing Jehovah created and then really the only thing Jehovah created directly because then through Jesus everything else is made so he's the master worker and then everything else is made through him but he himself was made directly by Jehovah that's their understanding and so when they see this phrase prototokos firstborn they understand it to mean first created the problem is if you trace the term back into the Old Testament especially as it's used in the Greek translation the Old Testament called the Septuagint that it doesn't mean the first created thing Israel is God's firstborn but it certainly wasn't the first thing that God created and the first born of course everyone understood the first born had preeminence over all the others who were created so when you talk about someone who is the first part of all creation it's one of us preeminence over all of creation and so in talking about him who is the image of the invisible God he is the one who has preeminence over all creation why because you have a have the next that very next word is because why does he have preeminence over all creation because in him all things were created so he has preeminence over all things because he is the very one by which all things create which is why the Jehovah's Witnesses in their Bible don't have all things they have all other things because they have to leave they have to leave the door open for Jesus himself to be created the problem is that I've ever heard of pantheism there are different words in the Greek language for all and they have very subtle shades of meaning to them and the term that Paul uses here is that is the form that would refer to creation having reality and each thing that exists having its own concrete existence rather than just sort of a nebulous idea of the all sort of like what you get in Eastern religions where the the all is one and one is all and you go and so on and so forth this is a very concrete idea of taking all things but all things actually have real existence and the reason that he has preeminence over all things because in him all things were created or literally the in him would be by him he is the one who actively is involved in bringing all things into existence because by him were all things created now what all things are we do we have in view here well Paul gets rather exhaustive in his language here he refers to the things which are in the heavens and the things upon the earth well heaven and earth that's pretty much a description of the entire physical creation from mankind's viewpoint the visible and invisible so that's that's a fairly wide swath of things right there whether Thrones or Lordships or rulers or authorities and so these are terms and a lot of commentaries will go into all sorts of very dreadfully deep detail as to how these terms have been used but basically it is a making sure you understand that any type of spiritual authorities any type of governmental authority anything along those lines are subject to is one who is the preeminent one and all things have come into existence through him so the big beaver and verse 16 all things through him so before we had in him now we have through him and for him were created now that's that starts to you know it be one thing for you to be talking about Jesus as a master worker and talk about in him and through him but for him all things remain so he was made for himself no that wouldn't make a sense there's only one for whom all things are made and that is the creator himself the creator himself so all things were made through him and for him now stop right now and and because you've probably already forgotten the background think about what the Gnostic is saying the Gnostic is saying well you have these eons and what they were doing it seems were they what they want to plug Jesus into one of these spots or he could be an intermediate Internet intermediary being sort of like what Jehovah's Witnesses do but if he's the creator of all things they can't do that and remember eventually now we don't know the exact theology of the people that Paul's warning about in colossi but eventually the the writings that we have would reveal that remember the Creator God for them was this evil God so he's saying whether it's physical non-physical visible invisible Thrones Lordships rulers what everything's created by him for him he is before and then it says he is before all things and in him all things soon s taken which means to consist to hold together the the entire universe is held together in him now there is no way to understand these words in any other way than as a description of the creator himself he's exhausting the language to say that there is not thing outside the realm of his power there's nothing outside the realm of his creatorship and so there's no way for the Gnostic to go yeah we want to find a place for Jesus and we want to say that Jesus is a cool dude and and we can sort of make him a part of our play romo know all things are made by him for him he is before all things and all things soon s taken including all the physical things they hold together in him and there's no way that any Gnostic could agree with what Paul said here in fact he's going to go on and on and eventually in Colossians chapter 2 he's going to slam the door on any possibility of allowing a Gnostic to have fellowship in the church when he says for in him is dwelling all the fullness of deity in bodily form he uses the term Fiat 8oz means that which makes God God and he says the fullness of deity is dwelling in him so matakohe soma is the body in bodily form now I mean that is like walking up to a gnostic and absolutely giving them a a right hook to the jaw I mean that's it there's no compromise here they're out for the count it's done there's no way that a gnostic could ever accept especially as it says in him dwells all the fullness the play roma of deity is in Jesus that's what he says he's using their very language against them and hence there's no way there's no place to them to hide this has been something the church has had to struggle with a lot because mother when I teach church history one of the dates that you have to memorize to be able to pass the final is the date of the Council of Nicaea now before anyone can whip out their phone and Google which ruins a lot of really good illustrations anymore how many of you are absolutely confident you know the year in which the Council of Nicaea took place 1 2 3 4 now what's what does that mean how is that absolute confidence what what's that there's more on the line for you yes there probably is and I'm going to show you great mercy by not asking you what the date of that is 325 AD okay 325 AD and that's exactly what you were you was gonna say right oh you bet see so in 325 AD you know what's going on that the church was racked by division called Arianism arias and his followers were saying there was a time when the Sun was not that the Sun was a created being and so to try to find a way to expose them because they have a way of explaining almost any biblical passage to be given given to them the the church used a non biblical term that represented a biblical truth but was a non biblical term called homo you see Oz of the same substance because the the Aryans were saying he was of a different substance than God because he's created and then there were some compromisers in between that were saying homeboy who's Yas he was of a like substance but not the same substance and so the the demanded confession was homo Ozias there's only one being of God you can't divide God's being up into parts and pieces and things like that and that's the terminology they used trying to detect heretics has always been a bit of a challenge and even to this day it can be a bit of a challenge at times given how practiced man is and coming up with ways of defending his false teachings so the point is that what you have in colossians chapter 1 it just at this particular point is the beginning of paul laying a foundation that is going to absolutely close the door to a false teaching but i want you to think for a moment how radical what these words how radical the meaning of these words is for us because paul's then use this as this as the foundation to go on and say such things as for in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge now what does that mean how could Paul say something like that how could Paul say that in Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge does that mean you can read the New Testament and come to a full understanding of nuclear physics no that's not what it's saying but what it is saying is that nuclear physics are what nuclear physics are because of what did you hear that description all things through him and for him he is before all things and all things hold together consist cohere in him every fact that is a fact is a fact because Jesus made it that fact and defined it as such if it's true it's true because Jesus made it that way now some of you when you hear a statement like that automatically go don't you think that's a little radical don't you you know we're all told today to be to be moderate and inclusive and accepting right and and if you say something like that well well that's extreme and and and that that closes the door on on so many other equally wonderful religious perspectives and that makes you a hater and a bigot and not how our society works now isn't thinking that's how it works but if if Jesus is what Colossians 1 says he is then it follows logically that if he makes everything he gets to define everything that's why all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in him in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form and yet from the world's perspective that's that's just too radical that would that would change everything because if Jesus I mean you're really saying that an itinerant preacher in the backwaters of the ancient Roman Empire that got himself crucified under Pontius Pilate was the creator of the universe is that what you're really saying and all God's people said good it's one thing for us to say that here but when we say it and then here's the part that the world then when we live in light of it that's where the problem is because you see the problem has always been what's the Christian confession yasss could EOS Jesus is Lord doesn't the Bible teach us that no one can say that except by the Holy Spirit right now anybody who can move their lips and expel air can say Jesus is Lord or yassir's could EOS but we know what Paul's talking about to truly bow the knee in confession that Jesus is Lord requires a work of the Holy Spirit of God why well to be able to understand what that means to be able to live in light of what that means is a spiritual thing it takes spiritual enlightenment it takes its taste taking out that heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh and opening the mind and all the rest of that stuff but you also need to understand that this was the period of time of the rise of the cult of the Caesar and the Caesar also claimed to be could EOS and isn't it interesting that one of the greatest periods of persecution in the history of the church was when the Roman Empire demanded that you offer a pinch of incense upon the altar and you know what you had to say you had to say Kaiser could EOS Caesar is Lord and no Christian could say that because they had already said yes coreos Jesus is Lord it's always been for the Christian the conflict between the demand of Caesar that you bow the knee to Caesar and the reality that every Christian has bowed the knee to Jesus that's why the teaching of non lordship salvation is so pernicious because that is the idea that you can say I believe in Jesus without bowing the knee to him as Lord no Christians had ever come up with that idea before that's a new one the reason that Christians died in droves under Roman persecution is because they didn't believe what is taught so often today in many churches that call themselves Christian churches and so it's a radical claim it is offensive to the world system and it's certainly offensive to the secular world around us you will be mocked if you actually not only believe but then live in light of the idea that an itinerant preacher in the first shuri who never wrote a book who didn't even travel to Rome the great city of his day or Athens the great philosophical center that this backwards Galilean itinerant preacher was actually the creator of this entire universe and in fact by his power holds all of that vast universe together you've got to be kidding me that is offensive to any thinking person starting to sound like first Corinthians chapter 1 the preaching the Cross is to them that are perishing what foolishness the Greek term mora NOS from which we get it's moronic it's foolishness from the Wiz the perspective of the wisdom of the world this is ridiculous how can you ask anyone to believe this and folks here's here's we here's where you got to understand all of these isms and movements and and and programs that the church has come up with to try to make the gospel acceptable to people what's what's the end result it's always something other than the gospel because the gospel to be the gospel must always be offensive it has to be that stone which crushes and breaks before there can be healing regeneration the very message which to those who are perishing is foolishness is those who are being saved what the very power of God the very power of God it's not about the intellectual furniture up here the whole message of klav first corinthians chapter one is hey look at you all he says the corinthians not many of you are well born not many of your the highbrow powerful people of the world God hasn't chosen to use the highbrow elite of the world he's chosen the foolish thing is the weak things the things which were not so he might demonstrate the foolishness the things that are that's his whole point there and that's why he can say the message of the Cross is to the Jew was he called it he calls it a scandal on a stumbling block something you you trip over and to the Greek it's foolishness it it's just so ridiculous you can ever believe something like that but then what is he say but to those who are what the called the elect the ones that God chooses in his mercy to raise them the spiritual life to open their understanding so they might see the glory his glory as the Creator and what he's done in the incarnation to those who are chosen Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God but you see that takes a spiritual activity in the heart and the mind and if we no longer trust the tools that have been given to the church in the gospel and the Spirit of God then we're always to be looking for something else to try to basically trick people in to try to rough to shave off the rough edges of the gospel so as to not offend people the gospel is offensive to anyone who has not bowed the knee to Jesus Christ and it needs to remain that way to be the gospel we are so concerned in our society is now about offending anyone but the one person we don't care about offending at all anymore is the one who made us he can be offended and nobody cares think about the offense to God when you deny what he has done in sending his own son in the person of Jesus Christ you think that might be offensive when you use his name in vain and ma his gospel and mock has crossed and mock his resurrection you think that might be the one thing we might be concerned about offense about instead we are all concerned about offending the rebel creature cannot do that that's the one thing in our society will make you pay for that you see that's why we are talking about the future and talking about paying the price of being faithful to what the gospel itself that very message because it's all that's been given to us the only power the church has what's the power the changes hearts and lives it's only the gospel there's nothing else all the programs we can come up with are worthless they're worthless but the true gospel offends because you have the rebel sinner coming up against his very creator and what his creator has done in his self revelation in Jesus Christ and so yes my friends we have an amazing message and it is astounding and it's offensive and the world says no no no no no and this is we are seeing the re pagan ization of Western civilization we're seeing the re payin ization of it because if you study church history and I this sounds like an advertisement but we don't make any money off of it or anything so I'm just letting you know but I've talked to the first class I ever taught after I graduated seminary was church history and I love teaching church history people always ask me what were the two classes you took in Bible College a seminary that have helped you the most in doing Christian apologetics and it's real easy Greek church history Greek and church history because knowing the original language of the Bible and it's great to know Hebrew too but most of time even when the Old Testament quotes being quoted from the Greek translation of the Old Testament anyhow so if you have to know one of the two I think knowing Greek is the most important but so much the problem is misrepresenting the Bible in knowing its original language is extremely helpful but then the other place is church history man most of us don't know where we came from and as such we are deeply influenced by those who have come before us but we don't know how we're influenced by them because we don't know anything about their lives or the conflicts that they live through it's also so incredibly encouraging to see how God has worked with imperfect humans in the past because he's still stuck with us and that means he can still keep working within imperfect humans even now and to recognize how faithful people have been in the past even in midst of persecution and all these things but when it comes to church history it is so helpful to recognize that the things we're facing now we're not the first generation of Christians to face them now don't get me wrong there are some pretty unique things in the modern situation I mean no generation before now has dealt with a combination of nuclear weapons and genetic engineering okay so when it comes to certain levels of Technology okay there is a uniqueness there but so much of what troubles the church today the church has faced in the past and how it handled it can be of great benefit to us to understand how the church dealt with persecution those first two and a half centuries that was one of the greatest causes of division in the early church well when we start feeling persecution it'll probably cause division yet once again but will we have learned from the past the mistakes they made and the successes they had well not if we don't know anything about them and for a lot of Evangelicals let's be honest we don't Ignatius well which Ignatius which century did he live in can we can I do I really need to know I think about some guy named Ignatius I mean his nickname would have been Iggy does it really matter what eggy thought about anything you know well actually it does especially because whether you're talking about Ignatius of Antioch or Ignatius Loyola there's about 1500 years between them and a huge difference in their beliefs and yeah it is important and what we discover is that in that early church in that early period this was the great conflict between the demand to bow the knee to Caesar and the recognition of the lordship of Jesus Christ and how the church has worked that out and how they the church has had to struggle to understand that down through the ages is vital for us today sometimes we get the feeling that we're we're running into all this stuff and we're the first people so we're going to have to figure it all out man I don't know about you I don't want to have to figure it all out I want to look at what God has done with his people in the past not to elevate them to a secondary position of authority with the Bible such as happen has happened in Roman Catholicism with the idea of tradition not that I want to I have to let them be what they were warts and all I mean one of the things in studying church history is you discover that you can learn to appreciate someone and still be honest about where they were really coming from where they had real blind spots if you know anything about the Reformation then you know that the the the reformers love quoting from Agustin but have you ever read much of a Gustin there were things that Agustin believed that we would go really but the fact is if we don't come to be able to appreciate what people would say in one area if we demand absolute theological perfection if we if we will only listen to someone who is absolutely just like us we end up in an echo chamber looking at extremely narrow little spectrum and we end up missing a lot I started teaching church history at PRB see I taught it I did 52 lessons in church history back in the 90s somewhere and their record on something called real audio some of you may recall real audio from long long ago and mostly young people are going I have no idea what he's talking about right now but that's okay hey trust me we were making cassette tapes back then - and whatever they fund I'm old enough to remember 8tracks remember how a song would be going on then it's like and then it goes on from there some of you they're going what what are you talking about if you know an eight-track you know exactly what I'm talking about back in the Stone Age but I did like 52 lessons on church history up through the Reformation back in the 90s and everybody's been saying those are so helpful you need to do them again they'll so they can be recorded in some way that we can actually understand them and things like that and and so I started I think we've done 17 lessons so far on sermon audio so you can look it up Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church doing it during the Sunday school when I went out there to teach it and something tells me the speed we're going it's going to be a little bit more than 52 this time more like 252 at the rate we're at the rate we're going but but I'm teaching through it and it's important to know how the church has dealt with these things in the past and dealt with the radical nature of the claim that we are making because here we are and the Lord's Day is going to be over pretty soon and we're going to be going to work and you're going to be exposed to the pressures of a very secular society which is going to be constantly seeking to wear down your Christian worldview the uniqueness of what you believe as a Christian and cause you to compromise cause you to be silent cause you to adopt the way of the world's thinking and to move away from the radical nature of the claims the Christian faith that pressure is placed upon you every single day and if you don't recognize it you will never be able to take the proper steps to resist it and you will end up compromised you will end up being willing to go that's yeah it may say it but that's just too much that's going too far because if this is true then if all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Jesus Christ he's the creator of all things man that just has as implications in every aspect of life exactly it does and the thing that the world fears the most is a Christian who lives consistently with the profession and proclaims it Jesus is Lord because the world wants you to say Jesus is my religious leader but the world is my Lord and I will interpret Jesus as the world demands I interpret Jesus but Jesus says everything needs to be interpreted in light of me because I made it all there's one other thing to keep in mind and I'll let you go it's one thing to be kept in mind this has tremendous apologetic application as well it's not just because of Jehovah's Witnesses or anything else has tremendous tremendous apologetic application here's here's why most Christian apologists present a of defending the faith it basically says what you do is you you get together with the unbeliever and say you say I'll tell you what let's let's stand on this neutral ground and let's just reason together let's let's we'll I will lay aside my presuppositions you lay aside your presuppositions let's just let's just come together on neutral ground and we'll just reason with one another and I will demonstrate to you the reasonableness of believing that there is a God that's a very very common perspective a very very common approach but think about for just a moment if this is true if Jesus Christ as the Son the eternal son of God created all things could someone explain to me how you can find anything that's neutral ground in what he himself has created because if it exists it exists because he made it if it's a fact it's a fact as he defines it and so any Christian who pretends there's such a thing as a neutral ground upon which to stand is actually being deceptive I mean if I follow that through what I'm saying is okay we'll stay on this neutral ground but I really don't believe there is any neutral ground but I'm going to I'm gonna try to bring you along and pretend that there is but eventually somewhere we're going to get down the road and I'm gonna have to start telling you about who Jesus really is and you might end up actually reading this and if you read this you're going to go wait a minute if this is the Jesus you're trying to convince me I need to bow the knee to and believe in you lied to me back at the start because you said oh yeah I can lay aside my presuppositions here's our here's some some neutral ground but you don't believe there is such a thing as neutral ground because if Jesus is actually the creator of all things there is no neutral ground and you lied to me and I don't ever want to have that happen I don't ever want to be in a situation where someone comes to me and said you deceived me you held back part of what you actually believed just to try to get me to come along that's why I can't engage in that kind of apologetic because and that's that's why the Bible actually says in Romans chapter 1 what is mankind doing is it is is mankind really in a situation where well I don't know if God exists I'm not sure there's there's this and there's that what does Romans 1 say God has made his existence clearly known to what has been made so that man is on apolog a tooth without an apologetic and that man is suppressing that truth he's holding that truth down that doesn't mean every person has is clear and understanding or suppresses in the same way there's religious suppression there's there's pagan suppression there's there's elitist scientific suppression there's different ways of holding the truth down but the fact is you bris bring facts to a rebel who's already holding other facts down there's going to suppress that fact as well you got to be dealing with their rebellion first and foremost and so there's a lot of implications there's a lot of results from understanding the radical nature of the Christian claim but I just have to ask each one of us in closing if you're truly a believer in Jesus Christ and you see these words and you read these words and it says all things everything he made it he created it what's the first thought across your mind man if I I really believe that there's nothing in my experience that that would not impact every decision I make I can't I can't have a Christianity that's just an add-on if this is the Jesus that I'm dealing with now if Jesus just a religious guru just a great teacher of morals from the past someplace well okay but that's not the Jesus of the Bible that's why machen wrote a book long long ago Christianity and liberalism Christianity is one thing liberalism is a different religion because once you have the Jesus of liberalism who is just simply a another religious teacher you no longer have Christianity they are not the same thing and as believers we have to recognize it's one thing to sing the pretty songs and say the words but what we're really saying is God invaded his own universe you cannot ignore him and he calls each one of us to follow after him that's the one who calls you to servanthood that's what it calls you to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow him that's the one that we're going to be serving in this coming week what's that going to look like in your life that's the question we have to think about let's pray our great triune God Father Son and Holy Spirit we thank you for your revelation father we thank you for being the very Fountainhead of salvation that you indeed have been the one through whom we've come to understand our own election who has redeemed us transferred us into the kingdom of your beloved son Lord Jesus we thank you for your coming and entering into this world the great condescension that was yours the great accomplishment of salvation and Holy Spirit we thank you for coming and enlightening us opening our hearts our minds to understand we thank you for your word and the radical nature of the gospel may you once again by this message reignite within our hearts a recognition that we are servants of Christ that we have bowed the knee not to this world but to him who is the maker of this world the one who formed and fashioned us make us truly to be good servants of Jesus Christ in this coming week we pray in Christ's name Amen

Channel: Hope Reformed Baptist Church

Views: 11,794

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Id: qBxd9hb-HOw

Length: 53min 55sec (3235 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 25 2016