Defense of the Faith - A Biblical Look at Truth
Vern Peterman · Jan 11, 2015
Defense of the Faith, No. 02
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926452346876

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Today we have a biblical look at truth. Real fascinating in terms of the world's perceptions. But we want to begin. There are some words that end up being used actually several different ways sometimes. One, this word philosophy, top part of your handout there, it literally means love of wisdom. However, it can be a study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. Okay, looking at that. or a particular system of philosophical thought. Someone might say, you know, when I go out driving, my philosophy is, it's a particular approach, right? So philosophy is a word that kind of can mean a big umbrella for logic and reason and how people know things and all that. And then it can also be, here's a particular person's approach to something. You could ask someone, what's your philosophy of life? What's your approach to life? The next word is epistemology, and to boil it down, it's how do we know something? How do we know something? The next one is wisdom. It's the ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting. And wisdom from a practical sense means taking a wise course of action, a good course of action.

And then the last one is logic. And we're going to be taking a look at logic, not that we're going to get crazy about it, but people oftentimes don't understand what you have to assume first before you do any logic. And human beings must assume things. We can't do logic without it. And one of the things we pointed out last week is logic is something that can't be proven that it's the right thing to do or the way to go. If I say, why do we use logic, what are you going to tell me? You're going to try to give me an answer that's logical, right? That's circular. That's circular. You're going to use logic to prove logic. So, then we have the next question, what is truth? Characteristics of the Christian definition of truth. Truth starts from God himself. What kind of a statement do we have from the Bible that gives us that idea? What did Jesus say to the disciples?

I am the way, the truth, and the life. Yes. And by the way, the way, the truth, and the life is Greek definite articles in front of each of those. which means specifically that thing. He is specifically the truth. As a matter of fact, the way he said, I am, is I being in fact God.

I am the singular way, the singular truth, the singular life. Now, truth exists only because God created it in the universal realm. Truth outside of himself. Truth outside of God himself cannot exist outside of God's creation and expression of it. So God is expressing His character, and that's why we have truth out in the world, because God expressed it.

Truth is propositional. In other words, it can be stated in propositions, true and false statements. We have this here, the bread is made with wheat. The bread is either made with wheat or not made with wheat. Truth is propositional. What if truth were not propositional? I'm trying to get at, what do we mean by propositional? You're saying it's something that one proposes an idea, you pose it? In other words, you can state it. You can put it out there.

In Islam, God is wholly other, and you cannot know him. So you can't say things about God. He's wholly other, our language is unable in Islam to convey. The Bible, on the other hand, reveals things about God Himself and about God's character. As a matter of fact, you must know Him. You must know Him. So that's one way that Islam and Christianity are the exact opposites. We don't know God exhaustively, but what He has revealed we know truthfully. And we must know Him, as opposed to Islam where you can't know Him. So a very different presentation. People sometimes try to categorize all religions the same. God is a God who has deliberately revealed himself. Okay, here's another one. Truth is absolute in the biblical sense.

What do most people out here in the world think about truth? Do they think it's absolute? Generally not. Generally not. And, out in the world, people will even get to the point where each person's truth is individual. Your truth isn't my truth, etc. So that's one thing. Truth is objective and absolute, biblically. Whereas out in the world, there's a great deal of skepticism about truth. In fact, what did Pilate say 2,000 years ago? He was interrogating Jesus, and he said, what? What question did he ask? What is truth? What is truth? That's Pilate's question.

Directly corresponds with the way things are. For example, the Bible says that Christ rose on the third day, then his corpse miraculously rose on the third day. It directly corresponds to the way things are. We can describe it. And our description corresponds to truth.

We'll be talking more about truth because in fact there are ten assumptions of all scientists. All scientists have ten assumptions and some have more. But they have at least ten. And one of those is there is such a thing as truth. Otherwise science has nothing to pursue. Science has nothing to pursue. Scientists believe there is such a thing as truth whether they even know it.

But that's the assumption that they operate on. Okay, insightful passages on truth. So here's one, Romans 1, 18-25, talks about the unbeliever in truth. It says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of, and then we have bolded here, of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So what do unbelievers do with the truth?

Push it down. Okay? Push it down. Don't want to go there. Why? It seems to me like they kind of like to manipulate it to fit their beliefs. To fit their beliefs and also fit the way they want to live. One of the things that this passage does is it talks about God as a moral God. God is a fundamentally moral God. There is right, there is wrong, there is truth, there is falsehood. God stands on the side of truth versus falsehood, and he stands on the side of rightness versus wrongness.

So they suppress the truth in unrighteousness, so in their thinking and in their acting, they wish to carry out unrighteousness. Therefore, they suppress the truth, which is in conflict and contrast with the unrighteousness that they want to think and do. Because that which is known about God is evident within them. Now, so let's ask this question. Does God believe in atheists? God doesn't, God, pardon? He created the atheists. Yes, He did.

You know, it's a funny thing. I read a lot of atheist literature. I have dozens and dozens of their books at home. And just this morning I was looking at an atheist column, and they mischaracterize faith and science and reason. We'll get into that more later. But what is known about God is evident within them. Now, do they know everything that's in the Bible? No, so let's look at the rest of the passage there.

For God made it evident to them. Okay, who took the initiative to do it? God. God took the initiative to make it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what's made.

So, nature is a revelation. It is a general revelation, it's not a specific revelation like the Bible. So we'll take a look at that in a little bit here. So nature is one means of revelation. What does nature not tell you? Yeah, in other words, nature doesn't tell you that it was Jesus who was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth and all those specific things are not described.

People look at nature and try to figure out how did this world come into being? And without God in the picture, they arrive at a different conclusion. Why? It's not because of the conclusions of science, it's the assumptions they start with. It's the assumptions they start with. His invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. Let's move down to verse 25, it's bolded there, for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie. What kind of lies do they accept instead of the truth?

Everything happened all by itself, right? Yeah, everything happened all by itself. And it is a faith to believe those things. It is not science. It has not been demonstrated. You have to assume it. You cannot prove it. And there's a great many places where either the evidence is missing or the evidence is contrary. And we'll go into that later. Okay, let's take a look at page two. So what does this say about the starting point for the non-believer in being able to define and clearly articulate truth? If truth comes from God, and God has expressed truth, but man has pushed it down, where is man's starting point for truth?

In actuality, it's God. As a matter of fact, modern science was founded by Christians. They're not all the same kind of Christian necessarily, but modern science was founded by Christians. Because they believe in a God of truth, they believe in a God who is unchanging, and therefore they concluded, among other things, that God created a world with natural laws that don't just change all the time. And so we can discover the consistency that God has put into the natural world.

So the Greeks weren't able to develop modern science because they didn't have that concept of God. You know, the ancient Chinese, the various ones in different parts and times. Babylonians, we have some things from them. For example, our degrees, like 90 degrees, you know, 180 degrees, 360. We got that from the Babylonians. So some aspects we got from the Greeks and Babylonians and others. Our numbering system is actually Arabic, or derived from Arabic. So various ones contributed things, but modern science only developed from Christians, coming from a Christian worldview.

What are some of the quality trade-offs between God and creation? What characteristics does God have compared to the characteristics of His creation? Now as you look at the creation, how does God compare and contrast? Is God's creation awesome? Yes, it's amazing. But is creation infinite? Creation is not infinite, and it's not infinite in time.

Whereas God is. I have a question back on your first item about the starting point for a non-believer. So if it's up to God to reveal himself, which he has in creation, and for salvation to occur, one has to come to know the gospel. Then does God reveal the gospel to every human being? Well, here's an interesting thing. You ask a very good question. What about those who don't get presented the gospel? Well, you said it's up to God to reveal Himself. That's right. And God has revealed Himself.

What about somebody who's out in some remote village? What about him? Or her? I'll tell you the story of a fellow that Nancy and I have both heard speak. a fellow from Africa, and he gave his name, and his name was a bunch of pops and clicks and things like that, and so he said, just call me Gus. So Gus said that when he was growing up in this remote village in Africa, he had very little contact with the outside world, almost none.

He was the village juvenile delinquent. He said, I would do things and the men of the village would hold me down and run pepper water up my nose to drive the demons out. He said, but it didn't do me any good. It made me mad and I went out and did stuff again. I was the village delinquent. And so that was me. But one day he said, God, if you were there, and by the way, The religion of the village was animism. The spirit of this, the spirit of that. He said, God, if you are there, I want you to reveal yourself to me. Within days, Gus's best friend told him about a missionary in a village nearby that was telling people about God. Gus went over to that neighboring village and became a believer.

So the question is, what do we do with the truth that we have? And that was the way Gus put it. He says, here I was, a terrible person, the worst guy in the village, but I wanted God, the real God, not just these little spirit of the rock and spirit of the tree and spirit of the river and all that. So the question really comes to what do people do with the truth that they have?

And God will match that up with more truth. Let's see. So is there hope for these corrupt people? Is there hope for these corrupt people? Yes. God has made a means of salvation available. And while not everyone will believe, everyone is savable. And why can I say that? Christ died for the sins of part of the world, just those who believe. He died for the sins of the whole world so that whosoever believes out of the whole world will have everlasting life. Everyone is savable. Everyone is savable. Mankind, due to the corruption of sin, is incapable of finding truth on his own. And this is where people say, starting with myself, I'm not sure there's truth out there. Starting with myself, I can't seem to find God on my own. Right?

Here's Ephesians 4.11-16, what God is doing in the church body, He gave, now we talk about spiritual gifts, these particular people are gifts to the church body. Gifts from Christ to the church body. Some as apostles, prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers. For the equipping of the saints for the work of the service. By the way, who is in the work of the service? That's actually your job, right? You're in ministry. A lot of times people say, well Pastor, no, no, my job is to equip, you're actually the ones doing the work of the service, right?

Okay, so now, until we attain, so where are we headed? Until we attain to the unity, and the Greek has the definite article, of the faith. The faith is a pair of words, starts in Acts chapter 6 and continues on in most of the New Testament books, sometimes repeatedly in one book, all the way to Revelation.

The faith is the set of teachings of the apostles. The faith. To the knowledge of the Son of God. So the faith isn't just a bunch of dry, dusty doctrinal statements. And it sits there. The faith is aimed towards a personal and corporate knowledge of the Son of God, of Christ. to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

That's where we're headed, that's where we're aimed. So among ourselves, this is verse 15, the bolded language there, but speaking the truth in love, and actually in the Greek it's truthing in love. Truthing in love. Sometimes Christians in our era get the idea that they have to pick between truth and love. And so some will say, I won't worry about truth, I'll just focus on love. And some will say, no, I'm just going to focus on the truth. They're going to beat everybody on the head with it.

The Bible always puts it together. Truthing and love. 1 Corinthians 13. Love rejoices in the truth. So love and truth go together. Not pick one. as some Christians have concluded. Let's look a little further down there, Ephesians 4 through 21 and 25. In verse 25, laying aside falsehoods, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor. So truth and love, both of them count. Both of them count. And it counts not just academically, but it counts personally. It counts personally. So, let's ask the first question.

What has God done to preserve the truth within the church? He's given us His written word. We have absolute revelation from God that we can count upon. Absolute revelation from God that we can count upon. So, how are we supposed to deliver the truth?

In love. They both go together. If you ever have somebody that's gravitating towards one or the other, they don't understand. The person who's going to go beat everybody up with the truth doesn't understand, wait a minute, love is a part of this here. The person who is going to go around and say, I don't care what anybody believes, I just love everybody, they don't understand either. They go together. They go together.

And then we have, how are we supposed to deliver the truth in love? What is the result of truth within the body? What happens when we have truth in the church body? What's the result? The body is built, the people are equipped, the body is built up, and it's headed towards a particular direction, the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.

If we're aiming towards the unity of the faith, should we just love one another and set aside all our differences in belief? Just kind of get together and love one another? I mean, there are churches and pastors that teach that. But that's not what the Bible says, right? The unity of the faith. And what does this say about denominationalism and separation of believers based on doctrinal differences? Can you find any basis for denominations in the Bible? Hey, let's start a denomination. Oh yeah, well let's find where all the Bible verses support that. There aren't any. The unity of the faith. Yes? On the other hand, you probably want to be attending a church that does follow the Bible, which in a sense is separating yourself from some churches. Yes, ultimately what we're doing, we're saying this is the truth, and what typically happens is things get divided up frequently because of everything from geography to following a person.

If you go to the Lutheran church, there was a man who started that. And the Methodists, and along with that some of the terms Wesleyan, started by the Wesleys. So you end up following people, individuals. If the name isn't built into it, it's frequently some person or group of people that got it started. Ever hear of the Mennonites? That was started by Menno. You know, you go through them, Presbyterianism, John Knox, who got it from John Calvin.

Again, it's individuals that end up splitting off. The Bible doesn't talk about that. It says we're aiming towards the unity of the faith, the specific faith taught by the Apostles. Yeah, oh yeah. The Corinthians, all of them, or something else? The Corinthians says, I follow this guy, I follow that one. That's one of the first issues he addresses. I follow this one, I follow that one. And he says, uh-uh. There is one faith.

In 1 Corinthians 1.10, he talks about one faith. I urge that you be healed, healed up, of all your divisions.

All right, now we get to 2 Timothy 2.15. Be diligent, and by the way that's an imperative, be diligent to present yourselves approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. This word here where he says accurately handling the word of truth, there are two examples I can give from that word that's translated accurately handling.

One, here's Paul, and what was Paul? What was his occupation? A tent maker. And this word that he used here with Timothy, and I'm sure Timothy saw him make lots of tents. In fact, he probably had Timothy help out while they talked about things. The Apostle Paul would cut along the pattern line so that you end up with a piece that's configured correctly, so you don't have gaps when you sew it together, or flaps. Right? Just extra pieces of cloth. You have it so that it's properly cut right along the pattern line, so when you put it together, everything fits. That's the word he used. Right here, that's accurately handling.

Another way that that word was used was the Roman engineers, because it was Roman soldiers who would actually build the roads. They built enough roads in the Roman Empire by hand, built enough roads to go twice around the earth. And what the Roman engineers would do is they would lay out the road by elevation and curve and all those things. They'd lay out the road so that when everything was constructed, it all fit and fit the land and fit the direction it was headed and everything was correct. You didn't have roadways that were some crazy off to the side or discontinuous. Everything was cut. and built so that everything fit together and was smooth. Same word. Same word. So when we say accurately handling, it means you're taking this thing and looking at all the parts, and so when you put it together, it all fits properly. Just like the tent. Just like the road. That's the word he's using here. So, who is this written to? is written to Timothy, right?

So how should this affect the believer when the believer looks for a church home? What's one of the questions you want to ask in looking for a church home? Are they accurately handling the Word of Truth? Timothy was an apostolic delegate. He was delegated by Paul to go to certain places and deal with different situations, and the starting point was accurately handling the Word of Truth. So that's a big question to ask, you know, in looking for a church home, wherever the Lord has you, are they accurately handling the Word of Truth? Okay, let's take a look at page 3 there. 2 Timothy 4, 3 and 4.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. By the way, that word sound is translated from a word that we get our word hygiene from. So healthy doctrine. Healthy doctrine. But wanting to have their ears tickled, they accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires and turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to Myths.

So when did or does this time come? Do we have this problem now? It's been happening for a long time where people, you know, I don't want that, give me something that I really like. And tell you what, the guys who go and tickle people's ears and tell them what they want to hear, they often times have really big churches and they make a lot of money.

Joel Osteen just bought himself a ten and a half million dollar house because he's going on tickling people's ears. I'm not sure Joel Osteen is going to be in heaven. I can't tell that his doctrine is even a saving doctrine. Here's a guy teaching people about God who may be on his way to hell. But boy, he has a nice house. Because he tickles ears.

Now, here's the four truth questions. This is something to ask, I think, particularly another believer to see if they understand the truth. One, is there absolute truth? And the Bible says yes. Is that truth singular? In other words, is there the faith or is it the faiths? It's singular. Has that truth been given? Has it been provided and given to us? And the answer is yes. Of course we get multiple references here. And then finally, is the absolute singular given truth knowable?

One of the things that was passed along to me a little over a decade ago was I was talking to a guy who was a student at Colorado Christian University. And he said, one of his instructors there said, if somebody tells you they know what the Bible means, that's heresy. Because they're denying it's knowability. We have, you know, the Bible says something, but I have no idea what it is. Jesus said you will know the truth. Now let's look at a critical look at truth for defense of the faith.

The Word of God teaches that there are five senses in the spiritual realm. Let me get this back on here. There are five senses in the spiritual realm and you have the equivalent in the Bible of all five of the senses, of sight, of hearing, of touch, of smell, and of taste. So here, for example, are ones we looked at out of Hebrews. They have in Hebrews sometimes more than one instance of a particular sense. And then there are other instances I didn't even list here, but the Bible teaches from the Old Testament into the New that there is an equivalent of our five physical senses in the spiritual realm. And these listings are not exhaustive. This shows up on your next page there. But let's first look at the bullets at the bottom of page three.

The Bible says these five senses in the spiritual realm are not switched on in the unbeliever. Can the unbeliever see into the spiritual realm? No. They're not switched on. Next, are switched on in the believer by God's doing. Next, can have varying degrees of use among believers. One of the things we found in Hebrews 5 when we were going through it some months back, the people who were the recipients of the book of Hebrews were becoming dull of hearing. God had switched it on, but their use of it had actually gone backwards. dull of hearing, even though their senses are turned on. The next one here, can and ought to be trained, because that's the next part of this Hebrews passage, ought to be trained in the discerning in the spiritual realm among believers. Now God switches on our senses, how does the training take place? One is the Holy Spirit. Is that sufficient by itself? No? You can quench the Spirit. In other words, we can do things to quench or grieve the Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is a teacher, but it is possible for us to thwart that. How else do we train our spiritual senses?

Get into the Word. In other words, if we look at God's Word, Then we begin to match up the spiritual senses we've been given with what God has revealed, and we begin to have insights into the spiritual realm. Oh, that's what's going on. Now I understand. As we gain understanding from God's word, that trains up our spiritual senses. Then, we have the opposite can happen, can fall into dullness and relative disuse by lack of training among believers.

So, next page shows some of these slides that I've also got up on the screen. There is in the physical realm of the body, and as a part of the body is the brain. Similar in the spiritual realm, each human being has a spirit, and as a part of that spirit is the soul. So there's a kind of a comparison on the physical and the spiritual side with each one. Now, in our brain and in the soul, we have mind, emotions, and will. And so the brain and the soul are kind of the connecting point between, for the believer particularly, the physical realm and the spiritual realm. Now let's think about this.

What happens when a person dies? What happens between the connection between the body and the brain and the soul and spirit? Death is separation, right? Death is separation of those two. And so, for example, just recently, Doug Hallam went home to be with the Lord. What happened is his body was separated from his soul and spirit. And does soul and spirit float around? Or what happens?

It's connected to a new body. So death is separation, but life is the joining to this new body. We have these five senses in the physical realm. And by the way, in the physical realm, we talk about five senses. Is it possible that we have limited sensing in the physical realm? Or maybe even one sense gets cut off.

Can that happen? Yes, it can. Someone can go partially or completely blind. What's that? Or deaf? So you can have limitations in different senses. In the physical realm, the same thing can happen in the spiritual realm. It's turned on, but there's some reason why it's limited. So the things that we understand from the physical realm can be used to help us understand the spiritual realm. And you'll find the language of the Bible accommodates that, like the dull of hearing.

So then, what you have in Hebrews 4.12, this is the word of God is alive and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword, right? And what happens then is we read or hear, or even if someone uses Braille, to take in what the Bible says.

How deep does that go? It goes to the dividing line between soul and spirit, so it goes all the way, okay? Deep. Nothing, nothing else out here in the physical world goes that deep. If the doctor gives somebody some kind of a prescription to help them with depression or dealing with anxiety or something like that, the doctor is going to give you a prescription and what's that going to affect? It's going to affect on the physical side. It doesn't go as deep as God's Word does.

So here you have something written that's God's revelation that comes from where? It comes from the spiritual side, it's put out there in the physical side, and then by taking it in with our physical senses, it impacts us deeply. Isn't that amazing? So now, Here is Hebrews 5, 11-14, which gives us some insights.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, you have come to need milk and not solid food." So he moves over into the analog, so to speak, the analogy from our physical eating and drinking. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant, but solid food is for the mature. Now he switches back over Who, because of practice, have their senses trained to discern good and evil? So, in these five senses in the spiritual realm, there is a training towards what direction?

Discerning. So, that's the key. Let's take a look at page 5. So the principles to be drawn from an understanding of the five spiritual senses are, it is important to realize what the believer of whatever worldview doesn't sense in the spiritual realm.

It's because of that lack of sensation in the spiritual realm that the unbeliever does not hold the same worldview as the trained and discerning believer. So here's a guy and maybe he's a well-trained well-regarded scientist. His worldview is what? He doesn't see into the spiritual realm. And so he's going to interpret everything based on being blind, deaf, unfeeling of everything in the spiritual realm. And you're going to ask him, is there a God? And he'll either say, I don't know, or, nah, can't find one. He can't see into the spiritual realm. Next one.

While it is true and helpful to know that the unbeliever cannot sense in the spiritual realm, it will likely not be useful for us to tell him that. It's because you're blind and deaf. Are the unbelievers blind to what he is blind to? Ever hear somebody say they don't know what they don't know? So the unbeliever is blind to what he's blind to. So if you tell him that, it's not going to make any sense to him.

Third, believers having their senses switched on need ongoing training of those senses in order to develop those senses. The training takes place primarily through the Word of God and the ministries of the Body of Christ. Lack of that training is likely to result in little to no development of the spiritual senses or even in one who has been trained retrogression.

It's possible to regress. That's what we see in Hebrews. So number four, one perspective on the spiritual senses is that we are in this elective offering a solution for the unbeliever and a growth path preventive and corrective for the believer. So we're doing something that can help the unbeliever to see and hear and understand and we're doing something to make sure that the believer is being trained up to have those spiritual senses in place and be discerning. For the unbeliever who comes to believe, the spiritual senses are switched on by God's doing.

We have, for example, Craig Case, one of our deacons and head of the children's ministry. Last decade he was an atheist. So what happened, he came to believe, his spiritual senses are turned on, and here's this guy who didn't believe there was a God, who now says, of course. He's going around teaching other people. about the God that he once couldn't hear from and couldn't see. For the believer who has just come to believe, the training of the senses ought to begin right away. One of the things that can be a mistake that the church does, where is someone at spiritually when they come to believe? They first come to believe.

There's babies, right? And so, when we have a baby, one of the first things we do is we take them home and we show them, look, the towels are here, you know, and this turns hot water and this one turns, you know, cold water, and the refrigerator, we always keep it full, help yourself. That's what we do with little babies? No. It's not what we do. So one of the things that is key to look at is what do they need first? With a baby you need to start doing some things, right?

You need to start doing the appropriate things. Not give them a nice steak. You don't give them a steak and potatoes. So you need to do age appropriate things and you start right away. You don't just bring them in and introduce them and let them fly.

That makes your job very difficult doesn't it? When you are teaching 100 people in here, you have some who are perhaps infants and some who are babies and some who are adults. It's a challenge. And one of the things that can happen is, of course here we focus on particular things and we get pretty specific.

A lot of churches don't even focus on that. They just focus on making the right emotional environment or pumping people up or something. And so the problem is that if people are attuned to that, we've had people come here, I mentioned Craig Case, he brought a friend from work who was a Christian, here some years ago, and he sat through a church service and after he walked out he said to Craig, he said, what was that? Because we do something very specific, we're not here necessarily to make you feel bad, but we're not here to sit there and put emotions in place and try to pump people up and give you enough juice to last the next Sunday.

But that's what a lot of churches are there for. If you go to a charismatic church, you've got to invite the Holy Spirit to come back every week. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is a feeling. Now we have, for all believers, the training of the spiritual senses ought to continue, and for believers who have retrogressed in the use of their spiritual senses, the restoration ought to begin right away.

Point five, the above points are valuable insights for individual believers who are in the body of Christ, for Christian parents, for teachers and elders. By the way, these are key parenting principles. Why? Why are they key parenting principles? Why is it important for parents to understand these things?

Yeah, so that they pass things on to the children and understand, you know, what does my child see? And what do they understand and what do they need now? When are they done with spiritual milk? And when are they ready for solid food? And what does that solid food consist of? So, parenting principles.

We have in our culture and society generally landed on something like 18, you're an adult, and then a few things are pushed off until age 21 or something, right? And so we've got this legal definition that once you've just had so many birthdays that you're there. Is everybody who's 18 ready to go out and be an adult? No. Some of them when they're twice that age aren't ready, right? So just chronology doesn't get you there. Spiritually speaking, it's a matter of parents knowing, in this continuum, one, is my child a believer? And then, now that they're a believer, what do they need at the age and stage, and how do they keep growing? How do they keep growing?

And thinking through that, and one more thing, the defense of the faith ends up being a bigger issue the more aggressive our culture becomes at critiquing the Christian faith. And by the way, they do that by distortion, as we'll see later on. So it's a key thing to look at this as consideration for individual believers, it's consideration for parents, it's a consideration for how the church body is fed and developed. So all those things. Then we have the understanding of these principles is critical and the application of these principles is essential to the spiritual health of individual believers and the church body as a whole.

Even as a husband, I can ask, how is my wife doing in her spiritual growth? And asking that question, looking around the church body and saying, how are different people doing? Do they understand? Are they developing that sense of spiritual sight and spiritual sense of hearing?

So among us and in our families, There's an application for this. Okay, we're about out of time, but thoughts, questions? Yeah? Looking for a church, would it be kind of a first divider or criteria to say, is this church dispensational? Would that be one of the first things?

Yeah, one of the things that we do, of course, we sit there and say, these are the things that count. We have a doctrinal statement, because we believe doctrine matters. There are a number of churches that have just pitched a doctrinal statement. There's one particular denomination where they particularly refuse to have doctrinal statements. And we'll get to that a little later on in our study. Yeah, it's a matter of, here are the things that count. It's certainly not an entire doctrinal statement, but we've identified three things at Holly Hills that are key distinctives, if you will.

One is grace. 100% grace, full on, full out, pedal to the metal, fountains and mountains of grace. One is grace. The next thing is identification with Christ and His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. Those are key things. If you've missed that, you've missed a whole bunch.

And the third thing is position and condition. In our position, we're blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. In our position, we're in Christ and His death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seeding. In my position, I'm already in the heavenlies with Christ. So, position and condition.

So those three things, grace, identification, and position and condition, are key distinctives that we see. Is that our full doctrinal statement? No. We have a whole bunch of things, about three pages worth. But, those things I think are key distinctives that we would look at and say, boy, these are very important to get. And, frankly, sets us apart from most of Christendom.

So, good question. Yeah? Is there a truth that says this is the person I'm supposed to marry? Yeah, think about it. Is everything in our entire lives always black and white? No. There are areas where it isn't black and white. As a matter of fact, there are some things that are spiritually neutral. You want to buy a blue Chevy or a yellow one? God really isn't pacing the floor of heaven worried about whether you're going to buy a blue one versus a yellow one. That's not something that God is concerned with. On the other hand, do I understand the absolute truth that Christ died for my sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day?

And that is eternally important. So we've got kind of a spectrum there. And what God has revealed and made clear in God's Word is based on Him being the absolute truth. He is the absolute definition of truth. And so what we have is kind of a range, don't we? We have things that are absolutely essential and those things we stand on, all the way down to things that hardly matter at all and are just a matter of personal preference. Pardon? Here's an interesting thing, and this relates to that we've used the word worldview.

The Apostle Paul in chapter 14 of Acts and chapter 17 of Acts is recorded as speaking, in each case, to unbelieving Gentiles. And as he does so, he presents, in his first and second missionary journeys, he presents those unbelieving Gentiles, Genesis 1-11. Why? Why does he do that? He does that because their worldview was wrong. and you need to correct the worldview before the gospel would make any sense. So the worldview that the unbeliever comes from needs to be dealt with first before the gospel will make any sense to them at all.

Let's take for example in Acts 17, there were two different particular kinds of philosophies. You had the Epicureans, The problem that both of those philosophical groups had was that they believed that the physical universe was eternal and the gods came and went. That was kind of inherent within Greek philosophy. The universe is eternal and gods came and went.

Paul turns that around and says, no, there is a God who is eternal and he made everything. And if you don't get that straight, what I'm going to present to you next isn't going to make any sense. You won't see that, okay, there was a God who made everything, and that people went off track, starting with Adam, and that God has the correction. But God comes first, not the physical universe.

And so in both chapter 14, first missionary journey, and chapter 17, second missionary journey, Paul presents Genesis 1 through 11. And so that tells us that's very important, because without the right worldview, you won't understand the gospel. Anyway, we run out of time. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for what you've made clear in your word. We thank you that you are the truth. You're the definition of truth. You've revealed truth to us, the truth, the faith. And we thank you for that. We thank you for the tremendous opportunity we have to learn from that, to be trained in our spiritual senses by that, and to know that we can stand on what you have revealed because you love us and care for us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.