Faulty Assumptions Lead to Error

[0:00] I will please to Genesis chapter 2, Genesis chapter 2, and we're just going to select a few isolated verses that will provide the background for what we'll be talking about this morning.

[0:17] And as is indicated in your bulletin, we are going to introduce you to faulty assumptions and how they lead to error.

[0:32] Genesis chapter 2, and if you would please scan down with me to verse 7. Then the Lord formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

[0:52] And man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden, and there he placed the man whom he had formed.

[1:09] And out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food. The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

[1:26] Now, we're going to skip the rivers and come, if you will, to verse 15. Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

[1:43] And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.

[2:00] For in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die. And then, if you will, chapter 3, and verses 1 through 6.

[2:15] Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Indeed, as God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden.

[2:29] And the woman said to the serpent, From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.

[2:42] And the serpent said to the woman, You surely shall not die. For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

[3:01] When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate.

[3:15] And she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

[3:36] You may rest assured that what we will be presenting in the upcoming sessions on Sunday morning are not much ado about nothing.

[3:49] They are much ado about something of very great importance. And the overall thrust of this series will allow those who get this content to make sense of the Bible in a way they've never thought possible.

[4:05] You will come to see how things fit. It certainly has had that effect for me, and I have found it so satisfying and enjoyable, I want everyone to experience it.

[4:20] For all too many Christians, and I mean, sad to say, for all too many Christians, the Bible is like a closed book. They are intimidated by its size and its oft-mysterious names that it uses.

[4:33] And many have confessed they have found the Bible to be so overwhelming, they despair of ever being able to actually use it in a practical or very profitable way.

[4:45] They have been heard to say, it all just kind of runs together in so many ways, I cannot begin to understand it. And very often, the term rightly divided does not register with them, not having any idea what that means or how critical it is.

[5:01] We are going to engage a subject that I have labeled dealing with faulty assumptions. We are all aware of how deeply divided Christendom is, not only between Roman Catholics and Protestants, but even within the Protestant ranks, there is a great deal of divisiveness.

[5:26] And it all stems over differences of interpretation regarding doctrine. I've often said that each of those denominations, by the way, none of which even existed, didn't even exist a mere 500 years ago.

[5:48] But they have come into existence, of course, and represent what we generally consider the Protestant segment of Christianity. And perhaps the only thing that they have in common is that each of them believes that theirs is the right one and that all the other guys are wrong.

[6:06] That they have in common, but that's about the only thing they have in common. More false assumptions have existed regarding Jews and Christians than perhaps anything else in the Bible.

[6:20] And you will see as this series develops how that this really becomes the focal point of biblical interpretation. It is our ability to distinguish between these groups that the Apostle Paul mentioned.

[6:34] I think it's in the last verse of 1 Corinthians 10 when he said, giving none offense to the Jew, to the Gentile, or to the Church of God.

[6:44] Now there are three categories specifically mentioned there, and each of those categories have to be separated from the others in order to understand each of them.

[6:55] But the natural tendency that most people have, and I'm talking about most Christians, is to just kind of lump them all together. And when you do, I can promise you that hopeless confusion and what appears to be contradictions are going to surface and they're unavoidable.

[7:13] It is only in rightly dividing those terms and what it means to each one that you can really begin to make sense of the Bible. And when you do that, it is absolutely amazing how things come together and how they fit.

[7:29] So we're going to be talking about faulty assumptions. Faulty assumptions have led to more misunderstanding and wrong doctrine than perhaps any other factor.

[7:41] And we may safely say almost all of them were faulty assumptions arrived at in great sincerity. Now when we talk about assumptions, I think I've probably given you this before, but I'm going to repeat it particularly for the benefit of young people and I really appreciate being able to address young people for the simple reason that they have so much more of their life left wherein they will be able to apply these things as opposed to those of us who are older.

[8:20] But we're going to be talking and you're going to hear a lot about this word. Assume.

[8:31] And my first introduction to what this word really means was given to me by Lamar Carson and I'm sure some of you remember Lamar and Mary Carson. They're both with the Lord now.

[8:44] But they were with us from probably from the 1970s. So we go back a long ways and Lamar and Mary owned the Par 3 golf course down on the Upper Valley Pike and we would go in there and play golf sometimes and fellowship with them.

[8:57] and Lamar was was quite a guy and those of you who knew Lamar you know what I'm talking about. There was just one Lamar Carson and that's all.

[9:09] And we were having a conversation one day and I don't even recall what it was we were talking about. But I do remember this. I said, well Lamar, I just assumed that that's a... Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[9:19] Stop right there. I said, what? He said, what did you say? And I said, I assumed that and he said, yeah, that's the word.

[9:31] He said, you don't do that. I said, what do you mean? He says, you don't assume. You don't make assumptions. That's dangerous. Do you know what happens when you assume?

[9:44] And I said, what are you talking about? And he says, well let me show you. And he took a piece of paper and a pencil and he says, when you assume it makes this out of you and me.

[9:59] And I've never forgotten that. So you don't assume. You don't assume. Assume means you take it for granted. It means you believe something to be true because it seems to you to be a given.

[10:17] But very often it isn't true. And you were deceived. You were led astray. You made a faulty assumption.

[10:31] And I I remember another illustration that I thought was rather vivid and made the point it was this this professor in medical school was lecturing a young group of doctors to be and he was trying to communicate to them how terribly important it was for a doctor who was going to be successful to be very observant.

[11:01] And when you are examining a patient you have to be very observant. You have to look carefully and understand what it is you're looking at and what you're seeing. And he said and I'd like to give you an illustration of how important it is to be observant.

[11:20] And he had a glass a clear glass beaker that would hold about a quart of liquid and it was about half full of a yellow liquid.

[11:32] And he held it up and he says now I want you to observe what I'm talking about how important it is to observe correctly. and he dipped his finger down in the yellow liquid and he licked it like that.

[11:50] And he said now I'm going to pass this beaker around I want each of you to do what I did. You dip your finger in it and then you tell me what you think the liquid is.

[12:03] So there were about 20 students there and each one dipped their finger in the liquid and tasted it and after the last one had done so he said alright now who can tell me what you think the liquid is.

[12:19] And nobody said anything nobody raised their hand he said come on come on tell me he said surely you must have some idea what you think it was. And finally clear in the back of the room courageous student raised his hand and said he said yes what do you think and he said well sir actually I I think it it smelled like it tasted like urine the doctor said you're right it was urine and had you observed carefully you would have noticed I dipped this finger in the urine but I licked this one and the moral of the story is careful observation because you never know what you might be getting into if you're now there is a difference there is a difference between and I don't want to split hairs here because this is a really an important subject and we want to cover it as clearly and as thoroughly as we can and by the way we'll be dealing with this issue for some time so there will be opportunity for redress and for questions and so on but I want to make a distinction between a false assumption and a faulty assumption and a false assumption is based upon information that was received that was deliberately untruthful it was a lie to start with and the one who disseminated the information knew it was a lie and the person who believed it thinking that it was true did not merely believe a faulty assumption they believed a false assumption and there is a difference most faulty assumptions have begun with the one who made the statement or set the thing in motion or made the claim as being very sincere and forthright they thought what they were propagating and what they were teaching was true they really believed it themselves but it wasn't true so when somebody picked up on it and assumed it to be true they were deceived not by a false assumption but by a faulty assumption assumption because a false assumption is a deliberate lie from the beginning a faulty assumption is an untruth that is set forth with sincerity and good intentions and the one setting forth the false assumption really believes it themselves and that's where so very much of Christian doctrine has come from it began in the mind and interpretation and assessment of someone who was looking at the information and made a conclusion that they thought was accurate and inevitably that person would have been someone in a position of authority and respect and that gives credibility to the assumption that they are setting forth so much so that a lot of people under them who are not in a position to challenge them intellectually or academically often will make the statement like well if that's what Dr.

[15:52] so and so believes that's good enough for me you can take it to the bank I don't think there's anything that scares me as much as that that is probably the poorest reason that we can give for adopting anything and in the years that I have been here at Grace Bible Church I have told you and told you and told you you are not to believe anything simply because it comes from this pulpit if I had the ability to speak in an infallible way that would be different but we all know I don't so that means you have to be a noble Berean and you have to evaluate everything that comes from this pulpit with the scriptures you cannot assume that Marv's position is true or accurate even the apostle Paul had his teachings subjected to the scriptures because the

[16:55] Bereans who were more noble than those of Thessalonica searched the scriptures daily to see whether those things spoken of by Paul were accurate and it is the mark of an intellectually lazy mind if you are willing to just sit back in the chair and say whatever Marv says is good enough for me well it shouldn't be in first place my shoulders are not big enough to handle that kind of responsibility and you ought not to give that kind of credence to any mere human so that's something that needs to be kept in mind all throughout human history beliefs have been established positions have been taken doctrine has been determined lives have been lost causes have been promoted and yes even wars have been fought based on false assumptions that people have made these are of course all related to information that was given which was not accurate but was assumed to be accurate yet those who embraced it were led astray they in turn acted upon that inaccurate information sometimes with disastrous or even deadly results and all of this dynamic just described relates to faulty or erroneous assumptions if we act upon what we believe to be accurate information we are taking a more wise direction than if we have been provided information based merely on an assumption that something is true and this becomes especially critical when the future of not only lives may be at stake but sometimes even an entire nation to be sure the people of Japan and Germany do you not think that they assumed their leaders

[19:06] Hirohito and Adolf Hitler were leading their nation in the right path don't you think they assumed that of course they did they most definitely did in fact so many of them after the war and the carnage was all over so many of them admitted to their shame and their embarrassment we really thought Hitler was right I'm sorry to say I supported him I endorsed him but he was all wrong and he led us down a wrong path and so many millions of Germans and Japanese believed assumed that their leaders were taking the right course of action no matter that their assumptions were held in good faith but neither acting in good faith nor being very sincere in what you assume to be true makes it true it just doesn't so false assumptions are often based on bad intelligence briefings it is no different in any area of truth whether that of nations at war or doctrinal information believed or assumed to be true and then passed on to others who also assumed that information to be true usually because the source of that information was trusted and respected and we may say well so and so is a man of integrity

[20:37] I know he wouldn't lie to me well maybe he wouldn't lie to you deliberately but he could still be capable of giving you an untruth that he thought was true even though it wasn't and that's something that is very prevalent and has been for centuries painful experiences can testify the only truly reliable source of information is God himself and where do we find this information this brings us right back to the book it's the only place to go because it's the only place provided to give us that kind of information yes back to the book but then we still have a problem because even though you go to the book even this holy trusted source is subject to dependent upon an accurate interpretation so it isn't just as simple as just reading the bible if it were just as simple as doing nothing but reading the bible it would not have been necessary for

[21:56] Paul to tell Timothy it needs to be rightly divided it isn't enough just to read it you've got to rightly divide it certain things in the bible belong in certain categories in certain areas different from others and if you don't make that distinction and you just gobble them all up and throw them all in together you've got a hodgepodge that is just reeking with confusion and what appears to be contradiction and this is why many people are discouraged about reading the bible they get into it and they just read one thing here and another thing there and they just cannot make it mesh they cannot see how it fits this seems to contradict what they read earlier and they don't know how to make the distinction and they just kind of throw up their hands and forget it it's too deep for me I can't understand it and that's been said by so very many so we are dealing with something that is both simple and complex it is simple just to go to the scriptures for your information however the complexity arrives in that everything hangs on your interpretation and your understanding of the information that the bible provides and that makes it critical and that too is something that we're going to have to undertake so let me be as clear as I can be and I want to explain the origin of a faulty assumption and we've already looked at it in Genesis chapter 2 and chapter 3 therein is the record of the first faulty assumption or in this particular case it was a false assumption because the one who made the statement knew it was a lie from the beginning and that was the adversary so a faulty assumption is just as the term implies it starts with someone hearing something they believe to be true but it isn't true at all happens all the time and from the earliest of days all the way back to

[24:01] Genesis 2 and 3 when Satan told Eve she would not surely die if she ate of the forbidden fruit did Eve assume what Satan told her was true yeah I think she did she bought it you know he probably was very convincing probably was disarming in some ways so that she probably didn't view him as any kind of a threat at all and when he told her that she would not die if she ate she assumed what he told her was true even though it wasn't it was a lie earlier when God told them not to eat of that particular tree because if they did they would die did they also assume that to be true

[25:03] I think so probably so so follow the plot now there are competing statements about that fruit God's statement was that death would follow if it was eaten Satan's statement was death would not follow if they ate of it but how could both be true since they were completely opposite statements clearly contradictory concepts are on the table and the contradictions are you will die if you eat and you will not die if you eat but you can't have it both ways you can't both die and not die it's got to be one or the other Eve must have known that and now she is confronted with a choice to eat or not to eat that is the question how can she decide what might tip the scales to allow

[26:19] Eve to reach a decision how about deception deception well not to wonder that one of the chief names of Satan the adversary is the deceiver he is said to be a liar from the beginning and there is no truth in him you throw deception into the mix and an advantage is gained we are told in first Timothy chapter 2 that Eve was deceived and that's another term for making for making for making a false assumption and this wasn't a faulty assumption it was a false deception because it was a lie from the beginning the one who told the lie knew that it was a lie so Eve wasn't buying a faulty assumption she was buying a false assumption it was a lie from the get go and that appears to be an example of Romans chapter 1 where the apostle Paul speaks early about early mankind changing the truth of

[27:45] God into a lie Satan told Eve Satan told Eve that God had lied and that they would not surely die so God's truth was presented as a lie by Satan Eve assigned truth to Satan and falsehood to God now that is quite a statement to make but I just want you to think about the severity of that that is exactly what happened now don't give yourself too much credit because I know exactly how a lot of people think and that is oh boy if I would have been there I wouldn't have been taken in by that well we don't know sometimes what we're capable of succumbing to and I don't think there is any reason to believe that Eve or Adam were a couple of dunderheads I think they had some smarts and some savvy about them but they did not have much experience that's for sure so

[28:51] Satan told Eve that God had lied and they would not surely die so God's truth was presented as a lie by Satan and Eve assigned truth to Satan and falsehood to God amazing consequently the creator's authority was abandoned and the creature's authority was adopted just like Romans 1 states it they worship and serve the creature rather than the creator and mankind has been making this substitution ever since as stated before and repeatedly the critical issue is authority always has been always will be what or whom we install as our authority determines what we believe and what we do about it it is as simple as that and this Genesis 3 scenario sad to say provides us with the first example of making a false assumption while God conveys truth to inform and to warn

[30:01] Satan always uses deception to entice and falsify man's only hope is in turning a listening ear to God the creator and a deaf ear to Satan the creature nothing has changed to which the condition of our world today bears unmistakable testimony thus false assumptions and faulty assumptions continue to compete with the truth every day in every way including doctrinally and we will be giving you a partial list upcoming of a number of faulty assumptions that are taken from the scriptures upon which men have built doctrinal structures and whole denominations have been built and some have even flourished and are still flourishing to this day so this series of studies will have to do with faulty assumptions and we've already made a distinction between the false and the faulty and bear in mind if you will that all of these things are related to our pursuit of truth and I don't know how else to put this other than to say it's one of the most serious things that I could ever utter and that is that truth is this planet's most precious possession truth

[31:29] Jesus Christ came to this earth as the way the truth and the life and when he was interviewed by Pilate shortly before he ordered his execution Jesus told Pilate that I have come into the world that I might bear witness to the truth and although we cannot see this in the text because we cannot hear Pontius Pilate speaking audibly like we would with a recording and I could be far amiss here but I don't think I am I think Pilate's response to what Jesus said about truth was really sarcastic I don't think Pilate said truth hmm well what is truth as if he were saying truth well I've always wondered about that pray tell me what is truth

[32:37] I don't think it came across that way at all I think Pilate's truth what is truth as if to say I don't know what truth is you don't know what nobody knows what truth is and that's precisely where we are today nothing has changed in these last 2000 years there are all kinds of obstacles to truth and while truth is the most precious possession we have there are a host of things that militate against our arriving at it that want to head you off and keep you from coming to the truth because what is wrong and what is deadly about false assumptions and faulty assumptions is just this people act on it people act on them it is out of what we believe to be true that we act that we choose a course of action and if that is a faulty or a false assumption and has no truth in it then where is that going to leave our action it's going right down the wrong road which is precisely where so many are going today and it's in accord with what our Lord was talking about when he said broad is the path broad is the way that leads to destruction narrow is the path that leads to life and all

[34:08] I think he is saying among other things is there's a whole lot of untruth out there the place is flooded with lies everywhere you look there's deception and lies and untruth and falsity and there is just a straight narrow path for the truth boy are we ever dealing with that in spades obstacles to the truth you can start with Pilate first obstacle to truth is doesn't exist no such thing truth and people say you've got your truth and I've got my truth and what's true for you is not true for me and so on and they do not make a distinction between objective truth and subjective truth and a case in point that I think we've used in the past in connection with the resurrection of Christ it is truly truly remarkable that people are able to think this way and when you wonder how do they reach these conclusions and the only thing I can suggest is it goes back to what we've talked about before is that fallen man has an intellect and a thinking process that is fallen also and that's why even if we don't make false assumptions that somebody else gives us we can arrive at some on our own so in our fallenness we come up with these ideas and the difference between objective truth and subjective truth is just so simple and so obvious subjectively

[35:57] I like thin crust pizza with pepperoni that's probably the best pizza that you can get now that is a subjective opinion the most beautiful color that's in all of the spectrum is the color of blue that too is subject to personal opinion that's not objective truth that's just a subjective preference and everybody is entitled to their own preference but nobody is entitled to their own truth objectively if you think in terms of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead you would be amazed and listen this is stunning to have to say this about fellow human beings you would be amazed how many people the world considers to be really brilliant people think that the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead sure it happened if you happen to believe that it happened it happened for you but it didn't happen for me as if the resurrection of Christ from the dead is determined by personal opinion that's just plain nuts that's crazy intelligent people can think that way if you really believe that Jesus came back from the dead physically okay he did for you it's true it's true but it's just true for you it's not true for me and when you say well now wait a minute objectively either he did or he didn't objectively you can't have it both ways sure you can have your personal opinion and I wouldn't deny anybody that if you choose not to believe that that's your opinion but that doesn't make it true and if I believe that it did happen that doesn't make it true what makes it true is whether or not it really did happen that's what makes it true and that's so simple but it is amazing how people even of a superior supposed intellect do not see this and do you know why they don't see it because of the fallenness of the human intellect this is why the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness and the word in the Greek is moronic you believe in this business about the preaching of the cross of Jesus

[38:32] Christ that God sent his son deity God has a son deity and he let him die on a Roman cross that's the stupidest thing I ever heard of well that's exactly where a lot of people are coming from and it is to the Greeks foolishness and to the Jew it's a stumbling block and neither of them can see it and the only thing that can penetrate a fallen intellect and get through is the power of that gospel nothing else can do it this is why Paul said I am not ashamed I am not embarrassed by the gospel of Jesus Christ because it is the power of God through faith unto salvation wow man that is something that's what it takes to cut through that fallen intellect all kinds of obstacles to truth emotional connections against acceptance

[39:50] I've heard people say things like I could never believe that I could never buy into that because of the effect it would have on my parents it would just devastate them I wouldn't be able to do that I couldn't do that to them and there are those sad to say who are willing to set aside embracing what they understand to be true because they think it would negatively impact someone else and while we certainly want to take into consideration and have compassion on people who differ with us you listen you do not have the right you do not have the right to allow anything to stand in your way from embracing the truth you don't have the right truth by its own inherent truthfulness requires and legitimately demands commitment to it and will be unto the person who looks truth in the face recognizes as truth and walks away from it and says they'll not have anything to do with it they are putting themselves in the most perilous position possible honest ignorance that's an obstacle to truth it's just plain honest ignorance and that goes along with the fallen intellect thing here is the apostle paul i'll have q a little later here is the apostle paul holding the garments of the men and these these are these are the shakers and movers of israel these these men who were going to physically throw the stones that would end stephen's life these men would be the equivalent of our congress this was the sanhedrin these weren't a bunch of wild teenagers who were looking for somebody to pick on these were the respected shakers and movers of his probably most of them forty years old and older and paul saul of tarsus was there witnessing this whole thing and all of these men were no doubt dressed in finery that accommodated their station in life nice expensive robes but how are you going to throw stones with any kind of accuracy when you've got all of this cumbersome garments restricting you so they take off their outer garments and they've got left on what is like a kind of like a just underwear if you will they weren't naked just kind of like underwear but it gave them so much more freedom of activity and movement and everything and saul of tarsus says here i'll hold your robes and he's got a whole pile of robes that he's holding while these men are throwing their stones and he talks about that later and he says that i persecuted the church of god and he said but i did it ignorantly and in unbelief he really didn't know any better and that too goes back to that fallen intellect thing until he was accosted by the lord on the road to damascus and of course that changed everything so there is satanic blindness that comes into the mix listen all of these things militate against the truth all of these obstacles are out there functioning 24-7 without any let up it almost

[43:51] makes you wonder that the truth ever gets anywhere or is believed by anyone i remember one of my profs at cedarville university years ago one of his favorite sayings and it i i i believed it then but i really believe it now and he said a lie can get completely around the world while the truth is still putting on its boots boy is that ever true satanic blindness if our gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost whose minds the god of this age has blinded lest the light of the glorious gospel of christ who is the image of god should shine unto them so satan is out there doing his thing just as he did with eve and you know something there's never a greater expert at this that ever came down the pike than his infernal majesty satan and i really do believe i can't can't prove this but i i don't think i don't think that satan and his minions are dealing with what we would call the average joe i think he sits in council places and in places of position and power and authority when all of this comes out in the wash and i think eventually it will i would not be a bit surprised not be a bit surprised but what satan himself was directly involved in many of the situations that led to war i'm including world war one and world war two and everything else because he has ways of infiltrating and affecting people's minds and thinking and he is a master at it and he is in favor of anything and everything that will result in the loss of human life or the destruction of life he is a liar and a murderer from the beginning and as god is the creator he is the killer and he all he wants to do is take life because no way can he better forth a plan and program of god than to upset the whole life principle and i would not be one bit surprised if we find out eventually that he wasn't the principal one behind those energized by the abortion movement planned parenthood and all the rest of it now i know these people would they would laugh at the whole idea because they completely probably reject the idea of satan even existing and as i've often said before he is so good at deception that he has convinced most of the world shakers and movers that he doesn't even exist that's a master of deception and because of who believes it and because of tradition the tie that binds you would be amazed how many people believe what they believe simply because that's what they've always believed that makes it true doesn't it of course not but how could i be wrong for something that i have believed for so long how could it now be wrong well it was wrong from the beginning but you didn't know it and when you are confronted with the truth and it contradicts what you've always believed you've got to scratch your head and say well now wait a minute i don't know about this because this is what i've always believed and yet if i buy this new thing that means i have to admit that i've been wrong all along about this i don't want to admit that because that makes me look bad it makes me feel bad and i know that feeling because i've been there and it is no fun it doesn't do your ego any good

[47:52] to stand up and say folks i know this is what i taught you and i really believed it when i did but i was wrong and i need to correct that now i wish i could take it back but i can't so all i can do is admit it and ask for your forgiveness and toleration and understanding because i too just a man cannot speak and guarantee anybody that everything i say is true you can take it to the bank i'll tell you what i would appreciate what i what what what what troubles me and and i've i don't want to call anybody out but i've i've heard by way of the grapevine people saying things like well if that's what marv believes that's good enough for me shouldn't be good enough for you shouldn't be good enough for you what i would appreciate more than anything else is for someone to say well if that's what marv believes i i'm thinking that he would probably have good reason for believing that and i'd like to know what it is and how he arrived at that that delights me that's what i'm interested in and i would like to tell you what that is so these are some of the things we're going to be looking at and the last that i want to consider before we open this for just a couple of minutes is there are those who understand the changes that would be demanded of them if they were to embrace something that they haven't believed before and they're not sure they're willing to do that and that too is an ego thing but it's it's real and it needs to be considered and some take the position and i've even heard some say this and perhaps you have too reminds me of the fellow who drove from columbus to cleveland that time with with art crawford and art was a bible teacher at riverside bible church and this guy got in the car and they were going to have this long drive up to cleveland and he says already says well why yeah he said i understand that you're you're kind of a religious guy and art says well i don't know about religion but i pastor a church i teach the bible and he goes well why don't we why don't we debate something why don't we talk about something he said i understand you're religious he said i don't i don't have any religious preferences i just don't don't go much for that i don't believe in that stuff well why don't we have something that we can discuss intellectually and pass the time on all these miles that we've got before art said sure what would you like to talk about the guy said well why don't you tell me the main reason why you believe what you do why you are a pastor and why you believe in this christianity stuff and art said well i can't think of anything that's more convincing at least for me than the resurrection of jesus christ from the dead and he said you mean you believe that and art said well yeah yeah sure i believe oh he said i thought that was a fairy tale anything christian really believed that and art says well would you like to know the reasons that i believe and the guy laughed and said well yeah tell me so while they were en route to cleveland art unloaded and he gave him irrefutable arguments the writer of well the apostle paul says that it was luke luke who talks about has provided us with many infallible proofs and he enumerated all the reasons why he completely bought the idea that jesus christ literally rose from the dead as they pulled into the parking lot of their destination art says well what do you think and the guy says well he said i gotta tell you i never i never imagined that i would be saying this but i gotta hand it to you you convinced

[51:52] me i yeah you said your arguments i can't i can't refute them i i think you're right on track there i think what you said is true that jesus christ really did rise from the dead and art said well does that mean then that you would like to receive christ as your savior oh no no wait a minute wait a minute i don't want to do anything like that and he said well you just told me that you thought that it was true that christ well i do i yeah i believe that but i don't want to do this thing that you're talking about receiving christ as my savior and i said well why not he said well that that messed up my whole life can you imagine it that would mess up my whole life some people hear the truth they see it as truth but they recognize that if they buy it and go with it it's going to lead them somewhere they don't want to go and they head it off at the pass they say i'm not going to do that and that's another obstacle to truth so there are so many out there it just makes me wonder sometimes it's got to be the wonderful grace of god that anybody gets saved and comes to the truth because there's so much militating against them and that gives us all the more reason and incentive to preach the gospel and i'm not done but i quit so who has a quick question or comment joe has got something to say joe okay testing one two three yeah it's interesting how god works the craig family's skit this morning ties in exactly with the scripture you had this morning eve was tempted by the fruit and she said it was good and also you could be wise those are the sinful lusts the three main sinful lusts we want to be power over everything over control of everything we want to have the eyes upon us and we want food and she was tempted those three sins those three sins are right there and that's why we believe those assumptions of the devil or anyone that gives us we want to believe them because that's our lust that's our sinful nature and our lust

[54:19] Jesus lived up Jesus did not submit to him he showed his divine part of him when he didn't submit in Luke chapter 4 as they presented that so that's what we have to overcome be in Jesus be like Jesus and the two just tied in beautifully it did I was amazed when he said Luke 4 and the content that was going to be delivered about the confrontation with Satan and everything and I thought it's remarkable how this is tying in was it planned nope I had no idea what they were going to do other than they were going to do a scriptural thing yeah yeah okay there's someone else with a comment before we dismiss yes actually I have a comment from the very beginning I just want to kind of support Adam and Eve a little bit they had no experience with death and so

[55:21] God told them they would die and they might very well have believed him and Satan told them they wouldn't die they might have still believed God and thought I don't know what this death thing is but it can't be too bad so you know I think they're the only ones that have any kind of excuse nobody after that that's for sure you know I wonder too and with this I'll have to close but I wonder too with the proliferation that we are seeing today that is absolutely alarming in suicide and the number of young people who are taking their own lives this was just absolutely unheard of a generation ago but you know the extreme secularization of our culture and the doing away with or ignoring the reality of God a time of judgment a lot of these people especially a lot of these kids and most of these kids 14 16 years old many of them are coming off some kind of a heartbreaking puppy love romance and they just feel that the pain is so great and they don't know what comes after this but they suspect it's probably nothing and it's just going to help me escape from the pain and the suffering that I'm going through now and they end up taking their own lives

[56:46] I think that is gleeful that is gleeful to the adversary he just loves that and the people who have testified that they have heard voices and it's caused them to do terrible things often injure or murder someone else and their defense is I heard these voices telling me to do this and I don't know you know psychiatry is not my thing for sure but some of these are legitimate cases of what shall we say mental illness I mean a real brain disturbance physically in the brain something there and yet whenever people recall about hearing voices someone talking to them I've noticed one thing they all seem to have in common and that is the voice from whatever the source is the voice is never anything good it's always negative evil it's always why are you living why are you putting yourself through this don't you know you'd be better off dead and so would everybody else why don't you just end it all and get rid of the pain these are what people say the voices are telling them and I don't understand or know very much about demonic activity or how alive and well it is on planet earth but

[58:25] I suspect we may be overlooking a lot of things and maybe this is part of it so this is what we're in for for the upcoming several sessions and I would ask you to stand now if you would please what we are going to do and pursue from here is examine a number of these faulty assumptions that have been made some of them 2,000 years ago and doctrinal positions have been taken based on some of them and has led a whole lot of people astray thank you father for the truth of your word and we only wish that we had the ability to rightly divide and interpret it as it deserves but with all of our flaws and failures we bring them to the word and we trust that you will give enlightenment and understanding as we attempt to explore these areas that are so critical some of which are untruths upon a great deal of doctrine has been built and we are saddened by that and we want to be people of the book and people of truth and we look to you to provide for us what we know we cannot get on our own thank you for the presence of each one here and especially thank you for being the god of all truth in Christ's wonderful name we pray amen let's thank you