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[0:00] Okay, we're good to go. I don't want you to slip and fall on this. Oh, okay. Well, thank you. Thank you. There's one more over there against the wall.

[0:12] Did I drop another one? Boy, I'm all thumbs this morning. Thank you. I wouldn't have any problem at all bending down and picking that up.

[0:26] But then I'd have to get up and that would be where the problem is. I was worried about you taking the ride by stepping on that. Okay. Thank you.

[0:37] In John, we saw John 4, 34, Jesus said, God is spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And we began exploring that a little bit, and we didn't even scratch the scratch on the surface.

[0:50] So we'll return to it and try to make another little tiny scratch in it. But it is an amazing thing to consider that God is a spirit being, and we identify that as he is immaterial.

[1:06] God is not made of flesh and bone like we are. He is immaterial. And that enables him in this spirit form to also be omnipresent.

[1:21] We have a spirit too. But our spirit is, what shall we say? It is confined.

[1:33] Our spirit is confined to our physical body. And our spirit cannot get out of this body until the body dies.

[1:47] And when the body dies, it relinquishes the spirit. You can't confine it any longer. And the spirit that was in you goes to be with the Lord in the case of a believer.

[2:01] And the time is coming when that spirit will be reunited with a body from which it will never again be vacated. And that will be a glorified body, and it will be a remarkably wonderful thing.

[2:17] So we are looking at this subject of spirit and reminding ourselves that each of us have one. And by the way, I don't know if you know what is going on in this field or not, but I delve into it a little bit.

[2:32] And there is a commonality among those of the medical profession today, and I'm talking particularly about those engaged in the neurosciences.

[2:45] And we're talking about the brain surgeons and the neurospecialists who do wonderful things with brain surgery and things like that. But I fear that they've, with all of their collective wisdom, they've come to some unfortunate conclusions.

[3:02] And one of which is that we do not have a mind. And they have come to that conclusion, I'm convinced, because they are committed physicalists.

[3:15] And a physicalist is one who does not allow for the existence of any part of our being other than the physical or the material.

[3:27] And that means, and they're quite adamant about this, I guess it's pretty much a commonly held position, that we do not have a mind.

[3:39] We have a brain. And the brain is physical. The mind that we think we have is not physical.

[3:52] It is immaterial. But it is real, nonetheless. And in their best wisdom, they have ejected the whole idea that we don't even have, that we do not have a mind.

[4:10] We just have a brain. And what we think is a mind is actually the brain. And I pointed out to you in the past, and it's very important, I think, that the Bible never uses the word brain one time.

[4:27] Doesn't mean it isn't important, but it uses the word mind hundreds of times. There is an amazing connection that none of us understand, beginning with myself, between our physicality and our spirituality.

[4:49] There is a connection between our human spirit and our physical brain. We don't know what the connection is. There is linkage there. There has to be a linkage there.

[5:01] But how do you link immateriality with materiality? What's the connection? I sure don't know.

[5:12] But I'm satisfied that there is one. And by the way, while we're talking about this, let me just inject something here. It wasn't until about just only 40, 50 years ago that we even discovered and were able to map the DNA.

[5:32] And before that, we didn't even know it existed. And now they have mapped it, and through scientific process they've been able to determine in one's DNA your parentage and everything else.

[5:49] How many cold cases has this solved? How many cold cases has this solved of things like murders that were, you know, committed many years ago and they didn't know who did it? But now they can subject people even with a drop of saliva.

[6:06] They can get your DNA. They can get your DNA. Your DNA, your deoxyribonucleic acid is the building block of life.

[6:18] And it is marvelous, marvelous substance. Nobody else in the whole universe has your DNA. Nobody. It is your personal signature.

[6:29] It is as if your DNA is the formula for making you. And people have been able, many years later, because perhaps at a murder scene or something like that, they were able to accumulate items that were left behind, such things as a saliva test or blood test or something like that.

[6:54] And they can match the DNA with somebody and determine who that guilty person was. And it's just absolutely amazing. Some people, some people have been released after serving 20 years in prison for a crime they did not commit.

[7:13] And the DNA examination was not available then. And they could submit that person's blood to the sample that was left behind and discover that this guy didn't do it.

[7:27] He's got a different DNA. And there's no way that he could have committed that crime. And all kinds of things like that have been discovered with this DNA. So, science is a marvelous thing.

[7:39] And guys, don't ever get the idea that the Bible is against science. That's crazy. There are a lot of people who say things like that. But they just don't know any better. Science, the word from the Latin simply means to know.

[7:54] That's all it means. Science, it means to know. And for the believer in Jesus Christ, science is one of his very best friends.

[8:05] Because it documents and it reveals realities that otherwise wouldn't be able to be known. And science is not our enemy. It is our friend.

[8:16] And time and time again, the Bible is vindicated in the claims that it makes by science. Because the Bible is way ahead of man's scientific endeavors. But that's another subject.

[8:27] So, let's go if we may to something about our spirit. And I want you to turn if you would please to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. And we'll begin reading there with something the Apostle Paul has to share with us.

[8:43] It's just remarkable stuff. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. And I'm going to begin reading with... Well, we've just got to jump in here somewhere.

[8:54] So, let's just... Oh, my. Well, I'm just going to jump right in. Let's start with verse 10.

[9:05] Chapter 2 and verse 10. The Apostle says, For to us, God revealed them... I've got to go back to verse 8. Okay. The wisdom.

[9:16] The wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood. For if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But just as it is written, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him.

[9:35] For to us, God revealed them. Now, it isn't saying that they can't be known. It is saying that they can't be known apart from God revealing them.

[9:47] But he has revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

[9:58] And the Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. This is Romans 8. And if any man have not the Spirit of God, he is none of his, of course.

[10:12] So we've got an interconnection between God's Spirit, which is immaterial, and our spirit, which is immaterial. And everybody has a human spirit.

[10:24] But the believer in Jesus Christ has a regenerated spirit. It is a spirit that has been made new in Christ.

[10:35] So that means we have a capability with our spirit that the world with its spirit does not have. But everybody has a, even an atheist has a human spirit.

[10:49] Because spirit is part of what makes us human. So let's move on here. Verse 11. Verse 11. For who, who among men knows the thoughts of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him?

[11:10] Even so, the thoughts of God, no one knows except the spirit of God. Now we, meaning believers, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God.

[11:34] Which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.

[11:47] But the natural man, the natural man is the man just as he is born. This is going all the way back to our origin, to our physical origin.

[12:02] The natural man does not accept the things, the truths of the spirit of God. Why not?

[12:13] Because they are foolishness to him. And we pointed out earlier in chapter 1, some time ago, that when the world calls regeneration and salvation in Christ foolishness, the word that is used there in the Greek is moriah.

[12:35] And it's the word from which we get the word moron. And it's not very complimentary, but that's exactly how the world sees our faith in Christ.

[12:49] They do not see the divine logic. All they look at is human logic. And human logic says, you mean to tell me that a man who was not clever enough to prevent himself from being crucified on a Roman cross and dying a terrible death is supposed to be the savior of the entire world?

[13:12] That is the most stupid thing I've ever heard. That is indeed moronic. And that's exactly how people look at it. That's how the world today still looks at it because all they have to reason with is a fallen spirit.

[13:30] And this fallen spirit reaches all kinds of wrong conclusions. So, the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God because they are foolishness to him.

[13:42] And he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised. He doesn't have the equipment that is needed to appreciate spiritual things because he does not have a human spirit that has been regenerated and able to receive these things.

[14:04] So, he just looks at them as stupidity or being moronic. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no man.

[14:16] That means the person who is a believer in Jesus Christ has an ability to assess and evaluate things and establish a value system that the world doesn't have the ability to do.

[14:33] And this is exactly what he is saying here. And yet, he is appraised or he is understood by no man. By no man. That means no unbeliever can really grasp and understand and appreciate the thinking and the lifestyle and the value system of a Christian.

[14:57] It's just beyond him. He just can't grasp it. He just doesn't have the equipment that is needed. It's like trying to read something in code when you don't have the key to the code.

[15:11] And you have no idea what is being said. But once you become regenerated yourself, then you have a key to the code. Then you can understand and unlock some of the mysteries that before were completely beyond you.

[15:26] That's what he is saying here in this text. And it's a marvelous thing. And all of this comes about through the spirit that God has given us. Now, we all have, as I mentioned, we all have a human spirit.

[15:39] And it, believe it or not, your spirit is the dominant part of your being.

[15:53] We are made up of materiality, flesh, bone, blood, tissue, all the rest, and immateriality.

[16:04] And the immateriality that nobody has ever seen, that doesn't occupy time and space like we think of it, this human spirit is the recipient of all kinds of things that we often take for granted.

[16:26] Well, here, let me just list a couple of them. In your human spirit, your volition is lodged. Volition is your will.

[16:37] The capacity that you have to make decisions, your decider, your decider and determiner is your volition.

[16:49] It is the power of choice and the exercise of the will that you have to do this rather than that, to believe this rather than that, and so on. That's your volition.

[17:00] We all have one. And it is the use of our volition that is going to determine what you do and what your value system is.

[17:12] John? Is that, and it says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And then it lists a bunch of things that think on the other.

[17:23] So you can feed or nurture your spirit. Yeah, that's all connected. Absolutely.

[17:34] It's all connected. When he said, let this mind be in you, he's talking about in Philippians 2, that this is the attitude. This is the mental attitude that you are to have.

[17:46] It is that which Christ had. And what was it all about? It was the serving of others. It was regarding others better than yourself. That's the Philippians 2 thing.

[17:57] Christ, who was equal with God, did not consider that position, that exalted position, something to be grasped and held onto at all costs so that he wouldn't relinquish it.

[18:09] But he did relinquish it. He left it behind. And he came down to earth as a servant, born as a servant, humbled himself and served and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross and so on.

[18:26] And then Paul is saying there in Philippians 2. That's what you're supposed to be doing. That's the attitude you're supposed to have. It is an abandonment.

[18:37] And this is a big item, guys, but here it comes. It is an abandonment of the typical ingrained self-centeredness with which we were born.

[18:50] We're all self-centered. It doesn't take any effort to be self-centered. But it is an act of the will and a commitment, assuming that you are regenerated in Christ and you have the ability to make that decision, to make yourself secondary and God primary.

[19:14] And somebody says, you just spell joy, J-O-Y. And J stands for Jesus and O stands for others and Y stands for yourself.

[19:30] So make that your priority. J, Jesus, O, others, and guess who's last?

[19:41] You are. But human nature don't want to be last. Human nature wants to be first, front and center. We're all cursed with that, guys. It's called self-centeredness.

[19:52] And it's part of the human condition. So that's one of the things, potentially, and here's another important point. Boy, this is really involved.

[20:04] When you become a believer in Christ, you are not automatically removed from self-centeredness to Christ-centeredness. But you are automatically given the potential and the ability to do that.

[20:21] And if you exercise that, do you know what that's called? That's called spiritual growth. Spiritual growth, guys, is nothing more.

[20:32] Spiritual growth is nothing more than becoming more and more like Christ today than you were last year. And to the extent that you are, that's spiritual growth.

[20:47] Spiritual growth is being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. So, it is putting him on display rather than putting ourselves on display.

[20:59] And it is completely contrary to human nature to do that. Because human nature says, the three most important people in the whole world is me, myself, and I.

[21:14] And that is the reality with which the curse comes. That's part of the curse, this self-centeredness. You see, before Adam and Eve sinned, their centerpiece was the Creator, God.

[21:36] They focused on Him. Everything centered in Him. And when they disobeyed Him, God was removed as their center and replaced with themselves.

[21:49] And nothing has been the same since. We are all self-centered in our human nature. And it is only spiritual growth that will bring us out of that.

[22:00] Yeah, Roger? The dead sin nature become part of Adam's DNA and that's why we possess it too, been passed down? Well, let me put it this way.

[22:15] Jesus Christ was not contaminated with human DNA. He did not get His humanity from Mary.

[22:27] Where did He get it? He got His humanity from God. It was God who gave Him.

[22:38] It was God who said, the angel said, that holy thing which is planted in you is of the Holy Spirit.

[22:49] Jesus Christ was not contaminated with human DNA. He got his human DNA from Mary.

[23:00] Now, our Roman Catholic friends don't agree with that. And they believe that He got His DNA, His human DNA from Mary.

[23:14] From Mary. But we see that as a problem. And how could He, how could He get His human DNA from Mary and not be contaminated?

[23:29] And this presented, this presented a real problem for the Roman Catholic theology. So, you know what they did? And they could do this because the Pope, in the position of Christ as the Vicar of Christ, he is the same as God on earth.

[23:45] He is a direct representative of Christ. So what he says officially becomes the truth. And the only way they could get around that is to come up with what's called the perpetual virginity of Mary.

[24:05] And that has officially been adopted as one of the doctrinal statements of faith. And I could bring the official Roman Catholic book that I use quite often and show you that.

[24:17] But that was the only way they could get away from it. Is to say, well, Mary, Mary herself was conceived immaculately.

[24:28] So she did not have the fallen DNA. But then that creates another problem. Well, how did Mary get that?

[24:40] What about Mary's grandmother? Then you know there's no end to it. So the simple truth is, God implanted a perfect sinless seed in the womb of Mary.

[24:58] And what Mary did provide was the whole birth process that began with that tiny seed. And the result, of course, was the son of God who was born sinless and the only one who ever was.

[25:15] But that's, I'm getting further afield here. You guys, I appreciate your input. You know what, that shows me that you're doing some thinking and I appreciate that.

[25:26] Okay. Okay. The properties, the properties of our human spirit are likewise immaterial.

[25:37] And the first one that comes to my mind is volition. That's, that's your will. Now, has anybody ever seen a will? Has anybody ever seen a human will?

[25:50] No. So do you know what the physicalist could logically conclude? Therefore, it does not exist. But it does exist.

[26:03] You see, a physicalist, fellas, a physicalist is one who says, if it cannot be weighed, measured, or somehow identified physically, it has no objective existence.

[26:21] The Christian position and the biblical position is something can exist without having physicality. And here, we're just going to list a few of these things.

[26:32] You have a volition. Your will is very real. But is it physical? No. No.

[26:43] Your will is not physical. It can engage things that accomplish things that are physical. But your will itself is immaterial.

[26:55] That's your volition. What about your memory? Has anybody ever seen a memory? Well, then I guess it doesn't exist.

[27:07] But it does exist. But a memory is not something that can be measured and evaluated and weighed. Because it doesn't have physicality, but it still has objective existence.

[27:20] And what about conscience? Is your conscience material or immaterial? Well, it's immaterial.

[27:31] Does that mean that it isn't real? No, of course not. Guilt. Guilt is a human emotion. Has anybody ever seen guilt? Now, we know what guilt can do to people.

[27:44] We know that guilt can ruin somebody's life. But guilt itself is a reality that is immaterial. And personality and temperament.

[27:56] There's nothing physical about that either. But it's real. Nobody denies the existence of a human temperament or personality.

[28:08] What about intelligence or IQ? We can see what intelligence can do. But intelligence itself is not physical. But it's real.

[28:20] So what we are saying is that God possesses these and more. And he has deigned to commit to us these immaterial properties.

[28:36] And I hesitate to use that term because the moment you use the word property, you tend to think of something physical. But these are immaterial properties. Immaterial realities that we all possess.

[28:50] And they are a reflection of the Almighty. In God being spirit, when he communicated to our body and gave us a human spirit, he gave us, including in that, certain realities and certain properties that are in keeping with himself and his own makeup.

[29:14] Now, this doesn't mean that we are just like God. Of course, we don't believe that at all. But we do believe that we possess certain realities and certain aspects that are like God in that they are a reflection of what and who he is.

[29:34] So there are things about us that reside in the Almighty. And probably the best evidence of that is when God breathed into Adam the breath of life and Adam became a living being.

[29:50] God put something of himself into our first parents. And even though that thing became disfigured and marred through sin, it was a spirit that became a fallen spirit.

[30:06] And then, of course, it needed regeneration. So what we're talking about, you realize, of course, is over the heads of all of us.

[30:18] Okay. But we've got theologians who have struggled with this and still do for a long time. Somebody wrote a book. Somebody wrote a book. I don't even know who. I don't recall.

[30:29] But I remember seeing the title in the Christian bookstore. If God made everything, who made God? Where did he come from? And that is kind of a human dilemma in a way.

[30:44] But at the same time, it posits the reality and the essential nature of the eternal existence of God so that we refer to him as the uncaused first cause.

[30:58] God just always was. And that, too, escapes us in our ability to think in those terms because we are committed to the idea that everything that had a beginning had to have a beginner.

[31:20] Everything that has reality has to have an origin. And we tend to translate that to God. Well, then God has to have an origin, too. And that's where the thinking breaks down because God is the uncaused first cause.

[31:34] He is the eternal being. And when you contemplate the greatness of God, and I think we talked a little bit about that last week, and we discovered that it is not adequate to call God big, even though the songwriter used that, how big is God, you know.

[31:51] But we need to think in terms of God, in terms of his greatness, not in terms of his bigness, because big simply indicates dimensions and size and so on, but greatness doesn't have any barriers to it.

[32:06] And when you contemplate that this spirit being called God is greater than the physical universe that he has created.

[32:23] God is not part of the universe that he has created. God is outside all that he has created.

[32:38] He is not part of it. And he is not, we're not talking pantheism. He, creation and the existence of material is not God.

[32:49] Pantheism, God is all and all is God, which is complete nonsense. But that's an effort also to try to get back to origin. And all we can say is that, well, I jotted down something here, let me share it with you.

[33:01] You've got to take a choice between these two. As far as I can see, I can't see what another choice would be. You have to take the position that no one or no thing that is nothing that is non-existent.

[33:20] Well, that's not going to be self-explanable. Let me put it this way. Either, either nothing created everything.

[33:36] Nothing with no intelligence and no existence was responsible for creating life and non-life.

[33:51] That's the only position that you can take if you deny the reality of God as being the uncaused first cause. You have to say, nothing is responsible for everything.

[34:08] Now, to me, that's a lot harder sell than to simply say, God is the uncaused first cause, and out from him all things that have come into being have come into being.

[34:22] But it began with the uncaused first cause. And the only alternative is, you have to say, non-life and non-intelligence that had no existence is responsible for everything.

[34:41] That's generally the atheistic position, which just does not hold water, doesn't hold anything else either. But if you don't buy that, then you've got nothing left but the uncaused first cause.

[34:57] And if there is a God who is responsible for creating everything, then you've got to deal with purpose, meaning, value, destiny, all of those things that go with existence.

[35:12] There's no way around it. So, the atheist is standing in territory that simply cannot be defended, logically or any other way.

[35:23] And yet, they still, many of them, hold to their guns. So, we call them the uncaused first cause. And as I explained to you, or tried to explain to you earlier in our first session, that God being outside of his creation has brought all things into existence.

[35:42] And guys, you've seen as much as I have pictures of space through what the Hubble telescope, for instance, has been able to reveal.

[35:54] You know, that was just so absolutely amazing. Before the Hubble telescope came along, we thought we knew what was out there and we weren't even out of our own backyard.

[36:08] And that Hubble telescope, because what it enabled us to do is to get above Earth's atmosphere that is contaminated with all kinds of stuff that keeps us from seeing clearly.

[36:26] And the Hubble telescope got way above Earth's atmosphere that is out there. And above that, got a clearer picture of what was out there.

[36:41] And, wow! Where did this come from? Hey, it's been there all the time. We just didn't have the ability to see it and appreciate it.

[36:52] But guys, if the space program accomplished anything, it really accomplished that with that Hubble telescope. It allowed us to see what was out there that we couldn't even see before.

[37:03] And the universe is so much greater and bigger than what we thought. And God is greater than the universe and he's outside that.

[37:18] What kind of a being are we talking about? We're talking about an infinite being. One who has no limitations as to his power, so he is omnipotent.

[37:35] He has no limitations as to his wisdom, so he is omniscient. And he has no limitations as to his presence, so he is omnipresent.

[37:49] He is present everywhere. There is nowhere that God isn't. The psalmist said, if I go to Sheol and make my bed in Sheol, God is there.

[38:02] If I extend to the highest heavens, God is there. There is no place where he isn't. What kind of a being is this? And, fellas, I just got one word.

[38:13] And it's the only word that I can think of. God is the otherness. That's all I can say.

[38:26] He is the otherness. He transcends all that is, transcends all of the creation, but he's not part of creation. He's outside of creation.

[38:37] And this God, in his otherness, and in his omniscience, decided to create.

[38:52] And, food's here already? Ma'am, I really appreciate the service, but sometimes...

[39:04] Larry? Well, when you first started talking about Alvarez and so forth, that caused me to think about Paul. And then, when you were just talking about the discovery of the universe, that also made me think about...

[39:23] Paul said that he was taken up into the third heaven. Yeah. And so that made me think about that and wonder about that.

[39:34] Yeah, well... So we have, and heaven is where God is. Is that... That is part of the package, Larry. And, well guys, I'm not...

[39:49] You know, almost everything that I teach is over my head. But this is even more so. And I feel terribly inadequate. And I haven't given you very many answers, but...

[40:04] If I've succeeded in explaining to you how big the problem is, maybe that's worth something. Because it's greater than what we can imagine, I tell you. It's just...

[40:16] God is... Oh. Of him, and to him, and through him are all things, and by him all things consist.

[40:27] And, well, we've... We'll... We'll put a cap on this next week. I've got to finish this. I've got some things that I just can't leave dangling. So... But, in the meanwhile, look over your sheet of 33 things and know that that's where we're going in the future, and we'll get there.

[40:44]  Thank you, Michelle, for serving us so well. We do appreciate it, dear. Thank you. Thank you.