Shawn Snobelen - Be Not Ashamed - Class 1 - Does God Exist

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   The week is Be not ashamed. This is class #1 and his title is Does God Exist? The reading for this class was Colossians 1, verses 15 to 23. We’ll call brother Sean forward.

2. 0:26

   Well, thanks, Brother Dan, and good evening to everyone tonight. Welcome to Class 1. It may seem like a funny question. But does God exist? And I mean does God exist for you in this moment, right now, today?

3. 0:50

   And if He does, can you prove it? If He does exist in your life, is it manifest in the things that you do? Is it evident in your world view? Does it direct your very thoughts and actions? Does it guide your steps every single day? Does it cause you to make right decisions? And are you unashamed of that reality? You know, in a world that says that God does not exist, certainly a world that does not want God to exist, the reality for us as believers, brethren and sisters, is that we have to live in that world.

4. 1:34

   We have to go to work in that world. We have to raise a family. In that world. We have to build our ecclesias in that world, in a world that has tried systematically to remove the Creator of the heavens and earth and cover it. With its own human darkness.

5. 1:57

   You know, I think it’s a a fundamental question that we have to ask ourselves. I think it’s a fundamental question that we should ask ourselves very often, Does God exist? In our life and can we prove it? And really the, the theme of this whole series comes from the book of Romans, but but primarily Romans chapter 1.

6. 2:20

   And we, we talked a little bit about that last night. And so just turn back to Romans chapter 1 and let’s just take a look again at the things that the Apostle Paul says that we might just sort of understand how he sets us up to understand the things that he’s going to talk to us about.

7. 2:37

   And this this powerful statement that that he makes to us, these powerful statements that I think we all love to hear and that motivate us. Now Paul opens his letter, as I said last night, and in a in a different way than than the rest of his apostles. He says some very, very specific things. He opens by saying Paul, the servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. And that word set apart there means to make a demarcation, to set a boundary around oneself.

8. 3:08

   And this gospel of God that he talks about, which Paul says he promised beforehand through his prophets and Holy Scriptures concerning his Son who is descended from David according to the flesh, declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection of the dead. Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all the nations.

9. 3:34

   Including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. Now, if that is not a powerful mission statement for us as believers in Christ, I don’t know what is.

10. 3:47

    And so all of those facts are bound up in this statement that He makes. He goes on to say to the Romans and to us, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone that believes.

11. 4:04

    There was no part of anything that God had given Paul that he was ashamed of. Is that a statement that we can speak with the same boldness of the Apostle Paul? I, I always shrunk back from the things that Paul said that we can boldly approach the throne of grace. I, I felt that there was a certain arrogance in what Paul said or I dismissed it. He said, well, it’s the apostle Paul. It’s certainly not something that I can say, but this is something we have to be able to say with conviction, brothers and sisters, that we are not ashamed of the word of God. And Paul dedicated his life to this principle. He changed his life.

12. 4:46

    For this principle, he dedicated his new life to this principle, and he died for this principle that he was unashamed of anything that God had given him. And we know, of course, brethren and sisters, that that many have gone before and have done this very thing. The characters that we are given in the Old and the New Testament, many of them live their lives unashamed of the Word of God.

13. 5:12

    Even when it went against everything all around. Even when their families disowned them, even when their friends left them, even when the authorities came knocking at the door to take them, such was the resolve of their faith.

14. 5:25

    We only have to read through Hebrews Chapter 11, I think, to get a little bit emotional about the things that people gave up for our sake, that are waiting in the grave for us to be perfected with them. And so it must be for us. And so. This is why it’s so imperative, I think at this time, brethren, it says at this moment in our lives that we know and we understand who our God is.

15. 5:56

    And so Paul’s words to these early Christians in Rome were to us as well, a declaration of faith and encouragement to stand firm to sight despite the prevailing cultural and religious and political pressures of the day. And we talked about some of those things last night. And just as those early believers stood in stark contrast to the world that was around them, so we are called to do the same thing. And it’s not an easy.

16. 6:22

    Thing to do. It’s a difficult thing to do, to stand in opposition. To the power of the world. But the point of the series, brethren and sisters. Is that while the world has changed, and while the world is changing before our very eyes, we. Cannot change with it. As much as sometimes it feels like we should, or it feels like it would be easier if we.

17. 6:51

    Did we cannot change, You know, the stark reality is that we’ve either committed our life to God or we have not and. There’s there’s no middle ground, there’s no half truth. You know, we don’t get into the Kingdom by trickery and deceit

18. 7:19

    and of the things that we believe revealed to us by the power of God in the gospel of God himself, those things must be manifest in our lives and also. We have to accept the consequences of those things that we believe, and there will be consequences, and we’ll talk about some of those, God willing, throughout the course of this week. There are consequences for the things that we believe if we are to receive the benefit of God’s love and mercy. You know I.

19. 8:00

    I think that the title of the slide seems maybe a little bit provocative. And I I wrote it and I rewrote it many times, but but in actual fact, it’s, it’s biblical. This is our reality. We live in an age. Of the systemic dark forces of evil. And we talked about this with the young people this morning and I think they totally agreed that there was a lot going on in this world and it wasn’t light, it was darkness.

20. 8:22

    And, and I’m 56 years old and I’m a very positive kind of guy. I’m a, I’m a glass half full kind of guy. But I look around at the changes that have just happened in my short 56 years of life on this earth and they are dramatic. And I told the kids this morning that when I was in grades 6-7 and eight that we were still reading, you know, God’s the Lord’s Prayer at at the opening services of our school, creationism was still a component part of the science classes. It was a very small part.

21. 8:51

    But it was still. There and now here we are today. Turn over to while you’re already there in Romans chapter one. Just look at verse 28 and I don’t like. Reading this list of things out but. Paul tells us what’s. Going on he tells us what was going on in the time of the Roman Ecclesia and it’s it’s exactly the same thing now Romans chapter 1 and verse 28 he says and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God. These are the unrighteous, of course, of the world. God gave them over to the base mind to do what ought not to be done, and they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, of evil, of covetousness, of malice. They were full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They were gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless and ruthless. Now, if this isn’t a description of what’s going on in our world. Today, then, I don’t know what is, brothers and sisters. But the other thing that’s added to this particular problem, those overt issues in society, is also the persecution. That is very subtle.

22. 10:02

    It’s darkness masquerading as a light, as Paul warns us in Ephesians 6 and 12. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers. Of this Dark World and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms and and similarly Peter writes in first Peter 5 he says be alert and be of a sober mind your enemy of the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour resist him standing firm to the faith and so our battleground in this day and age brethren and sisters is no longer the Coliseum, but it’s a cultural battleground this darkness identifies as as educated as socially progressive as right and it has infiltrated our social standards our. Political scene and our educational systems. It is, as Paul says, a dark spiritual force. Philosophical Humanism.

23. 10:59

    And I’m only. Going to use this term once often called wokeism. I just don’t like that term is what we have in this world today. But what does that look like? And, and we’re going to, we’re going to get into detail in the subsequent classes of this, but here’s just a short list of the things that we have to deal with today. And, and I’m sure you’ve heard of all these. The first one is social relativism. And, and under the banner of social relativism are a number of of things.

24. 11:26

    But really relativism means that everything’s relative. In this particular case, it’s relative to the individual human experience. And we’re we’re living in humanism 3 point O. What’s humanism 3 point O? It’s the age of the hyper individual. We’ll look at some charts. In a in a couple of days, you always have to have a chart on postmodernism.

25. 11:48

    We’ll look at that. And where we came from and, and why we’re here today in this age of hyper individualism. But anything is contextual. And that means whether it’s social or individual, historical, right, historical relativism, moral relativism, whatever it is, it’s relative to the individual human experience. What happens to me is relevant to me. And it might be different than what happens to you and is relevant to you, right?

26. 12:14

    Our personal lived experience the problem? Is with this. Well, it, it fundamentally denies the absolute truth of Scripture, right? But it, it works on our mind. It twists us into thinking that maybe some things are relative, you know, and that’s why we have debate within our communities. About well, you know, Paul said things, but it was relative to the culture of the day.

27. 12:41

    That’s just one example. The worst of it is. That society’s preaching that a man can be a woman and then can have birth. And not only is it biblically false, it’s scientifically false. It’s an impossibility. And yet we’re being taught not only. To accept it, but to talk about it like it’s a reality. As somebody once said, we’re being forced to participate in somebody else’s delusion that that that’s the problem with this.

28. 13:12

    It’s, it’s not something so stark and overt. We can go, oh, I can understand that. I’ll just stay away from that. It, it’s invasive, it works on us slowly, it grinds us down, it challenges our sensitivities and it’s already affecting how we operate within our communities. Another component part of social relativism in this new social contract. Is something called deconstructionism? Who’s heard of that deconstructionism? Right.

29. 13:38

    And this is not a term that a builder would necessarily use, right? You want to build things, not tear it down. And deconstructionism is really all about tearing down everything, tearing down all the traditional values, all the traditional institutions. You’ve heard about, you know, colonialism. We got to tear down colonialism, traditions, norms, including the natural family, the nuclear family.

30. 14:00

    That’s an institution that needs to be torn down, that’s patriarchal. And involved in this are all the issues with gender roles. And so in a, in a broader sense, what this new social contract is about is deconstructing everything in society so that it might be reconstructed after the manner of humanism. And so that goes against the biblical teachings on marriage and sexuality and the sanctity of life and, and the challenge to our own institution and our own ecclesial structure, which is being challenged.

31. 14:32

    Why do we have to have? You know, it was, it was really small during COVID. Why do we have to have 4 hymns during COVID? We’re we’re just online on Zoom. Can we just have 3? And I know that’s. A minor thing, but it it became other things. Why do we have to meet four times a week?

32. 14:46

    Why are our meetings so long? Why are they so dry? Why can’t we talk about things that are more positive? We always talk about the dark things. Why can we talk about things that are positive? All those things are part of this change in values, including at the worst of it, the new gender debate and about inserting sisters into brethren’s roles, but even the other gender debate, which is accepting those of alternate genders and change genders and transgenders and accepting alternate lifestyles. And that is happening in ecclesias in this world. It’s happening.

33. 15:20

    And you know what? It’s knocking on our door. The rejection of objective morality is all part of this this theory of of relativism. Right, the belief that that morality is socially constructed, that my morals are different than your morals because it’s relative from for you in your situation, from your time, from your culture.

34. 15:45

    But the Bible teaches that morality is the same no matter who you are or where you’re from. It’s exactly the same. And so when we start to our sensitivities get impinged about objective morality, that’s when we start saying things like, well, we shouldn’t judge. In our ecclesia, right, you may have heard that we’re too judgmental. We need to be more tolerant, we need to be more accepting. And we’ll look at that in the 4th class, where tolerance and acceptance are actually not biblical principles, certainly not in the way that we might understand. And then of course, we have social justice. The shift to social justice, which promotes the victim mentality, puts oppressors against the oppressed, and it conflicts completely with the biblical understanding of. Justice.

35. 16:30

    We’ll spend a whole class on the difference between social justice and biblical justice, right? What God teaches in his Word is individual responsibility. It teaches forgiveness and it teaches reconciliation, because the issue here is sin. Which is another thing I feel we don’t talk enough about in our ecclesial model.

36. 16:52

    And then there’s this thing hyper individualism. We’ve already talked about, you know, personal autonomy. You know what autonomy means. If you look up the Greek who’s A and I hope you’re right, it’s in my notes. What does autonomy mean from the Greek autonomia? So auto means self. And what does no most mean?

37. 17:17

    Law. When we talk about a personal autonomy, we talk about ecclesial autonomies. Our ecclesias make decisions on their own. When the world talks about personal autonomy, they talk about self law and that’s exactly what it is. That we all become a lawn to ourselves. Not a society that is a lawn to themselves, but individual members of that society. That each are a law unto their own selves. That’s where we’re going in this new social contract. And here’s the the last thing we’ll talk about before we. Move on to something that hopefully is a little more positive, social media and entertainment. And I I am going to.

38. 17:54

    Talk to the young people about about social media and TikTok. But I’m talking to you right now, brothers and sisters. Because when I scan now look I. I, I have an Instagram account for my business and I have AI have a Facebook account. And you say that to young people like Facebook. What’s, what’s that? What are you 90?

39. 18:15

    Right? I have a Facebook account and, and, and that’s really just, I just have it. There’s no justification why I have it. They’re both silly. The issue is, and I fall victim to this as well. And I’m not judging anybody in this room here today. Yet. But do you know? Most of the posts that I see from Christadelphia far and wide has changed from when I first entered Facebook 10 years ago. It’s now, this is my favorite wine. Here’s my favorite beer.

40. 18:50

    Here’s this place we went to and we bet on the horses. Like, like that’s what I’m seeing posted on social media. Now, look, you can have your own reality and I’m, I’m, I’m not saying that, you know, I don’t have a glass of wine now and again, but when that becomes the model by which you define your life, then I think we have an issue.

41. 19:12

    So let’s set that aside and we’ll talk about that in a subsequent class. Here’s another thing about entertainment. We all like to veg, right? And we, we look, I do too. I have a Netflix account. I’m not going to deny it. It’s it’s a problem for me and I shouldn’t have it. And we cancel it.

42. 19:29

    And then we sign up again, and oddly, it’s more money every time. And it’s almost like there’s that little punitive big there. But here’s the problem. When I was a kid growing up and when we were allowed to watch TV from the antennas, literally that’s all we had. Good guys wore white hats and bad guys wore black hats.

43. 19:48

    And that was just pretty much the way it was. You could watch a show and as a kid and understand the morality that was being projected in the show. Now, I’m not saying that any of those shows were good necessarily. It’s just at least there was a very simple black and white understanding of morality.

44. 20:05

    Today, it is very different. Movies Now portray sin as a virtue and virtue as a vice. I’m sure you would agree. Characters now have this distinct moral ambiguity. Now, I don’t know if you notice it, but when you start, when you see some of the the movies that are out today, you have villains. That are actually the heroes kind of this odd anti type of hero.

45. 20:26

    How confusing is that for us? Let alone our kids. And it’s not like you can’t watch a show and go, oh, that’s, you know, that’s clearly wrong. The problem is when you watch twenty of those shows, or 50, or a. Hundred of those shows, at what point does your mind just start to think that’s normal? And of course, children’s programs now being filled with LGBTQ transgender character is about, you know, there’s a secret recorded conversation with the head of the Disney creative department.

46. 20:56

    I don’t know if anybody has seen this where he says that pretty much quote, pretty much the entire Disney creative team for kids programming today is from the LGBTQ or transgender community, he said. Pretty much every single creative person in that department representation, right and you no wonder why Disney movies have gone so far left because that is the political agenda.

47. 21:28

    Now I’m going to bring up one more thing and my wife’s not going to like this, but. How many put up your hands? Let’s just go on record here. How many of you have watched The Chosen? OK, it’s OK. I’ve watched it too. And I’m not saying don’t watch The Chosen. I do think it’s amazing.

48. 21:46

    That over 200 million people are watching a show about the life of Christ. Here’s the problem. When Marty and I started to watch it, we were asked to watch it and we were told, oh, it’s great, watch it. So we started to watch it and at first you’re like, oh, this is. This is really interesting, but you know, you start noticing certain things. The first thing is they are humanizing Christ, making him human, like not divine, not God’s Son. He makes mistakes.

49. 22:15

    He’s unsure of himself, right? He does human things that are not part of the biblical record. The second thing is why does Peter have a back story with gambling debts and insurrection with the Romans? That’s part of his back story. In in the program. That’s not biblical. Now, I don’t know, maybe it was, but God saw fit not to record those things. The third thing is.

50. 22:38

    Is the undertone of the other characters, especially Mary who keeps recidivating to her old problem and they make it a a dramatic thing. There’s also a romantic undertone between Matthew and Mary. Matthew has OCD, interesting characteristics. Maybe he did. But they play everything is a dramatic reproduction. So the problem is, even when we watch The Chosen, a Christian program, we are being subjected to social relativism and postmodernism.

51. 23:08

    Actually, all you have to do is listen to the director’s cuts when they talk about the different, different episodes. They tell you exactly. Why they do the things they do and change the narrative because Christians e-mail in and complain, Hey, you didn’t use that verse. Hey, how come John the Baptist was portrayed in that way?

52. 23:22

    Why do they have that conversation? And they defend, they say, oh, wow, this was this was a highly controversial, you know. Episode I fall prey to all these same things, but we have to be alert because the systematic pressure on our faith is slow and it’s relentless. It’s like the tide. It just keeps coming in and coming in and coming in and eventually we wear down and we have no more resistance. That’s why I love Paul’s bold statement in Romans 12 and two. And I’ll just read this out, this call to action. Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, the mold, the mark of this world.

53. 24:05

    Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed. And we talked about that metamorphosis, which you know, from the from the Caterpillar to the butterfly is the single most miraculous event I think we could ever see that a Caterpillar could go from that form into mush. If you open up the, the, the larva, it’s just like a marshmallow inside.

54. 24:26

    And then it reconstitutes itself into a butterfly. It’s just unbelievable. This is why Paul uses the word Metamorphu be transformed. A complete transformation from one form to another by the renew of your mind, and then you’ll be able to test and improve what God’s will is, His good and pleasing and His perfect will. So the question is, in being unashamed of the gospel of God, are we setting about to deny self or are we trying to gain the world or are we trying to do some facsimile of both? Because we have to walk around, as it were, brethren and sisters in a small pool of light surrounded by this darkness. That’s that’s our goal.

55. 25:09

    And you know the interesting thing I said to the to the young people, I said, you know what happens when, when an individual believer that’s a small pool of light gets together with a whole bunch of other individual believers, You know what you have? You have a large pool. Of light. And that’s what we have here.

56. 25:25

    That’s what we have this week. Turn to Luke Chapter 9 and verse. We’ll start at verse 26. I forgot to reset the timer on my PowerPoint, so we’ll probably go over time. You can blame Microsoft.

57. 25:50

    Brother says we have to endure to the end and we have to stand with faith, because when the Lord comes to collect his Saints. He will look for a number of things. Number one, he’ll look for those that know His voice, He will look for those who have faith, and he will look for those, as we will find out in this reading, those that are unashamed of His words.

58. 26:15

    Luke 9 and 26 For whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and my words of him, shall the shall the Son of man be ashamed when he comes in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and in the holy angels. Now if you understand, of course, the context of this verse, what Christ is talking about, or what He was just talking about, was explaining to His disciples and His followers the things that would shortly come to pass, that He would have to die on the cross.

59. 26:37

    And this is where, you know, Peter stands up in opposition. There’s no Lord, you know these things cannot be. And Christ says you have the things of man in your mind, not the things of God stand beside. You are an adversary. So all those things have just happened. And then he says in verse 23. And he says to them all, if anyone would come after me and let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me, for whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. And the Lord Jesus Christ has many powerful statements, of course himself too.

60. 27:17

    And this is one that I love. What does it profit a man? If he gains the whole world and he forfeits himself, and we can accumulate all kinds of things in our life. And a lot of us have bucket lists and things that we want to do. And we want to jump out of airplanes. We want to go on zip lines to things I can’t do because of my fear of fights.

61. 27:38

    But we want to. We want to reach that next level, right? Are we trying to gain the whole world and inadvertently going to forfeit our lives?

62. 27:50

    You know, I gave a talk a long time ago and, and it was looking at the notes, it was, it was that when I first was baptized, I wanted to be married. I thought if I could just be married before Christ returns, then I got married and then after marriage I thought I just, I just want Christ to wait because I want to have. Children.

63. 28:08

    And then we had children. And, and I wanted Christ to wait till I could just get to a station in my life where I could support my family and, and I enjoy. The work that I do and our cliche is a very welcoming place. I’m the emotional one in the family. By the way.

64. 28:42

    We have this 2 year old grandson that’s just the light of our lives. God willing, you’ll see a picture of him tomorrow night. And sometimes, brethren and sisters, we might catch ourselves thinking, well, I want the Lord to return, but just not yet, you know. And I think the longer that this world goes on, brethren and sisters, the harder it’s going to be to keep ourselves separated unto Christ. And so let the words of the Lord Jesus Christ ring in our ears, that if anyone should come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross.

65. 29:29

    One of the things that my dad says often is. Have we forgotten how to carry the cross of Christ in our lives? Because in doing so, that is in effect the denial of self. There’s no room for two crosses. We can’t carry ours and Christ at the same time.

66. 29:50

    And the Lord Jesus Christ says in Matthew 24 as as as he’s giving us the the future of what we have to expect in in the coming days, the coming years and months, Matthew 2430, verse 20 And for then there’ll be such a great tribulation such as not being from the beginning of the world until now.

67. 30:05

    No one never will be. He says. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would have been saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short. You know, I think it’s going to get so bad, brethren and sisters, that God will step in because it’ll just be too much for us.

68. 30:26

    And so we have to make that choice now. Do we lose the world and gain Christ? Or do we gain the world and lose our life Because we can’t have it both ways. We have to choose. And, as I said, that choice will come with consequences, and those consequences may be difficult to deal with.

69. 30:43

    The consequences of believing in God is often times accepting the shunning and the mockery of the world around us. It is denying that the world has any hope of anything close to salvation, but it means the forfeiture of anything connected to this world. But the reward, brethren and sisters, is greater than anything we can imagine, and being unashamed of the Word of God is pivotal, and it’s a crucial element to us as believers.

70. 31:14

    But there’s another aspect of this. It’s not just enough to believe in the existence of God. Turn over to Hebrews 11 and 6, which was our title verse on the screen. The apostle Paul gives us two parts to this question about the existence of God. Hebrews 11 and six says. And without faith it is impossible to please and forever would draw near to God must believe that he exists or in the King James, which I think is even better, must believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

71. 32:00

    And and just just a quick bit of Hebrew. And, and I know we all understand this. But the word for exists there. This word for is. It’s this very emphatic word. It has A2 dimensional aspect of it that we can believe that God exists now and that he has always existed. And then Paul says that we also must believe that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him to to search him out, to crave, to worship him as as the force of the Greek is. So it’s like there’s this two-part clarification to give us a three-dimensional view of faith that we must believe God’s always existed to bring him out the things that have brought us to now, that he exists for us today and he will also exist in the future to bring him out his promise. Faith is 3 dimensional.

72. 32:55

    And I think these these clarifiers are inextricably linked because we can believe that God exists and we can live our life that God exists, but not believe. That God will exist in the future to bring to bear his promises. And you think, well, how is that possible? Well, it is possible. We had a guy that worked for us in the family business a number of years ago. His name was Phil Thompson.

73. 33:27

    He was a, the big Scandinavian guy, 6 foot 5 strong, super long curly hair. They called him Goldilocks. And he was a, he was a smart guy. Like he knew his Bible. He you could talk about philosophy, science. Stuff. Going on in the world, but he had a he had the worst addiction problem I’ve ever seen in my life.

74. 33:49

    He was addicted to drugs and, and, and everything besides that. And he would work for us for a month and then we wouldn’t see him for a week. And then he’d come back and he’d work for us for three or four days and we wouldn’t see him for a month and then he’d work for us for. Six months, then we wouldn’t see him for three days. And this, this was the reality of his life. He kept falling.

75. 34:07

    Back on his addiction. And I would always talk with him because we worked together. He was, he was my, one of my employees. And and we would talk about the truth, we’d talk about the Bible and he’d even say things like he’d come to work in the morning, you know, he’d be all fired up, he’d all be positive because then things were going good for him. He said, hey, John, have you seen your God today? And I said, yes, Phil, I’ve, I’ve seen my God today. I said, have you?

76. 34:25

    He’s always all around like he, he was that kind of guy. And we would talk about he could quote Scripture. And I said to him, I said, Phil, I said, you need to come out. I said, you need God in your life. I said, you need to come out. Look, I’m doing a lecture.

77. 34:37

    Come on out. It’s. It’s a great topic. You’ll love it. No, no, Sean, I can’t do that. He says my my past is too dark. I’ve done too many things. He said God can’t save me. He believed in the existence of God, but he didn’t believe in God’s future. And in the spring of this year,

78. 35:01

    in his truck in downtown Victoria, they found him dead of a drug overdose. And we didn’t even know until it was too late. We couldn’t even attend his funeral. Such is the problem of limiting God’s power to merely an existence, says in Isaiah 55 and 11. So is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and the purpose for which I sent it. We must believe in that aspect of God’s power, brethren and sisters.

79. 35:39

    And what is the weight of an unbelieving heart? Well, it’s Phil Thompson that’s the weight of an unbelieving heart. But also it says, in fact, if you look at the marginal reference for Hebrews 11 and six, you’ll get Hebrews 3 and 12 with the apostle Paul talks about the other example of the unbelieving heart with the nation of Israel in the Old Testament.

80. 35:56

    Take care of brother, unless there be any of you, he says an unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. And so the writer of the Hebrews gives us this example of exactly what happened with the nation of Israel. We don’t have time to go through it tonight, but God said through Moses and in Exodus 1411, and the Lord said to Moses, how long those people despise me? How long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I’ve done among them.

81. 36:20

    And the point here is that they saw the plagues in Egypt. They saw the miracle as they came out in the Exodus. They saw the destruction of the largest army in the entire world at that time. Every day they had the pillar of of cloud, and every night they had the pillar of fire.

82. 36:39

    Their shoes didn’t wear out. They had the manna from heaven. The terror of God went before the protective preventers. You can’t tell me that they didn’t believe in the existence of God. They might have doubted it, but he was there. The problem they had, brothers and sisters, is they didn’t believe that God would.

83. 37:01

    Take them into the promised land they didn’t believe in God’s future that he could overcome for them the giants in the land and so they didn’t believe in God’s future existence. They didn’t believe that God would accomplish the things that he promised them and so they died in the wilderness.

84. 37:19

    We don’t have time to look at at Mark Chapter 9, but that’s that’s the man with the son that had severe problems. That’s the father that said I believe. Please help my. Unbelief.

85. 37:36

    And the point of this particular record in in Mark Chapter 9 was to set the young people up for a question. And I’m going to ask you the question too, because this is what I was taught in Sunday school. Do you believe that faith? Is like a gas tank because we’re all given a measure of faith and so we’re all given a different sized gas tank. Some of us have more faith and so we have a bigger gas tank and some of us.

86. 38:01

    You know, have a smaller gas tank. And so we can, we can fill up our faith tank, as it were, by studying and by prayer and by reading the word of thought, by coming to Bible school. And we, I talked to them about all the things we can do to fill up our gas tank.

87. 38:14

    And then, you know, when our gas tank gets full, do we then drive around? With the strength of that faith in our gas tank. And then we run out, we coast to the side of the road and we’re done.

88. 38:36

    Faith is not a gas tank. Faith, quite clearly scripturally, is a muscle. And like all muscles, it needs to be worked on. You need to lift things. And sometimes it’s just small things at 1st. And you know what happens when you work out? And some of the young people you know, work out, right?

89. 38:51

    You work that you’re ripping the muscle fibers to pieces when you work out. But then they, they repair themselves and they rebuild them back a little bit stronger. And we can get stronger every day. That’s exactly how faith works. God gives us a measure of faith, a measure of strength of faith, and then it’s up.

90. 39:08

    To us to put it to work and this man, he needed to work on his faith. And each time we put our our lives in God’s hand, we develop that face muscle a little bit more. And as our brother Peter said this morning in his exhortation and it it touched me. In a very real way, and that is that we all struggle.

91. 39:36

    You know, we have those people in our community, brethren and sisters, just recently that have suffered immeasurable loss, and we pray for healing. And sometimes it doesn’t come and it can shatter. Our faith and we think, why doesn’t God answer our prayer? Well, perhaps he has, but maybe just not in the way we’d hope, we say to ourselves.

92. 40:04

    But This is why I believe it’s important that we understand not only in the existence of God, but in God’s future. Because sometimes, brethren and sisters, the immediate future of God is not easy to see, which is why we have to focus on the eternal future. We must believe in God’s outcome, whatever it is, and whenever it happens, even if we can’t see it, turn to the prophecy of Daniel.

93. 40:37

    If, if, if ever, you need an act of faith to bolster your courage and help you understand this concept of believing in God and believing in God’s future, you’ve got to go to Daniel chapter 3. And we know what’s happening in Daniel chapter 3. There’s a number of obviously faith of building events that happen in the book of Daniel, but this is my favorite King Nebuchadnezzar.

94. 41:03

    He’s the supreme leader. He’s all powerful. Whatever King Nebuchadnezzar says, it literally happens. He’s had the conversations about the dreams with Daniel and he interprets and he builds this image of gold. It was over 100 feet tall. Daniel chapter 3 and one King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold whose height was 60.

95. 41:20

    Cubits and its breadth was six cubits. And he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. And then King Nebuchadnezzar sent together the satraps, the prefects, the governors, the councillors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates and the officials. Of the provinces to come to the dedicate of the image of King Nebuchadnezzar that he had set up. And you can think about being in the plain of Dura at that time. We we don’t know exactly, but let’s just say there were 10s of thousands of people, most of them showing up with music and tambourines and yelling and screaming. It would have been absolute mayhem. And everyone begins to bow down to this 100 foot image of worship.

96. 42:00

    But not Daniel’s three friends. And as these things often go, as it says in verse 8, their neighbors, their Co workers, whoever it is, they rat on them and say, oh, those three men, they’re not bowing down. They bring them before the king and there they stand before the king. Verse 14 And Nebuchadnezzar says to these three young men, is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up?

97. 42:26

    Now if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn and the pipe and the lyre and the trigon and the harp and the bagpipe and every kind of music, that you should fall down and worship the image that I have made well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. Who is the God Nebuchadnezzar says, that will deliver you out of my hand.

98. 42:48

    And right there beside Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego was a gigantic fiery furnace which is then stoked hotter and hotter and hotter. And there they are, standing before the king of all the lands, in front of thousands of people who are all conforming and bowing down to the silly 100 foot image. And they are compelled by the King himself. To do it or to die.

99. 43:16

    And This is why I love their answer. And I don’t think there’s any sarcasm in this answer. I think this is just a. Statement of the fact of their. Faith, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. It’s like to say you. Should already know we are not bowing down.

100. 43:38

     And if this be so, and that’s the threat of certain death, then our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will. Deliver us out of your hand, O King, He will deliver us.

101. 43:53

     But if not, let it be known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. Now, I don’t think for a minute that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn’t believe in the future and in the resurrection, or that they thought that maybe God wouldn’t be able to save them in that moment.

102. 44:17

     I just think they believed that their God would save them. But if it wasn’t God’s plan in that moment to save them on that day. It didn’t matter because they believed in God’s future. It’s like saying the significance of God’s eternal future should surpass the importance that we place on our present lives every single time

103. 44:45

     that we would know of a surety that God has a future for those who believe. And if we have that surety that God has our future in his mind, it will change dramatically how we Live Today. It’ll change how we make decisions like the decisions of these three men to stand firm against the influence of the world.

104. 45:06

     They were unashamed of what they believed. Their times are no different than ours. Rather than sisters, they had all the social pressure to conform to this seeming innocuous thing. You know, really, when you think about it, just.

105. 45:23

     Just bow down. Just put your head down and just bow down and get out of there and get back to doing the good things that they were doing and they could have done that. But no, because I believe there are certain spiritual lines that God draws that we cannot cross, that the thing that we as God fearing believers must manifest is his glory in our lives at all times. Even when our lives are at stake, even when we have fear of social cancellation, even when there’s fear that we’ll lose our jobs, even when we might be cast out of our social circle. It doesn’t matter because we’ve made the decision knowing that God’s future.

106. 46:13

     Is more important. This is what it means to live in God’s world and under God’s laws. Just a couple more slides. I think it’s said in the manual. We have 55 minutes for the class. You know, if we believe that God exists and we believe that this is God’s world, then guess what? We have to live by his rules.

107. 46:47

     Do we not follow God’s laws so that we can be saved from ourselves? And if that’s the case, which it is, we have no right to expect that we can change God or change His laws to suit our own desires.

108. 47:03

     Isaiah says in chapter 46 and 9, as the world around us tries to subvert God’s truth. God speaking to the prophet, says this, I am God, there is none else. I am God, and there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning, the ancient times, the things that are not yet done saying My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure

109. 47:31

     once we accept, brethren and sisters, what God says. We have to act on it and I remember listening to a series from brother Nathan. ‘S father, Brother Roger. It was a school of the prophets, started the school of the prophets. And he said I’m going to paraphrase him badly, so don’t quote me when we start the beginning of a study. He said, before we even begin to allow the Scripture to reveal its truth in that study, we have to be prepared to accept what it will say.

110. 48:11

     And then once we accept what it says, we have to do it like it’s just a, it’s a simple fact of being believers in God’s promises. The word of God is not just a suggestion. It’s not, it’s not a statement, a beautiful statement that we print out and, and get sent to us from Etsy And we, we, we glue it on our dining room wall.

111. 48:32

     Which many of us do. And it’s, it is beautiful. We’ve done it. We have. A verse up on our wall. We have to set out to believe in God’s Word and then do what it says. Even if it. Impinges on our personal sensitivities, especially brethren and sisters, when it impinges on our personal sensitivities.

112. 49:00

     You know, it’s, it’s not like we don’t know what the Apostle Paul says in the book of Romans as he positions the sufferings and the persecution and the hardship and the trouble and the affliction and the struggle for those in, in the faith, the the issues of sin, the the internal struggles amongst amongst believers.

113. 49:18

     And he talks about that in in Romans chapter 8 and 17. But even more in the Epistle to the Romans is Paul encourages us to remember the benefits of the things that we believe that are more important that overcome those struggles. Romans 5 and starting verse 3 and I’ll just read this. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance, character and character hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God’s love is being poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

114. 49:55

     There’s one more element that I just want to finish with in believing in the existence of God and God’s future. And it’s something that I I know we talk about a lot because we talk a lot about God manifestation, but turn to. Genesis chapter 1 and 26 and. I know we all know this and and as Christadelphians we’re unique in our understanding of God manifestation. But I just want to go over this one more time because maybe it’s just maybe I’m the only one that doesn’t know this but. Maybe there’s one or two more that need to hear this as well, but it says in Genesis 1 and 26 after the the unbelievable amazing.

115. 50:34

     A glory that is exposed as God brings his infinite power, his creative power on the formless and void earth, and his purpose starts to unfold. And as he’s going through the creative process, of course he gets to man and he creates man. And he says in Genesis 1 and 26, he said, let us make man in our image and in our likeness. Now, what does this mean?

116. 50:53

     And we talked about this with the teens this morning. Does it mean that we’re to look like God in the angelic host? Well, I’m sure it does. We we see the representation of of angels in the the word of God and and they appear like men. So, so yes, and that’s kind of how I’d always looked at it.

117. 51:12

     But and I know these these. Words have been parsed many times and I’m sure I’ll hear your thoughts about this after, but these two words that we were made in the image and likeness of God, I understand them like this. The first word for for image in the in the ancient Hebrews, fairly common word that’s used about idols.

118. 51:32

     It’s all through the Old Testament. It’s a representation. It’s something that that looks like something but it. But in this particular context, I believe there’s also the function and the role. Because right after this is when God gives Adam his commands about the things that he has to do to go out and have dominion on the earth like God has just had in his creative acts.

119. 51:51

     So the first part, I think, is that we’re commanded to be like God. And the word for likeness, this word DeMuth is similar, but it’s different in that it’s more about the comparative to his attributes and his character, which is to act like God. And so God created us to be like Him in the human sense, to go out and have dominion and to do things and to act like God in benevolence and in love and in care and in guiding, and also to act like Him in His attributes and His love and His grace and His mercy.

120. 52:25

     And so it means for us, brethren and sisters, if we are to inhabit that image, we must do those things. Have you ever considered the magnitude of that spiritual reality that God created this vast universe and made us in His image and then placed us in this world to fulfill a purpose? And what was that purpose? It was to be like Him and to act like Him to manifest God in our lives.

121. 52:56

     Hebrews one and three speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ said who be in the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power. When he and by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. That’s the ultimate representation of God is in the Lord Jesus Christ and we aspire to that form. It says in Ephesians 4 and 22 says you were taught with regard to your former way of self to put off your old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to make new in the attitude of your minds and to put on a new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. So, brethren and sisters, if we believe that God exists and will will fulfill His promise in the future, do we manifest God’s attributes and His character every day in our lives? That’s why I asked the question to start Does God exist? For you and can you prove it?

122. 54:05

     Does the image of. God, brethren and sisters, therefore exist in US. You know, Peter, of this working class man, this regular man running his own small business under the pressure of society’s expectations all around him when the Lord was with him. And, and his whole world was then shattered to the core as he tried in his own human way to get closer to his Lord now under trial.

123. 54:30

     So this is the time when when Christ was taken in trial and he tried to get closer and closer as the Lord was taken away because he wanted to be with him. But he, but he, he felt the shame of that knowledge and he denied his existence 3 times. He denied his Lord the last time emphatically. Peter says, I tell you the truth, I do not know this man. Can you imagine the heartbreak of Peter when he got that look from his Lord before the the sign of his last denial, and how the sword of the Spirit of the Word of God would have cut him asunder, dividing the very thoughts of his heart. How in in the fear of that moment it overrode his faith and he denied the existence of his Master. But we can be, we can rest assured, brethren and sisters, that there is hope because of that man Peter that denied his Lord, became this man in his epistle in first Peter 2 where he says like newborn infants.

124. 55:34

     Long for the pure spiritual milk that bite you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good as you come to him as a living stone rejected by men. But in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be in holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, For it stands in Scripture.

125. 55:57

     Peter says, behold, I lands I in a stone, a cornerstone, precious and chosen, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

126. 56:11

     We have to wage war, brothers and sisters, against the dark force of the world. And we can only do this if we inhabit the image of God in our lives, if it manifests in our lives every single day in our hearts and in our minds. Second Corinthians chapter 10, and I’ll just read this, says for though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

127. 56:38

     We demolish arguments and every potential that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

128. 56:54

     This is how we have to behave in this World of Darkness. We have been given so much, brethren and sisters, we’ve been offered life itself. We’ve been offered a way out of this body of death, salvation from our sins, and we’ve been reconciled through our Father in heaven, through the Lord Jesus Christ. And so if we get nothing out of this series this week, it is from this first class that if we believe that God exists and we believe in the future that God has given us, and that is the first step in being unashamed of the things that we believe. I want to close by reading from the same reading from Colossians.

129. 57:31

     So just turn back to that in Colossians chapter one that our brother Justin had read for us. Brother Tech Morgan in in one of his series on on the epistle of Romans said something that that stuck with me and he says, he says one of the beautiful things about the apostle Paul is how he elevates God in all of his writings. He elevates the majesty of God.

130. 57:58

     He elevates the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ. He elevates it for us to see this high and lofty goal. And in saying that, brethren and sisters, we have to lower ourselves in terms of the elevated majesty of our Father in heaven. And so he does that here in this passage starting at verse 15, Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, thinking about the image.

131. 58:20

     That needs to be manifest in US. In the Lord Jesus Christ being the perfect image of God, he says He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him.

132. 58:39

     And He is before all things, and in Him are all things held together. He is the head of the body, the Ecclesia. He is the beginning, the first born of the dead, that in everything He might be pre eminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross. And you, brothers and sisters, you and I, who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present us holy and blameless and above reproach before him, If indeed you continue in the faith steadfast and stable, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which is being proclaimed in all. Creation under heaven.

133. 59:39

     So, God willing, brothers and sisters, over the course of these next five classes, we will look with more detail at the issues that face us. And the truth of God that guides us, so that we might stand firm in our faith to the end, not being shaken or moved from the hope of the gospel that we have heard, That we remain separated unto Christ.

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     So that we can stand with courage until that great day when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to gather his elect. And we’ll be redeemed from this Dark World, and they will live. Forever in his light, because we were unashamed.