February 13, 2025 • 60 mins
Live coverage of Genesis chapters 1-11 at First Methodist Hobbs, NM. Covering Genesis 1:1
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Welcome, everybody.
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We're going to get started.
Let me open up with a quick word of prayer and we'll dive in.
As we always do here, Father, we pause a moment and just thank you for your word.
Thank you for the spirit of wisdom and understanding that is present among us.
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We acknowledge you, Holy Spirit.
We pray that your influence would prevail in our conversation, in our minds, in our
hearts.
We just ask for your grace and power to be present so we can see what you want us to
see, discuss what you want us to discuss, so that you can reveal the things about God
and His Son, Jesus Christ, that you want us to know and understand.
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We love your word.
We love learning about it.
We love pondering the things that are written there.
So we thank you that you're here to assist and guide us as we explore the things of God,
the mysteries of God.
We love you.
It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
All right.
I just got done reading an interesting book yesterday.
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It's called Decoding Gobekke Tepe.
So I would recommend this book.
It's a very good, interesting book about that site, that topic, and you'll learn a lot of
interesting things about things that pertain to Genesis.
It's by Aaron Judkins and Judd Burton.
(01:50):
And FYI, Aaron Judkins and Judd Burton were frequent guests on Mike Heiser's podcast,
PiraNormal.
So I think Heiser asked Aaron Judkins to take over that podcast.
So very interesting.
A-A-R-O-N.
Judkins.
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And Judd Burton.
And you cannot get a, come on in, come on in Carolyn.
You cannot get a Kindle version of this, that's why I have a paper copy.
So don't expect to get to read it immediately.
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Now this is the author that I recommend quite frequently.
If you want to develop a supernatural worldview, which the book of Genesis is premised upon
a supernatural worldview.
It was a supernatural worldview across the board in the ancient Near East.
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And so this is a book called The Unseen Realm by Dr. Michael Heiser.
Now this is quite a hefty read.
So if you wanted to start off on a lighter read, you could read the book called Supernatural
by Dr. Heiser.
That's like the, that's like the Cliff Notes version of this book.
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But this book will probably change your worldview if you read it.
So I would say that's must read TV right there.
All right, let's, let's maybe do a little talking about our schedule for, we've got
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12 weeks left.
We did our introduction last week.
We're going to start on Genesis chapter one this week.
Now if you, did anybody here get a chance to listen to the podcast?
What podcast did I prescribe last week?
Okay, here we go.
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Okay, so the one that we're doing today is Genesis 1-1.
Let's talk about how we're going to do this going forward because we've got 20 episodes
and we've got 12 weeks.
And I've got like two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine episodes just on chapter
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one.
So obviously I don't think we're going to use up nine weeks to cover that material.
Let's look at listening to, let's do the uncreated light of God.
Angels, demons, snakes and dragons and the Maseroth.
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It's three episodes.
It's like 2040, probably about an hour of listening time.
The Maseroth and prophetic signs.
The Maseroth is what the Bible describes as the signs of the zodiac.
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The uncreated light of God.
Angels, demons, snakes and dragons.
Aren't these good titles?
You think I would have went viral by now.
Well, that's still possible.
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You know, God's not done with you.
We'll hold anything's possible.
That's right.
And then the last one is the Maseroth.
I'll spell that for you.
M-A-Z-Z-A-R-O-T-H.
The foundrypress.org.
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Now, you could find them on almost any podcast outlet.
Yes.
Yes.
So we'll cover those three next week.
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So much good stuff in there to cover.
We've got the, you know, and all of this is foundational to the rest of the Bible.
When you go discussing the image of God, God created man and the image and likeness of
God he created him, male and female he created them.
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What is the image of God and what are the implications for that in regards to the saving
work of Jesus Christ?
These are important foundational topics to be able to think about and discuss.
So it's all very interesting.
All right.
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So from the podcast, do we have any questions about that content that we assigned?
Was it really that easy?
Did everybody watch it?
I didn't.
I'm going to give it a first look.
Can you give us an update?
I mean, just a quick update.
I could give you the whole episode.
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I got the transcript right here.
I found out that what you meant when you said it wasn't created in six days or seven or
something like that.
And I read your handout.
There's a lot of information there.
Now, I don't I again, my position is I don't know how God created the heavens and the earth.
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The reason I handed that material out is because you don't have to read that as a literal
six, 24 hour day creation.
You know, if you want to, that's fine.
But if you that's not what the text is intending.
The text is answering questions that a scientific worldview is asking, you know.
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So yeah, yeah.
Well, if nobody did the podcast, I guess we can just cover that content real quick.
I can probably do that in a concise way.
So Genesis one, chapter one, chapter one, verse one.
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So this was written again, sometime after the egg.
This is edited and compiled sometime after the exodus from Egypt.
It is speaking into the predominant cultures of the ancient Near East.
All of them believed in the supernatural realm.
All of them believed in God's.
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All of them told similar stories.
Right.
And so the point of the point of view of the Jewish people led by Moses, their agenda was
to set the record straight.
These events we all understand to know and share.
You guys have your interpretation of those events.
They revealed the gods that you worship.
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We're here to tell you that there's only one God.
He's uncreated in being.
And he's the only one worthy of worship.
These beings that you're worshiping are evil and in rebellion against the one true God.
And so this is what's unique about Genesis in the midst of the ancient Near East is it
is condemning those gods as being evil and unworthy of worship.
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And the there's only one God that's worthy of worship.
So.
It seems that from reading the handout it all goes back to Hebrew original.
That was the original language that it was written in.
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That's right.
So Genesis chapter one verse one in the beginning God created the heaven heavens and the earth.
Now one of the points I make in the podcast is that while it's debated as to whether or
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not this verse is teaching creation from nothing or creation ex nihilo there are other scriptures
that do teach that.
And this was interpreted somewhere between the third century B.C. and the 10th century
A.D. by the predominant interpretation is that we have this uncreated God who's transcendent
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in nature.
He's not part of the created order.
Who is responsible for the heavens and the earth.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
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And this tells us something important about God.
If God is engaging in the project of creating.
When you are created in the image and likeness of God what does that say about you.
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We are created to be creative.
Right.
Now that can manifest itself in a lot of different ways.
Some people are creative in business.
Some people are creative in art.
Some people are creative in theology.
Good point that just hit me in the heart.
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He created it with his words.
What are we creating with our words.
Because that's scripturally true.
And so many times if we would understand that we speak to those things that aren't as if
they are they will manifest.
You can speak to your sick liver and you'll get well.
That's the power that God gave us when he imparted the Holy Spirit into us.
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The problem is that we as believers we don't take our rightful dominion and our right authority.
But if he could speak to an animal and make it become then why aren't we speaking to our
children and making them become.
I don't know.
That's just when you were talking about creation I'm starting to understand so much more about
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the power that we possess.
He gave man dominion over the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, every beast that
crawls on the earth.
That means he gave you a mind and in that mind you could be creative.
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It's in there.
But he said he created us to take dominion.
And when the enemy came what happened?
He took dominion over the earth.
So aren't we supposed to take that back?
That's the message from Genesis chapter 1 to Revelation chapter 23.
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And so that's I mean it's absolutely true.
How did God create?
God created by speaking.
And honestly that same power is in us.
That's what prayer is.
So you hear me quoted all the time.
Mark chapter 11 verses 22 and 23.
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Have faith in God.
I tell you the truth.
If any of you should say to this mountain go cast yourself into the sea and here's the
key and does not doubt in his heart but believes what he says shall happen and shall be done
for him therefore whatever you ask for in prayer believe that you have received it and
it shall be yours.
And so this is one of the things that's so powerful about the gospel of Mark we're going
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to talk about this Sunday is how everything that Jesus had been doing in his ministry
he gave his disciples the same authority to do and they go out and do the same thing before
they're born again before they're filled with the Holy Spirit.
Right.
That's crazy to me.
But they go out and do the exact same things that Jesus has been doing.
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So so we're talking about the idea of a pre-existent uncreated God.
Now I think I repeat this argument all the time because I think it's important that everyone
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be able to articulate this in order to be competent in giving a defense of your faith.
The law the laws of science dictate that there is a first cause for everything that exists.
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Right.
It's a law of science.
So in the created order in the physical universe everything came from something.
Everybody gets that.
Now typically people would would say well that doesn't solve the problem of where God
came from.
Where did God come from?
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God exists and everything came from something else.
Where did God come from?
So what's your answer to that?
You know people say there were people before Adam and Eve but nobody explained it.
We could be getting to that at some point in this class Dandy.
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Nobody has an answer to that?
I didn't even thought about it.
How do you describe the indescribable God?
How do you paint a picture of that and how do you explain it?
He's unexplainable.
He's all he's Omni.
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So you tell me I want to know.
I want you guys to give me the answer.
Where did God come from?
I've been asking this since I was three years old.
And you know this is the thing.
You can remember little questions you used to ask when you were a little kid.
And they're profound questions.
You know.
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Brother Troy?
I want to know.
Where did God come from?
Yeah.
Are there just some things we're not meant to know?
I mean seriously.
We're not supposed to know everything until the time is right and he could tell us.
I still don't know what's going on.
I don't know what's going on.
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I am that.
What's that?
So the implication of that is that
God has always existed. He doesn't come from anywhere.
Isn't that Einstein did time and space?
I mean you can't do that with that.
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Space can't be. I'm not Einstein.
Space cannot be without time.
Space and time are
a part of the material universe.
Time is intertwined with matter.
And that's an important point to make.
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So let's discuss this. It's important to be able to articulate this.
An uncreated,
transcendent, eternal being
is responsible for the creation of the heavens and the earth
and that does include time. God exists
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outside of time and space. The law of
physics, the laws of the physical universe, do not apply to an
uncreated, transcendent, eternal being.
See, that was what I was saying.
That's why I relate that to God.
It's just there.
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The laws of the physical universe dictate everything came from
something. The laws of the physical
universe do not apply to an uncreated, transcendent,
supernatural, eternal being. You understand?
He exists outside of those laws.
And time has no influence.
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And so this is, I don't know
any refutation to that explanation
of reality, but that's what the text is
communicating if you go to John chapter 1 verse 1.
You guys got this memorized.
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I'm proud of you.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was
in the beginning. He was with God in the beginning.
Through Him all things
were made. Without Him nothing was made
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that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the
light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not
understood it. So we have
these ideas of the Trinity
in Genesis chapter 1. The Spirit was hovering over the face of the waters.
Right?
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All partnering with one another
in the project of bringing forth the created order.
They were created by the Word, who is?
Jesus Christ. They were created by Him
and for Him. So, you know,
you were talking about humanity losing dominion, which they were given
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later on in the chapter. It was lost by their
disobedience and rebellion, but it was recaptured
through the work and ministry of Jesus Christ.
The problem is, from the time of
Satan being given dominion, Jesus Christ so much
chaos went on and so much territory was trampled and taken
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by the enemy that in order to take it back from these
enemy gods or gods or devils or whatever they are,
we have to be able, like the sons of Isk'ar, to be able to
discern the time and discern the spirit we're dealing with.
They knew the times and what Israel ought to do. Yes.
Amen.
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Ah.
Let's see.
Now, God in the book of Genesis, in the time frame that we're talking about,
had always been revealed in general through the
created order. Romans 1 and 2 talks about that.
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What we have with the beginning of
the book of Genesis is a God who's beginning to
reveal himself specifically through the pages
of Scripture. So everyone understood there was a God.
Everyone was trying to figure out who this God was, how to relate to this God.
They all had different ideas. Here is God beginning to
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disclose himself through Scripture and through events, the events
of history, like the Exodus from Egypt,
so that he can teach people who he is, what he's like,
how to properly relate to him, how to
follow his prescription for being reconciled
to him, right?
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And what's interesting is with the Exodus from Egypt,
God chose the most
powerful, most famous nation on the earth to defeat
with a bunch of slaves for the exclusive
purpose of making himself famous to all the nations.
Now, that's important because the books of
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Moses came out of that period,
epoch of history. And so it's clear through that event,
and it says, God raised up Pharaoh
so that God could make himself famous amongst the nations.
And why is that? He wants everyone to know who he is,
what he's like, how to be properly related to him.
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You know, it's God's desire to be known and to be reconciled
with human beings. He loves people.
He loves all people.
You know, based on what you said before
you talking about what you're talking about now,
it came to me that
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when Moses went up in the mountain to get the
commandments, that's what he got, right?
But they said no one has ever seen God.
And lived. Right. Even Moses.
There was some big cloud over there.
But when he came down to the mountain, he was so full
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of the glory of God that the people couldn't stand the radiance that he carried.
And when we're transformed, we should carry that same type of radiance.
Now you ladies are getting a little ahead of me here. That's going to be
the topic of the uncreated light of God.
But that's a
powerful idea. That's a powerful line of thought.
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Let's see.
Let's talk about this idea.
I'm trying to look up the word so I don't mispronounce it.
The word, because when we talk about God,
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and we're talking about what God has revealed in Scripture and through the events of history,
does everybody understand that that is a miniscule
of what there is to know
about an omnipotent and omniscient,
right? An omnipresent being.
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There's more we don't know about God than what we do know about God.
And that's kind of an understatement. Right?
So it's called, I might mispronounce it,
apophatic theology.
I'm going to quote to you from some of the
early church fathers. Clement of Alexandria.
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Yeah, that's right. Apophatic theology. Clement
of Alexandria lived 150 to 215.
He holds that God ultimately
is unknowable.
Although God's unknowability concerns only his essence,
not his energies or powers.
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What do you think of that statement?
Have you ever heard of the distinction between God's essence
and God's energies? This is kind of an Eastern Orthodox
idea.
I mean, the power of the energy
when God was present,
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the priest that would go into the
temple, they couldn't stand. I mean,
it just killed them. Like that. Because sin couldn't enter into that.
If they did something wrong, right. That's why they had the rope tied around there.
Okay, let's take it a step further. Let's talk about electrons, protons,
and neutrons. One thing you can see in touch,
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and the other you can't. Right. But you can see
something animating the most fundamental building blocks
of the created order, and where is that energy coming from?
You know? And so there's a distinction
to be made between the essence of God.
God isn't some mystical energy, or some force,
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like some Eastern religions teach. God is a person. He is a personal being.
He has a form. But his form
in his omnipresence produces
incomprehensible energy
or power. Now,
going back to what we talked about earlier,
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all things are possible for those who believe.
Because there is an incomprehensible power
that is omnipresent that when we get aligned
with what the scripture teaches about this God,
we are aligned in mind, in will, in thought.
We can do the same things that Jesus did. He said,
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ye, even greater things than these. Right?
Okay, let's keep reading.
This is according to Tertullian, another early church father, 155-240.
That which is infinite
is known only to itself.
This is, this it is
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which gives some notion of God. While yet, beyond all our
conceptions, our very incapacity of fully grasping
him affords us the idea of what he really is.
He is presented to our minds in his transcendent greatness
as at once known and unknown.
And so we can know God based upon what's revealed in scripture.
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We can reveal God based upon him moving and working and acting on our behalf.
So we can know God in some parts, but the greater part of God
ultimately is unknowable. He's incomprehensible.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his
Catechol Homily states, for we explain not
what God is, but candidly confess that we have not
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exact knowledge concerning him. For in what concerns
God to confess our ignorance
is the best knowledge.
Now, well let me read you a few more quotes. Augustine of Hippo.
If you understand something,
it is not God.
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John of Damascus.
He employed negative theology when he wrote that positive
statements about God reveal not the nature, but the things around
the nature. So here's what Thomas Aquinas would say,
one of the most famous theologians in all of history. The most perfect to which
we can attain in this life in our knowledge of God is that he
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transcends all that can be conceived by us.
So you get the idea, right?
So even I would posit when we are using
statements, doctrinal statements
that are correct, like the Trinity, one God, three
persons. Can anybody here explain that to me?
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Anybody here understand that?
We're using
the limited human vocabulary that we have
to describe something ultimately that is inexplicable.
Right? And so it's correct
to say, to refer to the Trinity,
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but we would be fools to think that that's
a precise definition for something that is inexplicable.
Right?
The word was with God and the word was God. He was with him and he was him.
So it's kind of confusing to our
experience.
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So this is ultimately why
faith plays the key role in relating to God.
Okay?
We can't know with any certainty what or who
we are relating to. Now, Jesus Christ
has revealed to us what we need to know about God to be
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saved. That doesn't mean that Jesus Christ has revealed everything
there is to know about God. Right?
We can't know with any certainty what or who we are relating to.
It is simply impossible for our limited minds to grasp
the vastness and complexity and holiness of God.
Every person is required to trust what they don't know
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in order to relate to an unknowable God. That is faith.
Faith is to the invisible world what senses are to the visible.
Now, that's a statement from John Wesley. Let me say that again.
Faith is to the invisible world, the supernatural realm,
what the physical senses are to the visible world.
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So we are capable of relating to
that world in a real, tangible way. You have the
organ of your spirit that has been imbued by faith
to relate to the unseen realm.
Okay? Now, I would pause it.
That's really the raw material of what consciousness is about.
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You know, science struggles to define what consciousness is.
And I would say that consciousness
is our connection
to the resources of the unseen world that we can become
physically and mentally aware of.
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Faith is the spiritual organ by which we can acquire
the knowledge of God.
Now, when we talk about knowledge, we're not just talking about information, we're also talking
about experience, direct experience.
It's both of those things. You know, I know
plenty of people who have a supernatural experience of God
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that don't develop holiness of mind
that come up with all kinds of whack-a-mole ideas.
I know people who have all kinds of intellectual knowledge of God that have never encountered
them personally in their lives. You know, and that's why with the Wesleyan tradition, we emphasize
both holiness of heart and holiness of mind
working together. By those two
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disciplines, we can come to a knowledge of God.
So, by faith
we encounter and perceive through the contemplation of God and Scripture
the one who is ultimately incomprehensible.
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Well, I would even take it a step further.
I mean, I went to Oral Roberts University. So, people that I know had a real
authentic encounter with God, and it did change them.
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I would say, now I believe that he did.
I would say that I believe that he did. I can say that
I was with him when he received a divine healing
at a healing ministry.
But let's continue developing this idea.
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Well, I mean, you've got Judas.
You know, but people who have a real
encounter with God, they're really changed. They do not develop
in their understanding of Scripture in conjunction with
the church. And this is the stuff that
heresies were made of in the earlier church.
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You know?
Well, and I mean, to say that, we're being kind of productive here.
Because he says, when the one in the 99 goes
astray, he goes after them. So you can know God be up close
and personal and still fall flat on your face and walk in the middle of a cesspool of sin.
But that's not going to let you stay there if you really
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have had an encounter. He's always faithful and he'll pull you out of that
cesspool. Now, not going to say you're not going to have a struggle coming out of it, and
not going to say he's not going to tan your hide real good, because he's a God of discipline,
he's a God of order, and he's a good daddy. Well, when we talk about faith,
I wish Ross was here because he is.
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Oh, well I was going to say.
You know,
I said by faith. You know, my granddaughter,
she was in first grade or second, I'm talking about Ruth,
she came to me and she said, Grandma, I was coming down with a cold,
I was getting sick, and daddy prayed for me.
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And I'm not sick anymore. And he has taught
his children to live by faith, not sight.
And faith is like a muscle. The more you use it, the
stronger it gets. And you know, it's like a muscle. If you try
and start off with, you know, professional powerlifter weights, you're going to get
defeated. You've got to start off with the types of weights that
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your faith can lift and go from there.
I resemble that remark.
Ross?
In Sunday school, we talk about
before you has been placed life and death. And when we talk about
the angels and we talk about having an encounter with God,
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it's a choice if you're going to accept what God has done
or follow Him or not. And so to me, the greatest example of that
is a third of the angels were cast down with Satan.
Why? Because they made a choice to follow
Satan. And I think that's the thing that we
ignore a lot of times. It's
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your choice. And God tells us in the Old Testament, this is Jeremiah,
before you has been placed life
and death. Choose life.
You don't have to choose life. Judas knew Jesus.
Judas knew God. But Judas made another
choice. And not just Judas all throughout history, not
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recorded in the Bible. People have encountered God but chose
to say, well, I want to do it my way, as
Sinatra would say. When you do it your way,
there's a wide is the gate, wide is the road that leads toward
destruction. It doesn't have anything to do with the realness of God or
encountering God. You've got to choose to give it to Him, to follow
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Him. Or you choose to do it your way or follow Satan.
So I think that's very, very important. It's a choice. And that's
really the key temptation in the Garden of Eden.
I know. Because when you're in bondage, and you're
ensnared by the enemy, many people don't have a choice
because they haven't learned the omnipower of God.
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And sometimes it takes God time to work through that.
And they don't have a choice because they're stuck.
And the scripture speaks of it. They're ensnared.
And they need deliverance.
And so people say, well I'm saved. You may be saved and still need deliverance.
You can be saved and still be dealing with a whole bunch of hot mess.
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And I can speak from personal experience.
I agree with you. It is a choice.
And you can make choices. But sometimes you don't
have the power, the strength, the knowledge, the wisdom, or the understanding
of God to be able to make that choice and stick to it.
Well I think this is another conversation and probably another
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obsession. You might be right. Because Jesus has come so we have power
over sin. So deliverance is available. So it's still a choice.
You have to choose to be delivered once that opportunity, somebody comes
to you that wants to pray for your deliverance. And the pastor talks about it all the time.
Walking in the supernatural power of God. Often times we
just don't walk in it. We just don't cast the devil out.
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So we pray for the dead to be raised. So somebody
has a whole lot of choices being made there not to do the will of God.
Not to believe. But I'm sorry. Some of you guys know that joke about
the guy who's stranded in a desert island and God sends him a boat.
You guys know this? Yes.
Right. The grace of God
(41:47):
is free for all, free to all, and free in all. Oh wow.
That's John Wesley. I can't claim that I came up with that.
But the grace of God,
well it says in John chapter 1 verse 9, that light
which enlightens every man has now come into the
(42:11):
world. The grace of God is free for all, free to all,
and free in all. And
every person has to choose whether they're going to love the darkness or the light.
You know? I think all of us
have been stuck in bondage.
And I can say, I remember this distinctly. I'm in the eighth grade.
(42:35):
My cousin invites me to his church camp. I'm only
interested in what girls are going to be at the church camp.
I have no interest in being a Christian or following Jesus, but I am interested in what
men and women are doing.
And so I remember we would sit there in these breakout sessions
where there's the Sunday school teacher leading, and we sat there with our backs to him.
(42:59):
You know? And then we're in the big meeting, and this is a Baptist
church camp, so you know there's an altar call coming. We're in the big meeting,
and this preacher's preaching, and all of a sudden he gives the altar call, and I can feel
a tangible tugging on me
and I'm going to go forward. And I dig my knuckles in
the back of that pew, and you know how it is. You just look straight forward.
(43:23):
And I resisted. And I succeeded in resisting.
That time, at that point.
But you have to, every person ultimately
has to choose, are you going to choose to love the darkness or the light?
And the grace of God will be provided or
affected. You know, the Bible says you can make a shipwreck of your faith.
(43:47):
Paul refers to these followers of his
that he claims have departed from him
and made a shipwreck of their faith. So you can build your faith and
strengthen it, which is how we acquire the grace of God, or you can make a destruction
of it, which is how we become
as the scripture calls, Ichabod. The grace has departed.
(44:11):
You know?
And in a worse state than before.
Yeah, go ahead Carol.
And the Bible says
sometimes someone can go into sin for so long
and to different stuff that their mind
(44:35):
has turned into a repubated mind.
Like the lady was saying, and what he
was saying, it takes more than that fastening, praying
and a whole bunch of prayers for everybody,
mommas, grandmas and everything, for them to come up out of it
because they can't find their way up out of it.
(44:59):
So a son can just come out, but a son
it takes more than that for a son, because I deal with them
all day, every day. The son comes and the son stills.
And you know, and then
when I read the Bible about putting me in scripture like that, that sometimes
you know, when he doesn't let us know, hey,
(45:23):
it's time, it's time, when you keep letting him pass by
and you're doing the same ugly stuff that, you know,
he keeps saying no and pushing you away, then he just turns your
mind and then you just doing all kinds of stuff and you're not even
knowing that you're doing that. And it takes prayer
from the churches. I'm glad for about our church because
(45:47):
everybody be praying for the homeless and the people
and we see it every day. They may take a shower or whatever,
but their minds is...
You know, that's at the end of the day, how God works
is a mystery, how people
can make 180 degree changes for the good, for the better
(46:11):
or for the worse is a mystery, you know.
But there's no question
about it, the lifeboat
is the church.
Not all churches are created equal.
You know, and the lifeboat is
(46:35):
the church and trusting
that the testimony of scripture is right and good and
true is a choice. It's an act of faith.
You will never have proof before you believe,
by definition that's not faith. Faith is believing
before you have proof, you know.
(46:59):
And...
And that certainly applies
to some of the things we're going to learn about from scripture as we move forward.
Now granted, learning how to think about
these things in a way that is
congruent with what they're intended to communicate takes
(47:23):
discipline because we've all been so indoctrinated with a certain idea
of what history is, with a certain idea of what scientific
truth is. And you have to
kind of take yourself into a mode of thinking
that is ancient and different.
And... eastern.
(47:47):
Not western. You know.
Because there are going to be some things
that are given testimony to with more depth and clarity
not only in the book of Enoch, but in other ancient near eastern
literature. Where there are things that manifest
themselves in the pages of history that took things radically
(48:11):
astray. You know.
And we're extremely destructive in regards to what
God intended for human beings. Now let me say this.
Anybody here
ever had someone who got really upset
with the Bible because of like the command
(48:35):
to go into the promised land and kill all the men, the women,
the children, and the animals?
Somebody had an issue with that?
Okay. How did you respond to that, Brother Troy?
At the time, I didn't know how to respond. Because I was a brand new
in the faith. Brand new in the faith. And that was the first challenge
(48:59):
I ever had. An atheist told me, you know the God you worship? Killed men,
women, children, animals? And that's a powerful argument, isn't it?
And I had no answer. Let's be honest. That's a powerful criticism.
So how do you respond now?
Now? Oh man, that actually shows his mercy
and his justice. Because see, he told Abraham
(49:23):
beforehand, I've got a promised land prepared for you.
But the sins of the Amorites have
not yet reached the level where it needs to be to
justify their destruction. He already knew they were going to get there.
He already knew they were going to sit to the point where he had to destroy them, otherwise he's not
just. Right? Just like if somebody kills a family member of yours and the judge lets
(49:47):
them go, that's not justice. Okay? So he knew they were going to get to
that point. But he said, your people are going to dwell in Egypt for 400 years
until their sins reach that level and then I will bring you out and take
you there. He kept his people away until their
sins got to that point. And they brought that destruction upon their own head.
Just like any of us do. Right? And so that, Burz, actually
(50:11):
shows his mercy. Because he had all right to
destroy them beforehand, knowing all things, knowing they were going to get to that
point, but he didn't. He let it play out. He let them do it
to themselves. That's how I would argue with him.
Okay. Alright. Anybody can find any criticism of
that? No. What do you say?
(50:35):
Well let me press brother Troy. Okay?
I'm picking on Troy because I know he can handle it. So how does
that warrant killing the kids and the animals? Everything that you said?
Because they were in that bloodline. And they were involved in the same sin.
She's in the blood.
The animals? Well no, bestiality, what is that?
(50:59):
And that's what was happening. I mean, read the scripture. It's disgusting, but it's
true. Well what if the animal was a victim of that, not necessarily a participant?
Still got in the bloodline, right? The bloodline is where
all the power is. And if that bloodline gets contaminated, then what?
The bloodline of the animal? The bloodline of the human.
That's my question. I'm asking a question. It's a two sided question.
(51:23):
I'm not quite there on that.
I'm not quite not there with that either.
Because the stuff that you're going to be teaching me talks about it.
You already know what I'm going to be talking about.
So my way of thinking into this, and this is just off the hip.
Okay?
(51:47):
Let's say, say you're in a plane.
Okay? And you know this guy has a bomb.
And you know they're planning on, let's say crashing it,
they're building and it blowing up, whatever.
The person decides to ignite that bomb
ahead of time, and there's women and children on that plane,
(52:11):
is that righteous? It's collateral damage at the end
of the day is what you're saying. Right. Okay. It is a necessary
thing because it prevents greater loss.
So the whole point of what God is doing in Israel
is He's creating a salvation
for all of mankind. Jesus was going to come
(52:35):
out of the Israelites. Right? Right. And so He's establishing
the people, establishing His rule, and the end goal is to bring
Jesus Christ into the world to save the whole world.
And if these people's existence is
intermingled with Him, which is exactly what He told them, if you leave them,
they will intermingle with your kids, they'll marry one another,
(52:59):
and their gods will entice you, they'll draw you away from Me, and
you will go after their gods. And so His
end goal was the salvation of all the world, and He knew that
corruption had to be extinct in order to bring forth
His purpose. So I would take it as a necessary. Okay.
I heard a priest say this once. Why does God allow suffering
(53:23):
and the priest said for a greater good, which goes right along with what you said.
And when I see suffering, and maybe the priest is right, maybe he's not,
I always go back to that, that I don't understand why there's a greater good because of the suffering
that will happen. Well the scripture says that
suffering is
an expected part of the Christian life. Anyone who would come after Me
(53:47):
must first deny Himself, take up His cross, and follow Me. What's the cross? An instrument of suffering.
Right? Because it is training us in godliness.
Now I am going to get around to what
you were talking about. Okay? But I want
to get back to what Troy was talking about. Because there's a quote I love to
repeat when it comes to things like this God
(54:11):
revealed in scripture, who's good and holy and just and right
in comparison with the gods of all the other nations,
executing such an order, because at the end of the day, you put your finger
on it I believe, we're going to see in
Genesis, God's good created order come completely
unhinged with sin and evil and corruption of all kinds.
(54:35):
The bible is going to say that every thought of the
every intention of the thought of man's heart was only
evil all the time. If God was
going to restore His original plans and purposes
for the earth, Israel was the plan.
And as one author put it, whenever a surgeon
(54:59):
detects disease
or cancer in the body, he does not hesitate
to amputate an arm or a leg
or any other part of the body to
stop that cancer from spreading to save the patient. He will go to extreme
measures for an extreme good purpose.
(55:23):
But I am going to get to what you were talking about as well.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right. Yeah.
Okay, any final
(55:45):
thoughts or questions? Okay, so does everybody understand which podcast
we're going to read or we're going to listen to?
If you go to the
foundrypress.org or you can go to fmchobbs.com
Wait a minute, go slow. Fmchobbs.com
Yeah,.org.com.net, it all takes you to the same place.
(56:09):
And then on the front page there you'll see a link to the foundrypress.org
which is where, now then you'll have to do a search
for primeval on that site, that's my sub stack site.
So if you do a search for primeval, P-R-I-M-E-V-A-L
it'll pull up all of those podcasts.
Just click
(56:33):
no thanks and it'll take you to the, there is no paid version, everything's free on that site.
So if you just click through that first
whatever it is.
They will be named
Okay, so you've got the introduction
which we kind of covered in the first session here.
(56:57):
Genesis 1
Sorry,
and of course on YouTube
on YouTube there's two introductions.
It's introduction 1-11
and then introduction 1-1. Oops, sorry I missed it.
(57:21):
Okay.
Yeah, that's not worded. So Genesis 1-11
is the series introduction. Genesis 1-1
is the first episode. And that's introducing the
unknowable god is the title of that.
And for anybody else that's a YouTube person if you'll just go to the Methodist Voice
(57:45):
The what? The Methodist Voice
and then on that page you just go to podcasts
and you go all the way to the bottom. You can link to that YouTube channel
No, I've taken that link off. Never mind.
No, you can link to that YouTube channel off the Foundry Press. It's on there somewhere.
So many different ways to get to where you need to go. Okay, here's what we want to
(58:09):
be prepared for next week.
The uncreated light of God
and I like the conversation so I would prefer
if I didn't have to go over the content again.
Very good conversation today.
The uncreated light of God, that's an important
(58:33):
concept that comes from the Eastern Orthodox Church
Angels, demons, snakes, and dragons.
Now who doesn't want to listen to that episode?
Come on. Angels, demons, snakes, and dragons.
And then the Maseroth
and prophetic signs.
(58:57):
M as in Mike. M-A-Z-Z
A-R-O-T-H
And that is the Jewish
word for the signs of the zodiac, once again.
Now if we decide we've covered those
(59:21):
episodes and we didn't have enough time in class to discuss it, we'll
punt down the road and we'll see if we can cut another class. So we'll just kind of
keep flexing it as we go forward.
Okay, we good to go?
When's the expected end date of this 12 week?
No, it's a little bit further down than that. Somewhere in mid-May. Right around when school starts
(59:45):
is when we try and plan it. Or when school ends.
Does somebody want to close this in prayer?
Go ahead.
Father, thank you for all of your mercy and your grace.
For giving us the ability to see intellectual beings
and try to learn and understand you, Father God. And we know that the only thing
(01:00:09):
we can understand is what you have revealed of yourself. And we thank you for those things,
Father God. We thank you that you're a God who wants to reveal himself
and show himself to his people. Father God, thank you for the food that we
received and the lesson that we've just been taught. And Lord, I just ask that you
just continue to bless this ministry. Continue to help us
to understand and to discern, Father God, what you are trying to speak
(01:00:33):
to us in this time, Father. We thank you. We give you all the praise.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Welcome, everybody.
(00:17):
We're going to get started.
Let me open up with a quick word of prayer and we'll dive in.
As we always do here, Father, we pause a moment and just thank you for your word.
Thank you for the spirit of wisdom and understanding that is present among us.
(00:39):
We acknowledge you, Holy Spirit.
We pray that your influence would prevail in our conversation, in our minds, in our
hearts.
We just ask for your grace and power to be present so we can see what you want us to
see, discuss what you want us to discuss, so that you can reveal the things about God
and His Son, Jesus Christ, that you want us to know and understand.
(01:01):
We love your word.
We love learning about it.
We love pondering the things that are written there.
So we thank you that you're here to assist and guide us as we explore the things of God,
the mysteries of God.
We love you.
It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
All right.
I just got done reading an interesting book yesterday.
(01:25):
It's called Decoding Gobekke Tepe.
So I would recommend this book.
It's a very good, interesting book about that site, that topic, and you'll learn a lot of
interesting things about things that pertain to Genesis.
It's by Aaron Judkins and Judd Burton.
(01:50):
And FYI, Aaron Judkins and Judd Burton were frequent guests on Mike Heiser's podcast,
PiraNormal.
So I think Heiser asked Aaron Judkins to take over that podcast.
So very interesting.
A-A-R-O-N.
Judkins.
(02:13):
And Judd Burton.
And you cannot get a, come on in, come on in Carolyn.
You cannot get a Kindle version of this, that's why I have a paper copy.
So don't expect to get to read it immediately.
(02:35):
Now this is the author that I recommend quite frequently.
If you want to develop a supernatural worldview, which the book of Genesis is premised upon
a supernatural worldview.
It was a supernatural worldview across the board in the ancient Near East.
(02:58):
And so this is a book called The Unseen Realm by Dr. Michael Heiser.
Now this is quite a hefty read.
So if you wanted to start off on a lighter read, you could read the book called Supernatural
by Dr. Heiser.
That's like the, that's like the Cliff Notes version of this book.
(03:18):
But this book will probably change your worldview if you read it.
So I would say that's must read TV right there.
All right, let's, let's maybe do a little talking about our schedule for, we've got
(03:41):
12 weeks left.
We did our introduction last week.
We're going to start on Genesis chapter one this week.
Now if you, did anybody here get a chance to listen to the podcast?
What podcast did I prescribe last week?
Okay, here we go.
(04:09):
Okay, so the one that we're doing today is Genesis 1-1.
Let's talk about how we're going to do this going forward because we've got 20 episodes
and we've got 12 weeks.
And I've got like two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine episodes just on chapter
(04:34):
one.
So obviously I don't think we're going to use up nine weeks to cover that material.
Let's look at listening to, let's do the uncreated light of God.
Angels, demons, snakes and dragons and the Maseroth.
(04:59):
It's three episodes.
It's like 2040, probably about an hour of listening time.
The Maseroth and prophetic signs.
The Maseroth is what the Bible describes as the signs of the zodiac.
(05:21):
The uncreated light of God.
Angels, demons, snakes and dragons.
Aren't these good titles?
You think I would have went viral by now.
Well, that's still possible.
(05:42):
You know, God's not done with you.
We'll hold anything's possible.
That's right.
And then the last one is the Maseroth.
I'll spell that for you.
M-A-Z-Z-A-R-O-T-H.
The foundrypress.org.
(06:02):
Now, you could find them on almost any podcast outlet.
Yes.
Yes.
So we'll cover those three next week.
(06:24):
So much good stuff in there to cover.
We've got the, you know, and all of this is foundational to the rest of the Bible.
When you go discussing the image of God, God created man and the image and likeness of
God he created him, male and female he created them.
(06:48):
What is the image of God and what are the implications for that in regards to the saving
work of Jesus Christ?
These are important foundational topics to be able to think about and discuss.
So it's all very interesting.
All right.
(07:15):
So from the podcast, do we have any questions about that content that we assigned?
Was it really that easy?
Did everybody watch it?
I didn't.
I'm going to give it a first look.
Can you give us an update?
I mean, just a quick update.
I could give you the whole episode.
(07:40):
I got the transcript right here.
I found out that what you meant when you said it wasn't created in six days or seven or
something like that.
And I read your handout.
There's a lot of information there.
Now, I don't I again, my position is I don't know how God created the heavens and the earth.
(08:08):
The reason I handed that material out is because you don't have to read that as a literal
six, 24 hour day creation.
You know, if you want to, that's fine.
But if you that's not what the text is intending.
The text is answering questions that a scientific worldview is asking, you know.
(08:33):
So yeah, yeah.
Well, if nobody did the podcast, I guess we can just cover that content real quick.
I can probably do that in a concise way.
So Genesis one, chapter one, chapter one, verse one.
(09:03):
So this was written again, sometime after the egg.
This is edited and compiled sometime after the exodus from Egypt.
It is speaking into the predominant cultures of the ancient Near East.
All of them believed in the supernatural realm.
All of them believed in God's.
(09:26):
All of them told similar stories.
Right.
And so the point of the point of view of the Jewish people led by Moses, their agenda was
to set the record straight.
These events we all understand to know and share.
You guys have your interpretation of those events.
They revealed the gods that you worship.
(09:49):
We're here to tell you that there's only one God.
He's uncreated in being.
And he's the only one worthy of worship.
These beings that you're worshiping are evil and in rebellion against the one true God.
And so this is what's unique about Genesis in the midst of the ancient Near East is it
is condemning those gods as being evil and unworthy of worship.
(10:11):
And the there's only one God that's worthy of worship.
So.
It seems that from reading the handout it all goes back to Hebrew original.
That was the original language that it was written in.
(10:32):
That's right.
So Genesis chapter one verse one in the beginning God created the heaven heavens and the earth.
Now one of the points I make in the podcast is that while it's debated as to whether or
(10:54):
not this verse is teaching creation from nothing or creation ex nihilo there are other scriptures
that do teach that.
And this was interpreted somewhere between the third century B.C. and the 10th century
A.D. by the predominant interpretation is that we have this uncreated God who's transcendent
(11:16):
in nature.
He's not part of the created order.
Who is responsible for the heavens and the earth.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
(11:37):
And this tells us something important about God.
If God is engaging in the project of creating.
When you are created in the image and likeness of God what does that say about you.
(11:58):
We are created to be creative.
Right.
Now that can manifest itself in a lot of different ways.
Some people are creative in business.
Some people are creative in art.
Some people are creative in theology.
Good point that just hit me in the heart.
(12:18):
He created it with his words.
What are we creating with our words.
Because that's scripturally true.
And so many times if we would understand that we speak to those things that aren't as if
they are they will manifest.
You can speak to your sick liver and you'll get well.
That's the power that God gave us when he imparted the Holy Spirit into us.
(12:47):
The problem is that we as believers we don't take our rightful dominion and our right authority.
But if he could speak to an animal and make it become then why aren't we speaking to our
children and making them become.
I don't know.
That's just when you were talking about creation I'm starting to understand so much more about
(13:13):
the power that we possess.
He gave man dominion over the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, every beast that
crawls on the earth.
That means he gave you a mind and in that mind you could be creative.
(13:38):
It's in there.
But he said he created us to take dominion.
And when the enemy came what happened?
He took dominion over the earth.
So aren't we supposed to take that back?
That's the message from Genesis chapter 1 to Revelation chapter 23.
(14:00):
And so that's I mean it's absolutely true.
How did God create?
God created by speaking.
And honestly that same power is in us.
That's what prayer is.
So you hear me quoted all the time.
Mark chapter 11 verses 22 and 23.
(14:21):
Have faith in God.
I tell you the truth.
If any of you should say to this mountain go cast yourself into the sea and here's the
key and does not doubt in his heart but believes what he says shall happen and shall be done
for him therefore whatever you ask for in prayer believe that you have received it and
it shall be yours.
And so this is one of the things that's so powerful about the gospel of Mark we're going
(14:45):
to talk about this Sunday is how everything that Jesus had been doing in his ministry
he gave his disciples the same authority to do and they go out and do the same thing before
they're born again before they're filled with the Holy Spirit.
Right.
That's crazy to me.
But they go out and do the exact same things that Jesus has been doing.
(15:07):
So so we're talking about the idea of a pre-existent uncreated God.
Now I think I repeat this argument all the time because I think it's important that everyone
(15:28):
be able to articulate this in order to be competent in giving a defense of your faith.
The law the laws of science dictate that there is a first cause for everything that exists.
(15:49):
Right.
It's a law of science.
So in the created order in the physical universe everything came from something.
Everybody gets that.
Now typically people would would say well that doesn't solve the problem of where God
came from.
Where did God come from?
(16:11):
God exists and everything came from something else.
Where did God come from?
So what's your answer to that?
You know people say there were people before Adam and Eve but nobody explained it.
We could be getting to that at some point in this class Dandy.
(16:35):
Nobody has an answer to that?
I didn't even thought about it.
How do you describe the indescribable God?
How do you paint a picture of that and how do you explain it?
He's unexplainable.
He's all he's Omni.
(16:56):
So you tell me I want to know.
I want you guys to give me the answer.
Where did God come from?
I've been asking this since I was three years old.
And you know this is the thing.
You can remember little questions you used to ask when you were a little kid.
And they're profound questions.
You know.
(17:16):
Brother Troy?
I want to know.
Where did God come from?
Yeah.
Are there just some things we're not meant to know?
I mean seriously.
We're not supposed to know everything until the time is right and he could tell us.
I still don't know what's going on.
I don't know what's going on.
(17:37):
I am that.
What's that?
So the implication of that is that
God has always existed. He doesn't come from anywhere.
Isn't that Einstein did time and space?
I mean you can't do that with that.
(18:01):
Space can't be. I'm not Einstein.
Space cannot be without time.
Space and time are
a part of the material universe.
Time is intertwined with matter.
And that's an important point to make.
(18:25):
So let's discuss this. It's important to be able to articulate this.
An uncreated,
transcendent, eternal being
is responsible for the creation of the heavens and the earth
and that does include time. God exists
(18:47):
outside of time and space. The law of
physics, the laws of the physical universe, do not apply to an
uncreated, transcendent, eternal being.
See, that was what I was saying.
That's why I relate that to God.
It's just there.
(19:11):
The laws of the physical universe dictate everything came from
something. The laws of the physical
universe do not apply to an uncreated, transcendent,
supernatural, eternal being. You understand?
He exists outside of those laws.
And time has no influence.
(19:35):
And so this is, I don't know
any refutation to that explanation
of reality, but that's what the text is
communicating if you go to John chapter 1 verse 1.
You guys got this memorized.
(20:01):
I'm proud of you.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was
in the beginning. He was with God in the beginning.
Through Him all things
were made. Without Him nothing was made
(20:25):
that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the
light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not
understood it. So we have
these ideas of the Trinity
in Genesis chapter 1. The Spirit was hovering over the face of the waters.
Right?
(20:49):
All partnering with one another
in the project of bringing forth the created order.
They were created by the Word, who is?
Jesus Christ. They were created by Him
and for Him. So, you know,
you were talking about humanity losing dominion, which they were given
(21:13):
later on in the chapter. It was lost by their
disobedience and rebellion, but it was recaptured
through the work and ministry of Jesus Christ.
The problem is, from the time of
Satan being given dominion, Jesus Christ so much
chaos went on and so much territory was trampled and taken
(21:37):
by the enemy that in order to take it back from these
enemy gods or gods or devils or whatever they are,
we have to be able, like the sons of Isk'ar, to be able to
discern the time and discern the spirit we're dealing with.
They knew the times and what Israel ought to do. Yes.
Amen.
(22:01):
Ah.
Let's see.
Now, God in the book of Genesis, in the time frame that we're talking about,
had always been revealed in general through the
created order. Romans 1 and 2 talks about that.
(22:25):
What we have with the beginning of
the book of Genesis is a God who's beginning to
reveal himself specifically through the pages
of Scripture. So everyone understood there was a God.
Everyone was trying to figure out who this God was, how to relate to this God.
They all had different ideas. Here is God beginning to
(22:49):
disclose himself through Scripture and through events, the events
of history, like the Exodus from Egypt,
so that he can teach people who he is, what he's like,
how to properly relate to him, how to
follow his prescription for being reconciled
to him, right?
(23:13):
And what's interesting is with the Exodus from Egypt,
God chose the most
powerful, most famous nation on the earth to defeat
with a bunch of slaves for the exclusive
purpose of making himself famous to all the nations.
Now, that's important because the books of
(23:37):
Moses came out of that period,
epoch of history. And so it's clear through that event,
and it says, God raised up Pharaoh
so that God could make himself famous amongst the nations.
And why is that? He wants everyone to know who he is,
what he's like, how to be properly related to him.
(24:01):
You know, it's God's desire to be known and to be reconciled
with human beings. He loves people.
He loves all people.
You know, based on what you said before
you talking about what you're talking about now,
it came to me that
(24:25):
when Moses went up in the mountain to get the
commandments, that's what he got, right?
But they said no one has ever seen God.
And lived. Right. Even Moses.
There was some big cloud over there.
But when he came down to the mountain, he was so full
(24:49):
of the glory of God that the people couldn't stand the radiance that he carried.
And when we're transformed, we should carry that same type of radiance.
Now you ladies are getting a little ahead of me here. That's going to be
the topic of the uncreated light of God.
But that's a
powerful idea. That's a powerful line of thought.
(25:13):
Let's see.
Let's talk about this idea.
I'm trying to look up the word so I don't mispronounce it.
The word, because when we talk about God,
(25:35):
and we're talking about what God has revealed in Scripture and through the events of history,
does everybody understand that that is a miniscule
of what there is to know
about an omnipotent and omniscient,
right? An omnipresent being.
(25:57):
There's more we don't know about God than what we do know about God.
And that's kind of an understatement. Right?
So it's called, I might mispronounce it,
apophatic theology.
I'm going to quote to you from some of the
early church fathers. Clement of Alexandria.
(26:21):
Yeah, that's right. Apophatic theology. Clement
of Alexandria lived 150 to 215.
He holds that God ultimately
is unknowable.
Although God's unknowability concerns only his essence,
not his energies or powers.
(26:45):
What do you think of that statement?
Have you ever heard of the distinction between God's essence
and God's energies? This is kind of an Eastern Orthodox
idea.
I mean, the power of the energy
when God was present,
(27:09):
the priest that would go into the
temple, they couldn't stand. I mean,
it just killed them. Like that. Because sin couldn't enter into that.
If they did something wrong, right. That's why they had the rope tied around there.
Okay, let's take it a step further. Let's talk about electrons, protons,
and neutrons. One thing you can see in touch,
(27:33):
and the other you can't. Right. But you can see
something animating the most fundamental building blocks
of the created order, and where is that energy coming from?
You know? And so there's a distinction
to be made between the essence of God.
God isn't some mystical energy, or some force,
(27:57):
like some Eastern religions teach. God is a person. He is a personal being.
He has a form. But his form
in his omnipresence produces
incomprehensible energy
or power. Now,
going back to what we talked about earlier,
(28:21):
all things are possible for those who believe.
Because there is an incomprehensible power
that is omnipresent that when we get aligned
with what the scripture teaches about this God,
we are aligned in mind, in will, in thought.
We can do the same things that Jesus did. He said,
(28:45):
ye, even greater things than these. Right?
Okay, let's keep reading.
This is according to Tertullian, another early church father, 155-240.
That which is infinite
is known only to itself.
This is, this it is
(29:09):
which gives some notion of God. While yet, beyond all our
conceptions, our very incapacity of fully grasping
him affords us the idea of what he really is.
He is presented to our minds in his transcendent greatness
as at once known and unknown.
And so we can know God based upon what's revealed in scripture.
(29:33):
We can reveal God based upon him moving and working and acting on our behalf.
So we can know God in some parts, but the greater part of God
ultimately is unknowable. He's incomprehensible.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his
Catechol Homily states, for we explain not
what God is, but candidly confess that we have not
(29:57):
exact knowledge concerning him. For in what concerns
God to confess our ignorance
is the best knowledge.
Now, well let me read you a few more quotes. Augustine of Hippo.
If you understand something,
it is not God.
(30:21):
John of Damascus.
He employed negative theology when he wrote that positive
statements about God reveal not the nature, but the things around
the nature. So here's what Thomas Aquinas would say,
one of the most famous theologians in all of history. The most perfect to which
we can attain in this life in our knowledge of God is that he
(30:45):
transcends all that can be conceived by us.
So you get the idea, right?
So even I would posit when we are using
statements, doctrinal statements
that are correct, like the Trinity, one God, three
persons. Can anybody here explain that to me?
(31:09):
Anybody here understand that?
We're using
the limited human vocabulary that we have
to describe something ultimately that is inexplicable.
Right? And so it's correct
to say, to refer to the Trinity,
(31:33):
but we would be fools to think that that's
a precise definition for something that is inexplicable.
Right?
The word was with God and the word was God. He was with him and he was him.
So it's kind of confusing to our
experience.
(31:57):
So this is ultimately why
faith plays the key role in relating to God.
Okay?
We can't know with any certainty what or who
we are relating to. Now, Jesus Christ
has revealed to us what we need to know about God to be
(32:21):
saved. That doesn't mean that Jesus Christ has revealed everything
there is to know about God. Right?
We can't know with any certainty what or who we are relating to.
It is simply impossible for our limited minds to grasp
the vastness and complexity and holiness of God.
Every person is required to trust what they don't know
(32:45):
in order to relate to an unknowable God. That is faith.
Faith is to the invisible world what senses are to the visible.
Now, that's a statement from John Wesley. Let me say that again.
Faith is to the invisible world, the supernatural realm,
what the physical senses are to the visible world.
(33:09):
So we are capable of relating to
that world in a real, tangible way. You have the
organ of your spirit that has been imbued by faith
to relate to the unseen realm.
Okay? Now, I would pause it.
That's really the raw material of what consciousness is about.
(33:33):
You know, science struggles to define what consciousness is.
And I would say that consciousness
is our connection
to the resources of the unseen world that we can become
physically and mentally aware of.
(33:59):
Faith is the spiritual organ by which we can acquire
the knowledge of God.
Now, when we talk about knowledge, we're not just talking about information, we're also talking
about experience, direct experience.
It's both of those things. You know, I know
plenty of people who have a supernatural experience of God
(34:23):
that don't develop holiness of mind
that come up with all kinds of whack-a-mole ideas.
I know people who have all kinds of intellectual knowledge of God that have never encountered
them personally in their lives. You know, and that's why with the Wesleyan tradition, we emphasize
both holiness of heart and holiness of mind
working together. By those two
(34:47):
disciplines, we can come to a knowledge of God.
So, by faith
we encounter and perceive through the contemplation of God and Scripture
the one who is ultimately incomprehensible.
(35:19):
Well, I would even take it a step further.
I mean, I went to Oral Roberts University. So, people that I know had a real
authentic encounter with God, and it did change them.
(35:49):
I would say, now I believe that he did.
I would say that I believe that he did. I can say that
I was with him when he received a divine healing
at a healing ministry.
But let's continue developing this idea.
(36:13):
Well, I mean, you've got Judas.
You know, but people who have a real
encounter with God, they're really changed. They do not develop
in their understanding of Scripture in conjunction with
the church. And this is the stuff that
heresies were made of in the earlier church.
(36:37):
You know?
Well, and I mean, to say that, we're being kind of productive here.
Because he says, when the one in the 99 goes
astray, he goes after them. So you can know God be up close
and personal and still fall flat on your face and walk in the middle of a cesspool of sin.
But that's not going to let you stay there if you really
(37:01):
have had an encounter. He's always faithful and he'll pull you out of that
cesspool. Now, not going to say you're not going to have a struggle coming out of it, and
not going to say he's not going to tan your hide real good, because he's a God of discipline,
he's a God of order, and he's a good daddy. Well, when we talk about faith,
I wish Ross was here because he is.
(37:23):
Oh, well I was going to say.
You know,
I said by faith. You know, my granddaughter,
she was in first grade or second, I'm talking about Ruth,
she came to me and she said, Grandma, I was coming down with a cold,
I was getting sick, and daddy prayed for me.
(37:47):
And I'm not sick anymore. And he has taught
his children to live by faith, not sight.
And faith is like a muscle. The more you use it, the
stronger it gets. And you know, it's like a muscle. If you try
and start off with, you know, professional powerlifter weights, you're going to get
defeated. You've got to start off with the types of weights that
(38:11):
your faith can lift and go from there.
I resemble that remark.
Ross?
In Sunday school, we talk about
before you has been placed life and death. And when we talk about
the angels and we talk about having an encounter with God,
(38:35):
it's a choice if you're going to accept what God has done
or follow Him or not. And so to me, the greatest example of that
is a third of the angels were cast down with Satan.
Why? Because they made a choice to follow
Satan. And I think that's the thing that we
ignore a lot of times. It's
(38:59):
your choice. And God tells us in the Old Testament, this is Jeremiah,
before you has been placed life
and death. Choose life.
You don't have to choose life. Judas knew Jesus.
Judas knew God. But Judas made another
choice. And not just Judas all throughout history, not
(39:23):
recorded in the Bible. People have encountered God but chose
to say, well, I want to do it my way, as
Sinatra would say. When you do it your way,
there's a wide is the gate, wide is the road that leads toward
destruction. It doesn't have anything to do with the realness of God or
encountering God. You've got to choose to give it to Him, to follow
(39:47):
Him. Or you choose to do it your way or follow Satan.
So I think that's very, very important. It's a choice. And that's
really the key temptation in the Garden of Eden.
I know. Because when you're in bondage, and you're
ensnared by the enemy, many people don't have a choice
because they haven't learned the omnipower of God.
(40:11):
And sometimes it takes God time to work through that.
And they don't have a choice because they're stuck.
And the scripture speaks of it. They're ensnared.
And they need deliverance.
And so people say, well I'm saved. You may be saved and still need deliverance.
You can be saved and still be dealing with a whole bunch of hot mess.
(40:35):
And I can speak from personal experience.
I agree with you. It is a choice.
And you can make choices. But sometimes you don't
have the power, the strength, the knowledge, the wisdom, or the understanding
of God to be able to make that choice and stick to it.
Well I think this is another conversation and probably another
(40:59):
obsession. You might be right. Because Jesus has come so we have power
over sin. So deliverance is available. So it's still a choice.
You have to choose to be delivered once that opportunity, somebody comes
to you that wants to pray for your deliverance. And the pastor talks about it all the time.
Walking in the supernatural power of God. Often times we
just don't walk in it. We just don't cast the devil out.
(41:23):
So we pray for the dead to be raised. So somebody
has a whole lot of choices being made there not to do the will of God.
Not to believe. But I'm sorry. Some of you guys know that joke about
the guy who's stranded in a desert island and God sends him a boat.
You guys know this? Yes.
Right. The grace of God
(41:47):
is free for all, free to all, and free in all. Oh wow.
That's John Wesley. I can't claim that I came up with that.
But the grace of God,
well it says in John chapter 1 verse 9, that light
which enlightens every man has now come into the
(42:11):
world. The grace of God is free for all, free to all,
and free in all. And
every person has to choose whether they're going to love the darkness or the light.
You know? I think all of us
have been stuck in bondage.
And I can say, I remember this distinctly. I'm in the eighth grade.
(42:35):
My cousin invites me to his church camp. I'm only
interested in what girls are going to be at the church camp.
I have no interest in being a Christian or following Jesus, but I am interested in what
men and women are doing.
And so I remember we would sit there in these breakout sessions
where there's the Sunday school teacher leading, and we sat there with our backs to him.
(42:59):
You know? And then we're in the big meeting, and this is a Baptist
church camp, so you know there's an altar call coming. We're in the big meeting,
and this preacher's preaching, and all of a sudden he gives the altar call, and I can feel
a tangible tugging on me
and I'm going to go forward. And I dig my knuckles in
the back of that pew, and you know how it is. You just look straight forward.
(43:23):
And I resisted. And I succeeded in resisting.
That time, at that point.
But you have to, every person ultimately
has to choose, are you going to choose to love the darkness or the light?
And the grace of God will be provided or
affected. You know, the Bible says you can make a shipwreck of your faith.
(43:47):
Paul refers to these followers of his
that he claims have departed from him
and made a shipwreck of their faith. So you can build your faith and
strengthen it, which is how we acquire the grace of God, or you can make a destruction
of it, which is how we become
as the scripture calls, Ichabod. The grace has departed.
(44:11):
You know?
And in a worse state than before.
Yeah, go ahead Carol.
And the Bible says
sometimes someone can go into sin for so long
and to different stuff that their mind
(44:35):
has turned into a repubated mind.
Like the lady was saying, and what he
was saying, it takes more than that fastening, praying
and a whole bunch of prayers for everybody,
mommas, grandmas and everything, for them to come up out of it
because they can't find their way up out of it.
(44:59):
So a son can just come out, but a son
it takes more than that for a son, because I deal with them
all day, every day. The son comes and the son stills.
And you know, and then
when I read the Bible about putting me in scripture like that, that sometimes
you know, when he doesn't let us know, hey,
(45:23):
it's time, it's time, when you keep letting him pass by
and you're doing the same ugly stuff that, you know,
he keeps saying no and pushing you away, then he just turns your
mind and then you just doing all kinds of stuff and you're not even
knowing that you're doing that. And it takes prayer
from the churches. I'm glad for about our church because
(45:47):
everybody be praying for the homeless and the people
and we see it every day. They may take a shower or whatever,
but their minds is...
You know, that's at the end of the day, how God works
is a mystery, how people
can make 180 degree changes for the good, for the better
(46:11):
or for the worse is a mystery, you know.
But there's no question
about it, the lifeboat
is the church.
Not all churches are created equal.
You know, and the lifeboat is
(46:35):
the church and trusting
that the testimony of scripture is right and good and
true is a choice. It's an act of faith.
You will never have proof before you believe,
by definition that's not faith. Faith is believing
before you have proof, you know.
(46:59):
And...
And that certainly applies
to some of the things we're going to learn about from scripture as we move forward.
Now granted, learning how to think about
these things in a way that is
congruent with what they're intended to communicate takes
(47:23):
discipline because we've all been so indoctrinated with a certain idea
of what history is, with a certain idea of what scientific
truth is. And you have to
kind of take yourself into a mode of thinking
that is ancient and different.
And... eastern.
(47:47):
Not western. You know.
Because there are going to be some things
that are given testimony to with more depth and clarity
not only in the book of Enoch, but in other ancient near eastern
literature. Where there are things that manifest
themselves in the pages of history that took things radically
(48:11):
astray. You know.
And we're extremely destructive in regards to what
God intended for human beings. Now let me say this.
Anybody here
ever had someone who got really upset
with the Bible because of like the command
(48:35):
to go into the promised land and kill all the men, the women,
the children, and the animals?
Somebody had an issue with that?
Okay. How did you respond to that, Brother Troy?
At the time, I didn't know how to respond. Because I was a brand new
in the faith. Brand new in the faith. And that was the first challenge
(48:59):
I ever had. An atheist told me, you know the God you worship? Killed men,
women, children, animals? And that's a powerful argument, isn't it?
And I had no answer. Let's be honest. That's a powerful criticism.
So how do you respond now?
Now? Oh man, that actually shows his mercy
and his justice. Because see, he told Abraham
(49:23):
beforehand, I've got a promised land prepared for you.
But the sins of the Amorites have
not yet reached the level where it needs to be to
justify their destruction. He already knew they were going to get there.
He already knew they were going to sit to the point where he had to destroy them, otherwise he's not
just. Right? Just like if somebody kills a family member of yours and the judge lets
(49:47):
them go, that's not justice. Okay? So he knew they were going to get to
that point. But he said, your people are going to dwell in Egypt for 400 years
until their sins reach that level and then I will bring you out and take
you there. He kept his people away until their
sins got to that point. And they brought that destruction upon their own head.
Just like any of us do. Right? And so that, Burz, actually
(50:11):
shows his mercy. Because he had all right to
destroy them beforehand, knowing all things, knowing they were going to get to that
point, but he didn't. He let it play out. He let them do it
to themselves. That's how I would argue with him.
Okay. Alright. Anybody can find any criticism of
that? No. What do you say?
(50:35):
Well let me press brother Troy. Okay?
I'm picking on Troy because I know he can handle it. So how does
that warrant killing the kids and the animals? Everything that you said?
Because they were in that bloodline. And they were involved in the same sin.
She's in the blood.
The animals? Well no, bestiality, what is that?
(50:59):
And that's what was happening. I mean, read the scripture. It's disgusting, but it's
true. Well what if the animal was a victim of that, not necessarily a participant?
Still got in the bloodline, right? The bloodline is where
all the power is. And if that bloodline gets contaminated, then what?
The bloodline of the animal? The bloodline of the human.
That's my question. I'm asking a question. It's a two sided question.
(51:23):
I'm not quite there on that.
I'm not quite not there with that either.
Because the stuff that you're going to be teaching me talks about it.
You already know what I'm going to be talking about.
So my way of thinking into this, and this is just off the hip.
Okay?
(51:47):
Let's say, say you're in a plane.
Okay? And you know this guy has a bomb.
And you know they're planning on, let's say crashing it,
they're building and it blowing up, whatever.
The person decides to ignite that bomb
ahead of time, and there's women and children on that plane,
(52:11):
is that righteous? It's collateral damage at the end
of the day is what you're saying. Right. Okay. It is a necessary
thing because it prevents greater loss.
So the whole point of what God is doing in Israel
is He's creating a salvation
for all of mankind. Jesus was going to come
(52:35):
out of the Israelites. Right? Right. And so He's establishing
the people, establishing His rule, and the end goal is to bring
Jesus Christ into the world to save the whole world.
And if these people's existence is
intermingled with Him, which is exactly what He told them, if you leave them,
they will intermingle with your kids, they'll marry one another,
(52:59):
and their gods will entice you, they'll draw you away from Me, and
you will go after their gods. And so His
end goal was the salvation of all the world, and He knew that
corruption had to be extinct in order to bring forth
His purpose. So I would take it as a necessary. Okay.
I heard a priest say this once. Why does God allow suffering
(53:23):
and the priest said for a greater good, which goes right along with what you said.
And when I see suffering, and maybe the priest is right, maybe he's not,
I always go back to that, that I don't understand why there's a greater good because of the suffering
that will happen. Well the scripture says that
suffering is
an expected part of the Christian life. Anyone who would come after Me
(53:47):
must first deny Himself, take up His cross, and follow Me. What's the cross? An instrument of suffering.
Right? Because it is training us in godliness.
Now I am going to get around to what
you were talking about. Okay? But I want
to get back to what Troy was talking about. Because there's a quote I love to
repeat when it comes to things like this God
(54:11):
revealed in scripture, who's good and holy and just and right
in comparison with the gods of all the other nations,
executing such an order, because at the end of the day, you put your finger
on it I believe, we're going to see in
Genesis, God's good created order come completely
unhinged with sin and evil and corruption of all kinds.
(54:35):
The bible is going to say that every thought of the
every intention of the thought of man's heart was only
evil all the time. If God was
going to restore His original plans and purposes
for the earth, Israel was the plan.
And as one author put it, whenever a surgeon
(54:59):
detects disease
or cancer in the body, he does not hesitate
to amputate an arm or a leg
or any other part of the body to
stop that cancer from spreading to save the patient. He will go to extreme
measures for an extreme good purpose.
(55:23):
But I am going to get to what you were talking about as well.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right. Yeah.
Okay, any final
(55:45):
thoughts or questions? Okay, so does everybody understand which podcast
we're going to read or we're going to listen to?
If you go to the
foundrypress.org or you can go to fmchobbs.com
Wait a minute, go slow. Fmchobbs.com
Yeah,.org.com.net, it all takes you to the same place.
(56:09):
And then on the front page there you'll see a link to the foundrypress.org
which is where, now then you'll have to do a search
for primeval on that site, that's my sub stack site.
So if you do a search for primeval, P-R-I-M-E-V-A-L
it'll pull up all of those podcasts.
Just click
(56:33):
no thanks and it'll take you to the, there is no paid version, everything's free on that site.
So if you just click through that first
whatever it is.
They will be named
Okay, so you've got the introduction
which we kind of covered in the first session here.
(56:57):
Genesis 1
Sorry,
and of course on YouTube
on YouTube there's two introductions.
It's introduction 1-11
and then introduction 1-1. Oops, sorry I missed it.
(57:21):
Okay.
Yeah, that's not worded. So Genesis 1-11
is the series introduction. Genesis 1-1
is the first episode. And that's introducing the
unknowable god is the title of that.
And for anybody else that's a YouTube person if you'll just go to the Methodist Voice
(57:45):
The what? The Methodist Voice
and then on that page you just go to podcasts
and you go all the way to the bottom. You can link to that YouTube channel
No, I've taken that link off. Never mind.
No, you can link to that YouTube channel off the Foundry Press. It's on there somewhere.
So many different ways to get to where you need to go. Okay, here's what we want to
(58:09):
be prepared for next week.
The uncreated light of God
and I like the conversation so I would prefer
if I didn't have to go over the content again.
Very good conversation today.
The uncreated light of God, that's an important
(58:33):
concept that comes from the Eastern Orthodox Church
Angels, demons, snakes, and dragons.
Now who doesn't want to listen to that episode?
Come on. Angels, demons, snakes, and dragons.
And then the Maseroth
and prophetic signs.
(58:57):
M as in Mike. M-A-Z-Z
A-R-O-T-H
And that is the Jewish
word for the signs of the zodiac, once again.
Now if we decide we've covered those
(59:21):
episodes and we didn't have enough time in class to discuss it, we'll
punt down the road and we'll see if we can cut another class. So we'll just kind of
keep flexing it as we go forward.
Okay, we good to go?
When's the expected end date of this 12 week?
No, it's a little bit further down than that. Somewhere in mid-May. Right around when school starts
(59:45):
is when we try and plan it. Or when school ends.
Does somebody want to close this in prayer?
Go ahead.
Father, thank you for all of your mercy and your grace.
For giving us the ability to see intellectual beings
and try to learn and understand you, Father God. And we know that the only thing
(01:00:09):
we can understand is what you have revealed of yourself. And we thank you for those things,
Father God. We thank you that you're a God who wants to reveal himself
and show himself to his people. Father God, thank you for the food that we
received and the lesson that we've just been taught. And Lord, I just ask that you
just continue to bless this ministry. Continue to help us
to understand and to discern, Father God, what you are trying to speak
(01:00:33):
to us in this time, Father. We thank you. We give you all the praise.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
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