Answers In Genesis - Sunday School - Week 1

Good morning. Welcome back. Hope you guys had a good summer. I, really enjoyed being able to sleep in and not have to get here till 8:30 or so for music rehearsal.

Now that we're back to Sunday school, it's, Oh, see, we're here around 6:30 this morning. So, But good to have everybody. we're very excited about the year. All the way from toddler up through adult, we're covering the same material, answers Bible curriculum.

And we are jazzed about that. we're jazzed about studying the Bible chronologically from Genesis through Revelation. for us, it's gonna be a four-year period. And, and so we are kicking things off today.

let's go ahead and pray, and then I'm gonna give us a little bit of an overview of the course and then jump into this morning's lesson, but let's, let's bow in prayer. Our Lord, we thank you so much for this morning for us to come together and to study your word. We thank you that we live in a country where we can study and proclaim your word without fear of our government. We pray for our brothers and sisters around the world who do not have such freedom.

And we ask Lord that you would continue to cause your word to go out. we ask Lord that we would just take full advantage of this freedom that we have and studying your word and proclaiming it. We pray for all the teachers this morning, those that are teaching our young ones all the way from nursery up to junior high and high school. And we ask Lord that you fill us with your Spirit.

Bless us this year as we, lay the foundation for the study of your word and as we begin to study Genesis and Exis, Leviticus, and on, through Revelation, we just thank you, Lord, for the fact that your word, rejoices our hearts. your word is right. It is perfect. It converts our souls.

it is by your word that we are warned, and there is great reward in keeping your word. We ask Lord, that as we study this year that you would open up our eyes to secret faults. every day there are things that need to be corrected in our lives that we can't see ourselves and so we pray that your word, your spirit, would correct us. we pray also that you would keep us back from presumptuous sins, sins where we just presume upon your character and your grace.

Lord, we ask that the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, knowing that you are our foundation and that you are the one who has redeemed us from the curse in the law. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen. All righty.

well, we are very excited to have you all here. As you've walked in, there's a, a question that we're asking you to think about. what are the most pressing problems in our society today. We'll actually try to address that question as we get into our lesson.

The particular quarter that we are starting with is called We Can Trust the Bible. Raise your hand if you were here last year. Let's see how many advanced students we have. Great.

Raise your hand if you're brand new. OK, fantastic. OK, so, in order to coordinate with what's going on with our children, we are going back and doing another pass through last year's material. this is for a couple of reasons.

One is, is we want you to be able to talk with your children about the material they're studying, which is gonna be the same type of stuff at a different level. But secondly, as we take another pass through this material, I'm gonna be teaching it in two tracks. There's gonna be the advanced track, so to speak. So those of you guys that were here last year, I'm assuming that if you're like me, even though I taught this material, if you were to ask me what are all the components of the 1st 4 lessons, I don't know that I could have told you without looking at my notes.

but we're gonna, we're gonna, the advanced track is gonna have extra supplemental reading and material, as well as each course, each time we come to class. I'm not gonna be teaching exactly the way we did last year. We're not gonna just be covering point for point the exact material. We're gonna be going beyond.

For those of you guys that were not here last year, you're not gonna miss out. you have, you'll have the packets right in your hands. You don't have to do the advanced homework, so to speak. Unless you want to.

Does that make sense? So, we're running two tracks throughout the year. There's the quote unquote intermediate track that doesn't mean that you're intermediate in intelligence. It just means that this is the first time that you've covered the material.

There's the advanced track. We're gonna be encourage you guys to go beyond the material that we covered last year. we will be starting with God's word as our foundation, and we'll talk about what that means, here in just a little bit. just a little bit about the adult equipping school.

We've been running what we call an adult equipping school, I think, since around 1998, right around there. And the basic purpose of our adult equipment school is to train our families how to know, live, and speak God's word for His glory. we really, we want to impart knowledge, through these courses, but we want the knowledge to result. In love.

We want the knowledge to result in, in living out the gospel in our lives and being able to speak the gospel to others. RC Sproll has an analogy for this in his book, 101 Christian Essentials, I think it's called. Where he talks about the idea of oxygen and fire. You can have oxygen in a location but not have fire, but you cannot have fire without oxygen, correct?

you can have knowledge, you can have knowledge of God's word without love for God, and without the practice of His word, correct? But you cannot have love for God, true love and worship of God without knowledge. Sometimes there's this People will pit theology against love. We don't need doctrine.

Doctrine divides, love unifies. Sometimes it will be the attitude. I wanna propose to you, just at the very get-go with this class, that while it is true that knowledge can lead to pride, And that a study of the word and theology can lead to misapplication or lack of application. it's, you'll be, it'll be very difficult for you to find a man or a woman who is growing in their love for the Lord and growing in their application of the gospel, who is not studying the Word of God and not growing in knowledge.

We must have knowledge, we must have a knowledge of God's word in order to grow in love. The word theology is basically, right? It's basically the study or the love of God. It's the study of God.

And so if we love God, we want to know God, and the way that we know God in this dispensation, this time in redemptive history is through His word. And so, that's why we make a big deal about the Bible and the equipment school at Cornerstone in general, and so we're hoping to lead, lead, lead us to application. This morning, we're gonna do a little bit of background and, and then we're gonna study God's word and, and then we're gonna apply God's word. I want you to open up, first of all, to Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis chapter 3. We're gonna Slowly approach. This question, what are the most pressing problems in society today? In fact, let me just, you can shout this out.

You guys don't have mics out there, but What would you guys say? Let's first of all ask it this way, if you were just to ask the common person out there who's not necessarily a Christian, what would, what do you think people are saying today are the most pressing problems in our world? Say it again. Al-Qaeda, OK, or ISIS.

Good, Brian. Racism. OK. Racism is one of the big problems.

ISIS, what else? What are some of the big problems in our society today? Equality. OK, good.

What else? Climate change. Climate change is a huge problem, right? That's one of the things that you hear on TV and on the radio.

Poverty. OK, so poverty. Marriage. Marriage equality, huge problem.

Carl, motivations for maintaining a The, what's happening in our civil discourse? What are the rules for entering into the public, public square that's disappearing? Who can enter into the public square and have equal say? Yeah, Joe.

are going on in cities OK, yeah. So the, the conflict between police and neighborhoods. Yeah, that would definitely be an American issue. Abortion, civil rights religious freedom.

OK, good. Yeah, these are some, some big issues. We've got the, some of the refugee crises, particularly in, with Syria, right? People moving into Lebanon, Greece, things like that.

So yeah, those, so excellent. So there's, there's a lot of issues going on. let's start our train of thought in Genesis chapter 3. We wanna look at the 1st 4 verses.

Now, the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every A tree of the garden, and the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, you shall not surely die. As we try to approach this question, what are the most pressing problems in our society today?

we're partially asking a worldview question. What is wrong with the world. I think just about every religion, every philosophy, just about anybody that you talk to on the street is going to admit that there are things that are wrong with our world, right? The question is, why, why do we have the ISIS problem?

Why do we have racism? Why do we have refugee crises? why is there poverty? and the Bible has something to say about big worldview issues.

And this is from a biblical worldview, this seems to be where things start. Before the serpent enters the scene, according to the Bible, you have a perfect society. You have God, triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit who have created Adam and Eve. And Adam and Eve are good people, right?

They are good people. And we don't know exactly how long they walked with God in the garden, but we could presume that they did good things. In fact, they were probably better than any of us in this room, right? They were perfect.

they did good deeds, they loved God, they worshiped God purely. There was nothing that would interfere in their worship of, of God. In fact, they spoke with God, as it were, face to face, right? They walked with God in the cool of the garden.

And so, you have a perfect relationship with their Creator. we would presume because there was no sin yet, there was perfect harmony in their marriage, right? There was perfect harmony between them and their environment, the garden and the animals. Things were very, very good, just as the Bible says at the end of chapter one of Genesis.

But in this text, We have the Bible reporting what seems to be a biblical history, that the serpent enters into this situation and says, you will not surely die. God said, you will die. The serpent says, You will not die. And from this point on, there are 2.

radically different views of the world. There's God's view. where God is telling Adam and Eve, here is what is true. And then the devil comes along and says, what God said is not true.

What I am saying is true. And you need to test, you need to taste, you need to touch for yourself. And that's exactly what Eve does, is she tastes, she grabs, she she touches, she tastes, she realizes it's good for food, she gives to her husband. With her, and he eats.

And according to the Bible, we have the fall of all of the human race. and so, the Bible begins to answer some very basic worldview questions in its opening chapters. let me just give you guys a worldview quiz, and let's, let's first of all, answer this. Let's just pretend like none of us in this room are coming from a Christian worldview.

We're just your average person out there working at Starbucks, working somewhere, driving around Southern California. Where did we come from? What would be some of the answers that people would give who aren't necessarily coming from a Christian worldview? Where do we come from?

The Big Bang, right? People come up through our public education system in the United States, they're gonna be taught that the universe came about as a result of the Big Bang. who are we? Where did we as human beings come from?

Fish or microscopic organisms, right? We evolved. Became certain animals and then eventually evolved into apes and you have Neanderthals and you've come down to this day. And so we've just slowly evolved over time.

and we are here because of the principle of survival of the fittest. We've been able to adapt better, than other species, and, and certain parts of our species died off because they weren't able to adapt, and so other, attributes continued on in our genes and in our race, and here we are to this day. And so, that's who we are. Why are we here?

I think I just answered that, but what, what did you guys say? Why are we here? Get what we want out of OK, so we're here to, yeah, just to get what we want out of life, to experience life. mutation.

We're here because of genetic mutation, yeah. our forefathers, nature has selected certain things about us that has allowed us to arrive at this point in, in history, and we're here because really, we're the strong, the strong survive, right? And so, we have survived up to this point. what are we here to do?

What is our destiny? Say it again. OK, yeah, so from one worldview, love and create good karma would be our destiny. Yeah, definitely.

A lot of people just say, I really can't answer that question cause I don't think there is any purpose. There really is no destiny. We just live out our lives and die and go to the earth. some of the more thoughtful people, in my opinion, that are operating according to the most popular worldview I think in our culture would just say that we're here to pass on our genes, right?

We have genetic material that needs to be passed on and so we pass on that genetic material so that the. The species can survive. And just like, you turn on National Geographic, lions are passing on their genes, elephants are passing on their genes, fish are passing on their genes, humans are just passing on their genetic material, and that's part of nature, right? That's what we're here to do.

And if we pass on our genetic material to the next generation and the next generation is able to perpetuate the species and survive better. And adapt to the environment, then we've done our job. Right? That's, that's a, that's a very common worldview.

Although, even though that's been, been taught over and over and over again, people throughout the world are not buying it. We're actually more religious now worldwide than the human race has ever been. is, is the spiritual sense that you have around the world. There are more, just look at the population of Muslims around the world, the population of Buddhists and Hindus and so on and so forth.

we're getting more religious, not less religious, and, and I'll support that in a future lesson. What has gone wrong with the world, according to just non-Christian worldviews? Male. OK, so male domination could be, yeah.

There was patriarchy, that's when I was in college, that was the big thing. Almost every class I took, I was being, I was being fed, just the, the terrible, things that have happened as a result of patriarchy. Yeah, Carl. Too many people who don't think.

Yeah, too many people that don't think like me. Yeah, that's a huge problem. I, I deal with that every day. Yeah, definitely.

religion. Yeah, definitely. Some would say religion is, is one of the big problems of our world, right? If it wasn't for religion, we would have peace.

If we could all just follow John Lennon's mantra, in the song., then we all get along, right? The ribs or OK, yeah, the rich, what's going wrong is the rich are pressing the poor. if you're speaking from a purely evolutionary standpoint, and some people actually try to be consistent with this, not many, but some people try to be consistent with this, from a purely evolutionary worldview, nothing's wrong with the world. Things are moving according exactly the way nature has designed it, survival of the fittest, the strong survive, the weak die off, and genes are perpetuated.

The strong species species are able to adapt. And so from a purely evolutionary viewpoint, nothing's wrong with the world. However, very few people actually live according to that worldview. there's a few that have tried.

And we'll mention some of those, in future lessons. what can be done to fix it? What can fix the problems of the world if you're trying to address it from a non-Christian worldview? OK.

Education can fix us. So if we can just educate people, if people can have the right information, then the world can change. Good. OK, yeah, socialism.

So if we can spread the wealth around, then the world can get better. Say it again. Tolerance. So if we can all ascribe to the new tolerance, that really there is nobody's truth and nobody's worldview is any better than anybody else's, then we'll all get along.

Good. People can Actually, yeah, that is a, that is a big deal is overpopulation. Overpopulation is a huge problem in the world and so we need to, do what we can to reduce the population. Say it again.

I didn't get that one. Logan's run. That is that a movie? Oh OK.

I'll have to check that one out. I can't remember what that's about. OK, so as, as we approach this class, these are some of the questions that we're gonna be trying to address, but we're gonna be addressing them as we move through the Bible. And one of the big themes that I'm gonna be laying out to you this year is that the Bible, while the Bible doesn't answer all questions, it wasn't, it was never meant to answer every single question.

That could ever come up in the world. It is meant to answer these questions. God has given us His word. To answer the big questions of life.

Where did we come from? The Bible says a lot about that. Who are we? Why are we here?

What is our destiny? What has gone wrong with the world? What can be done to fix it? These are all questions that the Bible is designed to answer.

The Bible is not gonna tell you whether you should have 110 or 220. in your house for particular appliances. It's not gonna tell you how to fix a carburetor or fuel injection, right? there's a lot of things the Bible doesn't address.

If you're, if you're going to school over at Loma Linda, you're studying dentistry, you're not gonna be able to look up in your Bible about how to pull a wisdom tooth, right? That's not what the Bible is designed for. But the Bible is designed for these kinds of things. Part of the presupposition of this curriculum that we're going through this year is that the Bible can and does answer these questions, but more and more Christians have bought into the idea that the Bible can't answer these questions.

That the Bible really wasn't meant to answer these questions. What we're gonna be arguing in this course is that God gave us His word to answer questions exactly like this. And so, that's what we're going to be doing. Let's turn to Romans chapter 3.

We have, we have a real, actually, let's, let's make it Romans one first. The, the problem is. is the Bible does give clear information. About how to answer these questions.

The problem is, is by nature, as just part of the human race, we've got a per a huge perception problem. Adam and Eve are told by God, here's truth. The devil comes along through the serpent and says, God is lying. Here's truth.

Adam and Eve side with the devil. And from that point on, there are huge perception problems. It's not that truth has changed. It's not that God hasn't communicated truth.

It's now, we have made a decision as a race to move away from the truth of God. And, and we come out of the womb with a suppression of truth problem. A suppression of truth problem. Let's look at Romans 1.

And in Romans one, part of Paul's burden is to explain the nature of humankind, what we do with the information that God is giving us. God, God gives us good true information, but what do we do with it? Let's look at verse 18. I'm reading from the New King James Version.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. OK, so how does this describe men or human beings? Men here is just a term for all of humans, all of the human race. How does God describe the human race here?

Bread We are those who suppress the truth and righteousness. Is this passage say, it's just unbelievers who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. No, this is the human race. Human beings suppress the truth and the righteousness.

Now, we'll talk about how that relates to Christians who have been born again and filled the Spirit later. But let's just track the thought here. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against ungodliness, unrighteousness of men. So God is pouring out his judgment upon the human race.

Why? We suppress the truth in unrighteousness. is it that God has not given enough evidence of his existence? No, look at the following verse, because what may be known of God is manifest in them.

God has put a knowledge of himself inside of every human being. We, just by way of analogy, it's as if our DNA has God knowledge in it. I'm not saying our DNA has, you can look in our DNA and find God knowledge there. But God's word is telling us that every single person has a knowledge, not just of a God, but of the true God, built into them by God Himself.

What may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. So God's Word is telling us that God has shown, he has given truth of himself to the human race. He goes on further in verse 24. Since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen.

That seems like an oxymoron, right? Invisible attributes are clearly seen. These are, this is some of the paradox terminology that you see throughout the Bible. invisible attributes.

We can't, can't, let me ask you this. Invisible attributes, can you run invisible attributes through the scientific method? No, you cannot. So invisible attributes are there, even though we can't run it through the scientific method.

God's word is telling us that invisible attributes are clearly seen how? Being understood by the things that are made. And so God has created the world and there's things in the world that demonstrate invisible attributes, and they are clearly seen. even as eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse.

It's so clear. that we can determine that God is eternal, that he has power, that there is a real God. And it's so true that we are all without excuse. I don't know about you, but the term without excuse is a very scary term.

Very, very spooky, right? If you as a father, catch your kids stealing cookies from the cookie jar, right? You catch them red-handed. And you're talking to your child and they're trying to make excuses.

your mom had already said no cookies until dinner time. And so, and, they heard it, and yet your child says things like, well, I was hungry. But we said no cookies till dinner time. I thought you said no cookies for a few minutes.

No, no, Mom looks at the child and says, you are without excuse, and then gives out the appropriate punishment, right? This is much bigger than stealing cookies from the cookie jar. This is the fact God has given us, starting with Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve were there with God in the garden, that there was no question about whether God existed or not. No question about what the truth was or not.

They were there, they heard it from God's own lips, and they violated that original command. And God is telling us that we still, even though we don't see God face to face, God has put information in us, in our DNA as it were. And by creation, it is so clear. That we are without excuse.

And yet, the human race without exception suppresses the truth and unrighteousness. As we're going to see, let's turn to Romans 3. this is a problem that everybody has. It's like a, it's like being in the pool and you're trying to stick a beach ball under the water.

Every single person by nature comes out of the womb knowing that the beach ball exists, but we try to push it down throughout our lifetime. We're constantly trying to put it under the water. Let's see what Paul says as he goes on and he begins in chapter 3 to talk about, you have the Greeks or the Gentiles who are without the true God. They're, they've been, they've been, nursed upon the idea of all these various false gods and the Greek pantheon and so on and so forth.

But you have Jews who have actually been raised with the true God, but they've since, many of them have since rejected the gospel. So what does Paul say? Is the, the verdict of both Jews and Greeks starting in verse. 10, as it is written, there is how many righteous?

None. No, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God.

The pronouncement over mankind, and it's very important for us to get this at the, at the outset of this class. If you were to put a picture up here representing just humanity, God's word would place a title over humanity. And the title would be non-righteous. No, not one.

But then the title would further say, there is none who understands. There's none who even seeks after God. And so this is a huge problem. as we ask these big worldview questions, what the Bible is telling us is that human beings by nature do not even want to know the real answers.

is they're not righteous. They don't know God, they don't understand, and they're not even seeking after God. In fact, we suppress the truth and unrighteousness by nature. And so when you ask just your average person out on the street basic worldview questions, one of the things that we need to realize biblically is that everybody you talk to is working to suppress the truth, whether they realize it or not.

There's something in their hearts that is opposed to the truth. And this needs to factor in to what we call our epistemology. What is our theory of knowledge? When we look at the Bible, and the Bible says a lot about a lot of things, one of the things that the Bible speaks about all over the place is knowledge.

Do people seek knowledge? How do people come to know knowledge or know truth? And one of the things that the Bible tells us very clearly is that we suppress truth and we don't seek the true God by nature. This creates some big, big problems for us.

Let's look at Ephesians 2. And then we'll look at one other passage after that. So this is another epistemological passage, passage that teaches us what the Bible says about knowledge. Paul says he's speaking, here he's speaking to Christians, and he's talking to them about how they used to be.

So that does give us some hope. but he says this, starting in verse one. And you he made alive, who were what, dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the Spirit who now works, the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And we're by nature children of wrath.

There's wrath again just as the others. So we've got the flesh and the mind. This is not a very positive portrayal of the nature of mankind. Paul is telling us, that we are by nature dead.

And not only that, but that we're following this power, that's outside of ourselves called the prince of the power of the air. Who's that? The devil. So we've got, we've got some double trouble here.

Our hearts, we should be able to see the truth, but by nature, we suppress it. And we don't seek after God by nature. In fact, we are moved along as dead people by this prince of the power of the air. Now, if, if you don't factor that stuff into your epistemology, if we don't factor that into our, our thought process, that people by nature don't seek God, in fact, they are, are actually running around under the control of a spiritual influence outside of themselves, we're gonna have the wrong approach.

To talking to people about the gospel. If we don't understand these things, and we can even have the wrong approach about how we even think of ourselves. So, so what has happened to humanity's ability to reason and embrace God's truth since the fall? What's happened to it?

Carl, excellent. I love the way, Mr. Westbrook says that we're just reasoning together as peers rather than reasoning with God as the ultimate truth. That's great.

God says, it reminds me of what, the Lord says in Isaiah, come, let us reason together. He's able to say to his people, Israel, and so what hope is there? If, if, if this is our, if this is where we're at, then why even gather together and, and study the Bible and, and why even give the gospel to people if they're just gonna suppress it, if they're not seeking God, if people are dead by nature, and they're under the control of the power of the evil one, then why do we even talk to anybody?

Hebrews 10:25.

Yeah, we, we do want to gather together. Let's turn to 2 Timothy to get a little bit of the answer to that question. 2 Timothy 2:24. is we're not left without hope, that yes, Adam and Eve were incredibly good people who had this wonderful relationship with him and no sin involved.

They fell. Humanity has since suppressed the truth and unrighteousness under the control of the prince, the power of the air. We're not seeking after God. But God has not left us without hope.

He has given us this incredibly powerful thing called the gospel, the power of God, right? And as the gospel enters our lives, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God, the Holy Spirit begins to help open up our eyes to the truth, and we begin, the Bible uses terms like light, light begins to shine into the darkness. Colossians talks about how that we've been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into what? The kingdom of light.

And so, here in 2 Timothy, Paul is, is speaking to a pastor. But I think by way of application, this definitely can apply to all of us. We'll start in verse 24. Where Paul says, and a servant of the Lord must not quarrel.

Let me just stop right there real quick. You could see how it can be very easy to want to quarrel with unbelievers, right? You're telling them stuff that it, it seems like this should just be bonehead obvious to you, right? I can remember Brian.

Brian's always coming to me and saying, Mike, why don't they believe it's so obvious, right? And Brian gets frustrated. And, and it, and it can be tempting to want to quarrel with people over various matters that seem to be so clear in the Bible, so clear in nature. it can be very tempting just to get into arguments with people.

Paul says, Timothy, servant of the Lord must not quarrel. But be gentle to all. Able to teach and patience. In humility correcting those in opposition.

OK, so why, why can Paul, why is Paul telling Timothy that, hey, you can be patient, gentle, and be humble as you're trying to talk to people about the truths of God? Why? If God perhaps will grant them repentance, that's the first answer to this question. God is in the business of granting people the ability to repent, which literally means to change their minds, to have a mind change.

People, the people that you're engaging with, let's just talk about unbelievers first of all. Even unbelievers in your home or your children or whatnot. These aren't people that are just stupid. These are people who have been born with a truth suppression problem.

They suppress the truth and unrighteousness just like all of us, and, and they have a problem with this prince of the power of the air. And so as you're engaging people, we're bringing truth to people who do not have the sensors yet to necessarily to respond unless God grants them repentance. It's like trying to get a radio signal on a radio that has no batteries. Have you ever done anything like that?

No, I haven't, but, but just imagine trying to turn on a radio and there's no batteries in the radio and you're trying to get AM 8:30 because when you hear the Angels beat the Astros this afternoon, right? And you can't get AM 8:30. It's not even coming on. Why?

There's no batteries in it. As we're engaging people with the truth of the word, we need to, there's, there needs to be humility and patience, recognizing. That while I'm giving out truth, God's, he's got to show up and put some batteries in this radio. He's got to grant repentance.

He's got to grant the ability of a person to have mind change to where they can see the truth. And if you remember when you became a Christian, I can remember it. I can remember, actually the, the, the drawing process that happened to me over many years. I can remember at 9 years old being taught the Bible by my live-in babysitter as she was taking us through 1 John, and I began to understand this idea of the light and the darkness.

And suddenly I was like, whoa, this is making sense. I didn't repent of my sins, I didn't become a Christian at that point, but things were starting to make some sense. But at 14 years old, I heard the gospel preached by Chuck Smith on channel 13 on the TV and he was talking about the gospel and I went in my room and I got on my knees and I embraced Christ as my Savior and the lights came on. And I remember just beginning to read my Bible and just the lights coming on.

And so we're, we're, we're engaging people and, and trusting that God's gonna grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth. So how are people gonna know the truth? This is epistemology, right? This is our theory of knowledge.

How do people know the truth? God has to grant them repentance. So when you're talking to people and they're not getting it, we don't say, you're in it, you are an idiot. You are dumb.

Why can't you get this? No, no, no. We say, wait a second, I suppressed the truth and unrighteousness. I've been there and done that.

And even as a Christian, we'll talk about this later, I still struggle with the suppressive truth and righteousness problem. And I am gonna be patient and wait for God to do His work, right? So God grants people repentance. They come to a knowledge of the truth.

Now look at verse 26. This is the other part of that problem. In verse 25, God has addressed the dead problem, the death thing. Verse 26, that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of whom?

The devil having been taken captive to do who's will. His will. OK, here's what we know epistemologically from what the Bible tells us, is that everybody who doesn't know the Lord has been taken captive by the devil, not to do their own will, but to do his will. Everybody talks about free will these days, right?

Americans, Western philosophy, we love free will, absolute free will. Well, here, let me give you some free will theology for you. You do have freedom of will to do exactly what the devil wants you to do. You've been taken captive by the devil to do his will.

Until God comes in and grants you repentance, so that you can, so that suddenly your senses will be awakened and you can know the truth. you've been taken captive by the devil to do his will. Now, we don't tout that in pride. We don't say, hey, I, I would never recommend you to walk up to your unbelieving grandma and say you've been taken captive by the devil to do his will.

That's not what this verse is about. That's not the application of this verse. The application of this verse is for us to realize that so that we're patient with people. Right?

We want to be patient because we realize that God needs to grant them repentance, and they've been taken captive, they're captivated. So there's a sense in which when we approach any unbeliever, we should realize that in a sense, they're a victim. Right? They're culpable.

That's, that's a dual truth in the Bible. They're culpable, they're without excuse, but in another sense, they are a victim, right? They're they've been taken captive by the devil. And so we want to be very, very patient in humility, teaching them gently, waiting for the Lord to do his work.

All right. So, this is part of the foundation work, as we come to answer these big worldview questions. People are gonna give various answers to various worldview questions. Yes, there are people that are gonna come at things from a evolut, a purely, atheistic evolutionary viewpoint.

There's people that are gonna come at things from a pagan viewpoint, from a feminist viewpoint, from a homosexual viewpoint, from All types of viewpoints. our realization in the back of our minds, we say, what, I was there. I was there. But God granted me repentance.

And I, my senses have now been awakened and I've been freed from the devil and now I can do the Lord's will. this person has been taken captive to do the devil's will. I'm gonna be patient with this friend of mine who seems to hate God and hate me. Right?

We're waiting for God to awaken people. OK, so that's part of our, our background. And let's go ahead and let's turn in light, in light of what we just said, let's go ahead and turn to Let's go to Psalm 19. We're, we're just gonna jump over there.

This is our Passage that you're gonna be working on this week. We're gonna ask you to, to be memorizing this passage. Psalm 19 What we want, what I wanna do. Over these next few weeks is I wanna give you a high view of God's word.

A realization that God's word is the very foundation for all of life. And so let's Some of this historical background and all that stuff you guys can read during the week. Actually, what, let's, let's go to Psalm 119 1st. Let's do that first.

Turn over a few more pages. Psalm 119:105. And it says, your word is a lamp to my feet. And a light to my path.

You guys know that famous song? anybody ever been out? In like up here in the mountains, hiking around or maybe up in the Sierras on a night where there is no moon. Anybody ever been out, out there?

And tried to walk around, you get up in the middle of the night, you gotta go to the bathroom, you get out of your, your sleeping bag and you're trying to find a place to go and And I used to lead juvenile delinquents on backpacking trips up in the Sierras. And one of the things we did to keep, make sure kids stuck around the camp is we would tell them spooky stories. I don't recommend that, but, but we'd also tell them to watch out for rattlesnakes when you have to go out and go to the restroom.

And so they were very concerned about the rattlesnakes.

And So we would, I'll, I'll tell you later, that's probably not appropriate for a church. ask me later, I'll tell you the story later. I'm just trying to think what the staff will say on Tuesday if I share the story. Anyway, you, you're out in the middle of the forest.

There's no moon out there. It is very, very dark. You can't get around without a flashlight, right? Anybody ever done any caving?

Oh yeah. Go up to White Chief Lake. I've done a little bit of caving. That's very spooky.

You always make sure that you bring like 3 or 4 flashlights, right? And you always make sure that you leave a trail so you can get out. But you turn your flashlights off, when you're deep in a cave, you don't, you can't see anything. And, and there's no way that once you get deep into a cave, there's no way you're gonna get out, unless you've got some light.

And so, I did that when I was younger and I don't think I had kids yet. I don't think I would do that again. it's just, it makes me nervous even just thinking about it right now. But it's the Word of God.

You turn the Word of God on, and it's a lamp to our path, right? It's a light to our feet. When the Word of God enters in, and, and, and the Holy Spirit's operative, our eyes get opened to the Word of God. It's going to guide us throughout life.

And this does not mean if, if you happen to have a lamp, and somebody else doesn't have a lamp, if, if the Lord walks up to you and gives you the light, and somebody else doesn't quite have the light yet, that doesn't mean you're smarter, right? Doesn't mean you're better. By God's grace, you now have a light and you can walk throughout life and begin to answer these big worldview questions according to a biblical worldview, which is according to the truth, the God of the universe, right?

And so you can begin to answer questions with the truth, which is gonna guide you in ultimate truth.

And so this is, this is just a great metaphor for the word of God. What will our walk be like without God? when we look at people in our neighborhoods, I think of, of kids in my neighborhood right now whose parents don't know the Lord and they're living in home situations, without the Bible being read or taught, no prayer, no sense of, of God in the home. it's, it's no wonder why so many of these home situations are the way they are.

but even quote unquote, good people. Right? Without the word of God. Let me just tell you 11 little story.

I was in Indonesia here recently, and we went to visit some missionaries in an island called Sulawesi. There's a guy named Bob, who's working with the McCulloughs who worked up in the Back Mountains for 27 years with this tribe, the Lewin tribe. And it took him 3 years just to earn the right to move up there, and it took him about 8 years to learn the language. And then several years after that, to begin to teach them the gospel, and eventually the whole village came to know Christ.

But in that process, early on, Bob started to record stories and he didn't understand me yet because he didn't know the Sloan language well yet. But somebody told him, hey, you should go up and see this lady. she's got this story about the man and the snake. Not too many people know it, but she knows it and she'll tell you the story.

So, he records the story. He doesn't understand hardly anything that she's talking about, but he records it. Once Bob begins to really know Salein better, he's listening to this and he's amazed. The story is about a man who was created and a woman who was created by someone called the one who formed our fingers.

And the one who formed our fingers made them, the man and the woman, and put them in a garden, and God had told them, or the man, the one who formed our fingers had told them not to eat of a particular tree. But then the snake came up and told them, no, it's OK, you can eat that tree. And so then they ate the fruit of that tree and then God punished them and, and then they began to die, and that's how the death process began. And so Bob began to ask them about this one who formed our fingers.

Who is this? Oh, he, he's the one who created all of us. well, is he good? And they're like, I don't know.

He's the one who caused us to die. And so he just began to ask these various questions. but over time, he's able to take that phrase, the one who formed our fingers, put it into his translation, and see all of these people come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. these were people, that's what's interesting is that these were people who did not know God.

In fact, they rejected all sense of religion. And yet they were very good people, relatively speaking, there was no stealing, there was no adultery. They, there was only one divorce in the known history of their village. They prided themselves on being a good people.

And Bob was just looking at these people and he's like, man, how am I gonna bring the gospel to these folks? These people are a lot better than a lot of the church folks I was with back in the States. but as he began to explain the gospel to them and go through the Old Testament on into the New Testament, and as these people began to embrace Christ, Here's what they shared with him. They said, what, we always thought of ourselves as good people, but when you began to share with us the Bible, we realized that while we never committed adultery, we always wanted to.

While we never stole, we wanted to steal all the time. The, the commandment that really got to them was the commandment of do not covet. This was a culture that had bound itself to its own sense of law, but in their hearts, they were crying out for sin. They admitted once they came into contact with the Word of God.

And as the Bible began, as the Spirit began to move amongst them, they realized, we're just a bunch of hypocrites. We're just like those Pharisees, and we need the sacrifice of Jesus, we need the sacrifice and the love of the one who formed our fingers. And so it's just an amazing thing how the Bible will enter in and, and, and correct our thought process. As we go through this class.

We, we want to put on the, the glasses of God's word and, and look at the world through the lens of God's word. In order to look at the world properly, we need, we all need corrective lenses. We're all born truth suppressors, right? We're all born with this, wanting to run away from God, not seek God.

at the same time, we're still made in the image of God. And so there's every single culture, one of the missionaries I was with recently, he's, he had this, this statement which I really loved. He says, in every single culture, you're gonna see nobility and depravity. That's exactly what, that's actually exactly what John Calvin taught.

Because we're all made in the image of God, you're gonna see amazing, amazing nobility in just about every culture. But because we're true suppressors, you're gonna see amazing depravity in every culture. What we need is the lenses of God's word. We put on the lenses of God's word.

And as we're interpreting the Bible properly through the power of the Spirit, now we can begin to see things correctly and the Bible gives us the proper foundation. So, we've already answered that question. Let's look at this last question here and then we'll, we'll wrap things up. What happens when we don't walk through life according to God's word, interpreting our lives with biblical glasses?

What happens? Yeah, ultimately, yeah, we'll fall underneath the wrath of God, right? Yeah, Anything else? Yeah, there's, there's consequences for us as individuals and as a society.

As our society continues to move further and further away from seeing the world through a biblical worldview, everything's up for grabs. Right? Yeah, Allison. Great, yeah.

Yeah, people, yeah, people become hopeless. If we don't realize that we have the hope that the gospel says we have, then what is the meaning of life? If, if my life is nothing more than just passing on my genes, then what hope is there? Right?

And some people, they hear that message loud and clear, and they begin to live their lives accordingly. Here's what I want to encourage you guys to do this week is, is go through, you guys have a packet of material, go through that packet this week, answer those questions. on CCC, which is our Cornerstone Community Connection, is that what that stands for? we're gonna post next week's lesson.

And so I encourage you guys, if you don't have an account yet, go on to our website, ask for an account, or if you, if you filled out the attendance thing out there, I'll look and see if, if you're in yet. And we'll add you. we're gonna post links, articles, all that stuff is gonna be through our internal website. and so you'll have next week's lesson in advance.

You can begin to read through the background material in it, for next week's class. so here's the basic homework. This is the homework for the non-advanced students. finish this lesson this week.

For next week, read the Prepare to learn section, lesson two. we're gonna work on memorizing Psalm 19. OK, we're gonna come back that next week, start memorizing that. for, oh wait, I don't think I got on here.

Oh yeah, there it is. all of you guys can check out the online resources, the Answers Bible curriculum. I've been very impressed with the material on this website. Feel free to go there and just look around, search it out.

Advanced students, I'd like you to read this article. what is your worldview? It's, on the Answers in Genesis site. What is your worldview?

You can go onto the site. You can just, even, even if you just Google answers in Genesis, and then just put, what is your worldview, this will pop up. It's an article by John MacArthur that's put onto their site. Does that make sense?

This is a, this is an excellent article I encourage you to follow up with. if you wish to order a student guide, which is a little book like this, if you'd rather have a book than the handouts that I'm posting online, it's exactly the same material, but if you're a person who just likes books, then you can go on to Answers in Genesis or Answers Bible Curriculum and order this at 6:50. otherwise, I'll be posting all of the material online. And bring Yup, same book as last year.

This is a, a family devotion on the same, same material. We can trust the Bible. If you'd like a little family devotion, you can find that online. I think these are like $5.

So, I thought these were OK. So You can check it out. all right, so that's, that's your, that's your homework. Any questions, comments, criticisms, or concerns?

Yeah, Brian, I Survival of the fittest. Yeah, well, we're actually going to try to practice that worldview in this class. We're gonna see who survives. I'm going to make things as difficult as possible.

And see who survives the end. Yeah, Alvin. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. Get involved OK Sign up.

Let him in. OK. So, so you go to our website, cornerstone Bible.org. There's a tab up, I think the upper right.

That says get involved. Click on get involved, go down, it'll say, Will it say connection? Cornerstone Community Connection. Click on that and then you can follow directions to get your login and all that.

So, a lot of, a lot of the material in this course will come that way, so it'd be really helpful for you to, to get an account. All right, let's go ahead and pray. Oh Lord, we thank you so much for the beginning of this new, year and just the opportunity to study your word. we have every reason to be, humbled as believers, recognizing that we too had been taken captive by the devil to do his will.

We were all once dead in trespasses and sins, but you have made us alive, and so there's a great reason for us to hope. You have made us alive to the gospel. And we thank you, Lord, for your word. Which is perfect and sure, and it rejoices our hearts.

We thank you, Lord, that your judgments are true and righteous, and they are more to be desired than gold, sweeter than honey in the honeycomb. We thank you, Lord, that your word warns us, and also as we keep your word, there is promised reward. we ask Lord that you would cleanse us from secret faults. there are things even as Christians that we don't understand about ourselves.

There are ways in which we will sin against ourselves, sin against you, sin against others that we don't understand. So help us understand these things. Keep us back from presuming upon your grace and just sinning knowledgeably and with a high hand. we ask Lord that sin would not have dominion over us as a people, but Lord, that You would help us to grow in holiness.

that you would protect us and our congregation from great transgression that would bring shame upon ourselves and upon this church. we ask God that the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts to be acceptable in Your sight, knowing that you are our rock, our strength, and that ultimately you are the one who has redeemed us, from, sin. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.