The Father Teaches By Example

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

The father teaches the children about family life and about what a home should look like. He does this by word and by example. He teaches the children about how to treat a wife. He teaches them about fairness and honesty in human relationships. He teaches them about how to respect other people, how to listen to their thoughts, and how to influence rather than coerce. It should be obvious to even a casual observer that the husband loves his wife and that the father loves his children. Affection should be flowing out of the Father continually. "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost." Because the family is the basic unit of the Church, just above the individual in simplicity of order, The Father teaches the entire family how to see the living Christ in every other member of the family, and he does this both by teaching and by example. The wife is his suitable helper in this process. Both offices, the husband/father and wife/mother are vital. Neither one is more important. They are both necessary.

The father may not have had a father of his own who showed him a good example, but the father, then, must not follow the example of his own father. Jesus is in the business of restoring that which has been lost. He has a simple method. He speaks to us through the Bible, a still small voice, a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, a word of testimony, a word of prophecy, or a word of encouragement, a vision, dream, the patterns of order of the creation, or any other means by which He chooses to speak to us. One of the main ways in this time is through the members of the Body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:3 "Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." When we discern the Body of Christ, we are discerning Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:12 "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ." So, when we discern, when we see, Christ in His Body, we are seeing Him as He is. When we see Him as He is, we become like Him. 1 John 3:2 "Beloved, now are we the sons [Greek: teknon tek’-non, literally, little children] of God, and it doth not yet appear [Greek: phaneroo, literally, something hidden that is revealed] what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear [Greek: phaneroo, literally, something hidden that is revealed], we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." http://www.seekfind.net/1_John_32_Now_We_Are_The_Immature_Children_Of_God_Not_Yet_Unveiled_Butwhen_Christ_Is_Unveiled_We_Shall_See_Him_As_He_Is_And_We_Shall_Be_Changed_To_Be_Like_Him.html This verse is often applied to the final resurrection, but it has a real meaning to the here and now. If we don't experience His coming in the abiding presence in the believers, we will not want to experience Him when He returns in His full glory. So we hear God's voice. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the utterance of God. http://www.seekfind.net/Romans_1017.html It is this faith of God, not human faith, that gives us access to God's grace. http://www.seekfind.net/Righteousness_by_Grace_through_Faith.html It is God's grace that does the righteousness through us if we will just yield to Him. http://seekfind.net/Romans_517__Righteousness_Is_A_Gift.html So the father in the home must acknowledge Christ as He leads and yield Himself to Christ's leading. All the bad childhood experiences, bad examples, and false teachers make no difference if a man will turn from them and follow Jesus. In addition, Christ will lead a man to godly friends and associates, who will provide a good example. Christ will lead a man away from bad friends.

The choices of the father in the home will affect generations to come. The impact is huge. We can choose to avoid even the appearance of evil or we can choose to do what satisfies our own fleshly desires. We know that it is Christ who does the work in us as we yield to the Spirit of God. Righteousness is a free gift after all.

The Father Teaches By Example

How can we know anything about anything

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