The Spiritual Senses are Developed Through Use.

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 spiritual senses are developed through use. When we use them, we use them in the following way. God lets us know something through our spiritual senses. We may feel, see, taste, smell, or hear Him and His will. When the Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word [literally utterance] of God, we soon find out that He speaks to us through visions, prophecy, encouragement, feelings, and many other ways. When He speaks, a supernatural belief and trust in Him fills our being. This is what REAL Faith is. Faith that is Faith is the Faith of God as opposed to human-generated faith. God's Faith is not of ourselves. It is the gift of God lest any man should boast. Faith is the door to grace. It gives us access into His Grace. When He speaks, He always leads and guides. His guidance may tell us to do something or may just tell us not to worry. In any case, He leads. We are unable, in ourselves, to obey or submit to His leading. For this reason, He gives us Grace in addition to the Faith that He gave. It is His Grace that must do the works. Our part is to let that happen. We have the ability at any time in this process to oppose God and try to do it in our own strength. When He does His work in and through us, we grow. The reason we grow is because we reap what we sow (actually, what we allowed Him to sow through us).

That is all very simple, but here is something that is hard to understand. When He has done everything, He rewards us as if we had done something. What happens is that His good Seed is sown into our heart.

By the way, when we use the word heart, it is a synonym for the words, mind and soul. There are some differences in some verses of the Bible, but, for the most part, it is the same Greek word that is translated into heart, mind, soul, and sometimes, life.

God speaks in types and shadows to us, since we are so limited in our ability to understand. So, He speaks of seed in one case to help us to understand that whatever you sow you reap. The parable of the sower is really about spiritual growth more than it is about being born again. Another way that God tells us about the same process is that we are dying to self and living to Christ. Each time we are able to obey in this way, by grace through faith, we find that we have died a little bit to self and have Christ more fully formed in us. Each time we slip into some sin or miss the target, we find that we have re-crucified Christ in our hearts. This is why we each must pick up our crosses and follow Him. Obedience in this way causes the senses to be exercised. We begin to see the things of the Kingdom of God more clearly. We begin to feel His presence and to be able to discern between truth and error more easily.

The problem is that everything that God leads us into is offensive to our sinful nature. For this reason, the sinful nature, which is deceitful and desperately wicked, tries to deceive us. It is often successful in deceiving us. This is the reason that so many Christians are stuck somewhere on their journey. They have been deceived and stopped moving forward with God. This is the reason that there are so many voices saying different things, and all are calling themselves "the church." I'm talking about Christians. You hear one give one interpretation very fervently. Then another one comes along and says the opposite just as fervently. How do you know which one to believe? If you truly desire to do the will of God, you will know.

The Spiritual Senses are Developed Through Use.

How can we know anything about anything

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