Wisdom: Righteousness & Reality

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 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 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 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.

"It is because of him [the Father] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption." 1 Corinthians 1:30 NIV

The battle for righteousness is a battle to correct the proper operation of the human spirit, mind/soul, and body. Of course, this includes correcting our relationship to God. Real righteousness is by grace through faith.

When you are born again, your spirit is joined to the Spirit of the Almighty Creator God and enjoys a high level of fellowship with the Holy Spirit. We were designed to be connected in this way, worshiping in Spirit and in Truth. The Holy Spirit was meant to rule over the human spirit.

The word that is translated as soul is also translated as mind, heart, and life. At death, the soul/mind and spirit leave the body. The mind is not the brain. This current battle is largely for the mind. The enemy fights by using many clever lies. Christ fights by using the truth, which is reality.

The human spirit was meant to rule over the human mind and the human mind was meant to rule over the human body. This rulership was distorted and turned upside-down at the fall of man. Now, this disorder is being set right. We were created to be whelmed with the Holy Spirit—infused and totally engulfed with power from on high.

The human mind does not function correctly without the Holy Spirit. It is in a stupor without this anointing. Even intelligent and well-spoken people are stupid if they don’t have the anointing on them. Just because a person may be persuasive does not mean that person is not speaking from a position of being in a deep deception and a stupor of the natural mind. Persons who can speak persuasively and convincingly without the anointing are dangerous to others and to themselves. The human mind alone will always come up with the wrong answer. On the other hand, when you have the anointing upon you, your mind is sharp. When the day comes that we have no impedances to the flow of the Holy Spirit in our minds, our minds will be free and totally renewed.

Jesus and John the Baptist both taught repentance. The Greek word for repentance, met-an-o-eh'-o, means to have a new mind or to change your mind. You can be transfigured by the renewing of your mind. (Rom 12:1-2) This happens through allowing God to prepare the garden of your heart and by sowing good seed into your hearts. Note that the renewing of your mind is something that God does. You can disallow it, of course.

Righteousness is closely tied to seeing things as they really are. It is closely tied to listening to God’s voice rather than other voices.

Righteousness is closely tied to truth. Sin is closely tied to believing lies. Reality is truth.

The difference between Reality and the Unreal is the difference between imagination that comes from our own minds and that revelation that comes from God. If we don’t see reality, we live in a lie. The natural mind is deceptive enough to make us think that we have a revelation when we only have the natural mind misleading us.

The three areas we need to see in real reality are the Body of Christ, those who are not saved, and the creation.

Wisdom: Righteousness & Reality

How can we know anything about anything

God's Way

Righteousness by Grace through Faith

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