And a man, we are in second Thessalonians
chapter three. I'm going to be reading verse
two. We're going to take a walk. Uh, we need to cut that down
a bit too much echo. Um, take a walk through verse
two and three. There we go. And then, uh, we'll
make our way into, um, the subsequent verses versus six and following
in verse two, after that, the apostle Paul had said, Pray for
us that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified
even as it is with you. And we've spent several weeks
working through how important it is for us to pray for the
success of the word. I'm not going to spend any more
time developing that. I trust that, you know, by now
that the word of God does not automatically take place in your
life or mine without our contribution by his mercy in calling upon
God to bless his word in our life, in the life of the individual
believer, in the life of the Christian family, in the life
of the Christian church. And we saw many examples of that. Or else for Paul to ask for us
to pray for the word to have free course. And yet our prayers
have nothing to do with it would be a vain request. And then he
says in verse two, these words and pray. Here's the other thing
that we want to pray for, that we may be delivered from unreasonable
and wicked men. So we didn't develop that. We
talked about that as an aside, but here is another reason for
which we pray that the apostles who are speaking, that's the
weed there may be delivered from. And I want you to think about
these terms here. unreasonable. And then the other
word is a common Hebrew idiom, wicked, which we'll talk about
here in a little bit. And he says they are men, men
who are unreasonable and wicked. Pray that the ministers of the
gospel are delivered from unreasonable and wicked men. Pray that we
are delivered from unreasonable and wicked men. So in your outline,
you would have deliverance from unbelief, Jewish hostility, works,
legalism, either political, religious, or a combination of both. When
the apostle Paul says, pray that we are delivered from unreasonable
and wicked men, he was talking in the historical context about
this ongoing antagonism that he experienced by the Jews. The Jews for the apostle Paul
were his prominent, not exclusive, but prominent ongoing persecutors. He constantly had to deal with
Jewish opposition. And we have talked about that
before in first Thessalonians chapter two, verse 15 and 16.
He said that the Jews are always hostile towards all men, not
wanting them to hear the gospel. That's the way the apostle framed
it. Now that might sound a bit inflammatory or exaggerated for
you, but in every gospel age, there is a major opponent or
antagonist to the gospel, whether it's political or religious.
And what the apostle Paul and all the apostles in the book
of Acts had to go through was deliverance from these sorts
of maniacal antagonist. The book of Acts is the work
of the Spirit of God in using the ministers of the gospel to
spread the gospel all around the world. But you know, frequently
Paul had to be delivered Peter had to be delivered, the apostles
had to be delivered, and sometimes in some of the most harrowing
situations, they had to be delivered from men whose whole purpose
for existence was to stop the preaching of the gospel. My,
you guys remember the account in the book of Acts where there
were men, these are the latter chapters of Acts chapter 20,
21, 22, 23, where men had made vows that they would not eat, unless they got their hands on
the apostle Paul. Now think about what's operating
in a person's heart when they are willing to make a vow of
abstinence from food, unless they got a hold of you and wanted
to stop you from doing what you were doing. Well, this is what
Paul is saying to the church to pray for. And as we contemplated
this a bit last week, don't you think it's strange that God and
his economy has allowed opposition and resistance and conflict to
be an element in your sanctification. Don't you have? Have you not
thought it through that? Well, I need to resolve this
issue of opposition and conflict and adversaries because the Lord
doesn't deliver them out of our lives altogether. They serve
a role. Don't they? Our adversaries serve
a role. Our people who don't like you
serve a role. Individuals who may just have
a just a natural antipathy towards you for no reason that you would
know of end up serving a role. You have enemies. I know that's
strange, but you have enemies. And how do you deal with them? Well, the word of God would teach
us that we would pray that God would deliver us from our adversaries. Well, why? Well, one reason is
your adversaries become means by which you are tempted. Your
adversaries become means by which you are tempted. Do you remember
what the Lord said in his teaching the disciples how to pray? Matthew
chapter six. Remember the disciples said,
Lord, teach us how to pray. And the Lord said, this is how
you pray. Pray our father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our debts as we forgive those that trespass against
us. And lead us not into what? Temptation. And lead us not into temptation.
And the next word is our word here, what? But to, that's right. Now I want you to watch this.
This is important. Enemies become temptations. Don't they? Enemies become temptations. So I just wanna meditate on that
a little bit. What is the purpose or instrumentality
or utilization of enemies in our life? Why does God allow
us to have enemies? Because enemies try our faith. Enemies try our faith. People
who don't like you become a crucible of testing for you. People who
have it out for you on the job. People who have it out for you
in the workplace or at school. people who make it hard for you. If you have ever been educated
on any level beyond high school, maybe even in high school, but
certainly in college, this happens where college professors will
have such a level of egotism that a very bright student who
has the sort of temperament of wanting to challenge the teacher's
assumptions will find themselves being adversaries or having that
teacher being adversary for the whole course. And now, has anyone
ever had a professor be an adversary? Just somebody that don't, just
they look at, they don't like you, you know, and that class
is tough, isn't it? Now, here's the temptation. Here's
the trial. You have to still, as a Christian,
maintain a proper perspective of that authority, don't you?
So now you're finding yourself praying, Lord, help me to maintain
a right frame of mind because I don't want to just have this
sort of evil. I don't want to have a mean attitude.
I don't want to have a suspicious attitude. I don't want to read
into everything that he's saying or she's saying something that's
directly targeted at me. Because that can happen, can't
it? It can happen that you can become tempted to be suspicious. And so when we talk about being
delivered from our adversaries and our enemies, what we are
really wanting to do is to have God grant us grace to be able
to deal with trials in a way that we don't fail. Grant us
grace so we can deal with trials in a way that we don't fail.
Now that's just one aspect of it. It can be a person who can
be an adversary can tempt you to sin. He can tempt you or they
can tempt you to sin, sin in your mind, sin in your heart,
sin in your actions, sin with your words. Well, that's the
problem with enemies. Enemies expose us for our character
flaws and our weaknesses. And so when the apostle Paul
says here in in chapter 3 verse 2, and we are asking that you
would pray for us that we may be delivered. And the word there
is rescued. It carries the same profound
dynamic as is written in Colossians chapter 1, where Christ has delivered
us from the power of Satan and brought us unto God. It has that
same dynamic. Paul says, pray that we would
be delivered from unreasonable and wicked And I want to talk
about that for a moment. Now, as I said, contextually,
it's the Jews. Contextually, it's the legalist
who don't have any tolerance for the message of grace. Contextually,
Paul is dealing with his own kindred. And as he said to the
Thessalonians in chapter 1, the latter part of chapter 1 Thessalonians
chapter 2, earlier part rather, he said, and you guys are suffering
of your own kindred and countrymen just as we did the Jews. And he said, we have an affinity
because when the gospel came to you and you started sharing
it with people, the next thing you knew you were facing opposition. That's kind of a normative experience
for the Christian, isn't it? You become a believer and you
actually start taking Christ seriously. And all of a sudden,
people who were your friends are now adversaries. I kind of
make a distinction between adversary and enemies here. An adversary
can grow to be an enemy. But someone you love and care
can be an adversary. The Bible says a brother is made
for adversity. So, you know, we have family
members who can be provocative, isn't that right? If you had
a large family, you got this one peer or one sibling that
just seems to always be the one provoking you, you know, or maybe
you were the one provoking them, I don't know. But the point is,
is that when I use the term adversary, I try to make a distinction between
that and an all out enemy. An adversary can be troublesome
to you, can be a means of temptation, but the enemy really wants to
do you in. When the apostle Paul says here, pray that we would
be delivered from, what's the word? Unreasonable. That's what
I want us to deal with now. Unreasonable. And then he says,
wicked men. What does he mean by unreasonable? In the margin of my Bible, in
connection with the word unreasonable, I have the word absurd. Absurd,
but that's a poor translation. It's an interesting term. Why
would Paul want the Christian to be delivered from unreasonable
people? Now I want you to think about
this now as we work it through. We are praying, we are asking
you to pray that God would deliver us from unreasonable men. And the translators struggled
with this word. The term here is not best translated
unreasonable, but it's the only thing they could do with what
they believed was the character trait of the persons that Paul
is asking to be delivered from. The word literally is a word
that means people who have no part or lot in the ministry. It's the Greek term a topos. And you may not understand that
word, but you guys understand this word utopia, right? So I'm going to help you with
this a little bit. If you were to do sort of an etymological
deconstruction of the word utopia, the word topos is the root word
for utopia, topos. And it's a term we use for place,
for place, a region. And it's the word place all over
the scriptures. And it really refers to a situation. Like tonight in Bible study,
you guys are at 2450 Maine, is it Maine? Royal, there you go. I don't know why I'm thinking
Maine. Oh, my other office. 2450 Royal. This is the topos
that we're located in. That's the location. That's what
that word means. Utopia is this kind of a modified
phraseology of the word place, and it indicates some place that
is in your mind special. Like, I'm looking for utopia.
You guys have heard that phrase before, right? Literally, it
means no place. I'm looking for no place. And
I've often said, if you're looking for no utopia, well, you found
it because utopia doesn't exist. There's no such thing as utopia
or the perfect atmosphere. Now, the word here, atopos, simply
means this. Paul is asking that we pray for
the ministers to be delivered from people who don't have a
lot or part in the ministry of the gospel. The translators translated
it unreasonable because people who don't have a part or lot
in the ministry of the gospel are opposed to the message of
redemption. People who don't have a lot or
part in the message of redemption are opposed to it. So let's work
this through a little bit. When you begin to share the gospel
with people and They listen to what you are saying about what
the gospel is it's the message of redemption in Christ and it
has to do with human nature and the consequences of the fall
and and the judgment that befalls the human race as a Consequence
of the fall and they're listening to you and they're hearing you
now begin to describe the condition of mankind and all of a sudden
you find this resistance. All of a sudden you find them
wanting to disagree with what you are saying. Well, what they're
doing is being what? Unreasonable. Now, what's important
about what we are talking about is because when Paul said, deliver
us from unreasonable and wicked men, he gives us the reason for
which we want to be delivered. And it's the last line. for all
men have not what? Do you guys see that? Deliver
us from unreasonable and wicked being for all men have not faith. And when Paul used that phraseology,
what he is underscoring is this, that when you talk to people
about the message of redemption, you're not going to always find
them open to listening to what you have to say. That's the first
thing. They're just not going to be ready to reason with you
about the message of Scripture. They're not going to be open
to the propositions of Scripture. They're not going to be ready
to talk about the true and living God and the exclusivity of God
and even the Scriptures as the Word of God. They're not going
to be open to you saying that they are a sinner. They're not
going to be open to you saying that, and as a sinner, the only
way of escape is through the Lord Jesus Christ. See, what
I'm doing now is kind of laying out to you some of the ABCs of
the gospel. If you were talking with people,
wouldn't you have to, in sharing the gospel with them, say, well,
God created the heavens and the earth, right? And the God who
created the heavens and the earth also made man, right? You have
to use the Genesis again. Well, mankind, who's the pinnacle
of God's creation, fell into sin and transgression. He rebelled
against God's law. You're just kind of laying out
the historical narrative of what the Bible says is the condition
of the human race, right? But what you are also doing in
laying out this historical narrative is you are asking people to reason
with the proposition that there is a God. that God created the
heavens and the earth, that God created mankind, that mankind
was made as the pinnacle of creation, that mankind fell into sin, that
man rebelled against God and therefore he is under the curse
of God. These are all what we call logical propositional statements. These are things with which the
human race has to reason out They have to consider this. If
a man or woman is going to come to know God, they cannot come
to know God apart from reasoning. Last night in our women's theology
class, as we were closing out the class, one of our sisters
was thanking our sister Deb for her message and was praying for
boldness to be able to share the gospel with her children.
And she was passionate about her concern for her daughters
to hear the gospel. You know, our children don't
always hear the gospel. And that can be the other way
around as well. Children can be really fearful
that their parents won't hear the gospel. But our sister was
crying passionately because she does not want her children to
perish. And as I was sitting, listening
to her and observing her burden, I said to myself, boy, you know,
if the world saw that on television, The vast majority of the world
would mock her and laugh at her because of her care and concern
for her child. And the reason they would mock
her is because they are unreasonable. Unreasonable. And with that,
I want to segue into the main point in which the Apostle Paul
is addressing this issue of the word of the Lord having free
course and being glorified as it is in you. Christian church,
please understand that the gospel that has called us to life and
faith in Jesus Christ is not an unreasonable message. The gospel of Jesus Christ is
not an unreasonable message, nor is the issue of faith something
that is in antithesis to reason. Faith and reason are not at odds
with each other. We watched a clip of Condoleezza
Rice last night in her testimony of faith. And one of the things
she said was she thanked her father who was a pastor for challenging
her to be able to hold in one hand faith and in the other hand
reason. Well, the reality is ladies and
gentlemen, that faith is not something other than reason.
Faith is not like, you know, an entity over here that has
nothing to do with reason. Faith itself is born out of reason. Faith is a byproduct of reason. And the thing that you and I
have to get a hold of is this. We cannot formulate or embrace
a notion of faith that is unreasonable. We cannot buy into a religious
set of dogmas for which we want to try to communicate to people
apart from reason. There's no such thing as a person
coming to faith in Christ who doesn't come to faith in Christ,
but through reasoning. Are you guys following me so
far? And so what the apostle Paul is really saying when he
says to pray for us that we would be delivered from unreasonable
and wicked men, he's simply saying, pray that we would be delivered
from people who do not believe. Are you following me? Pray that
God would deliver us from authorities. people that can harm us, that
can hinder and thwart our purpose, who do not believe. So I want to combine a couple
of thoughts in your mind to make sure that you grasp this very
carefully. Keep your hand at 2 Thessalonians
3 and go with me to Isaiah chapter 1. I'm going to share with you
a few verses. I want to make sure this comes home. Isaiah
chapter 1. I share this with our ladies
and I want to pick this up because this is what Paul is talking
about. I thought It's interesting to note that the apostle is praying
that they would be delivered from unreasonable men and wicked
men. And it's important for us to
understand what that means. In Isaiah, chapter one, this
is God talking after the first 14, 15 verses. He has admonished
Israel through Isaiah, the prophet, for being such an obstinate and
rebellious people. And then he says over in verse
18, are you there? Come now and let us, what reason? What? Okay. Stop that. Stop right
there. Now come and see now, now, now
who's talking here, Jehovah, God almighty. And he's saying
to his creatures. And in this context, he's saying
to his church, you are acting unreasonable. Your behavior and
your conduct is unreasonable. Come now and let us reason together,
saith the Lord. Now, what God is calling his
people to who are in this state of unbelief is to consider their
condition and the remedy necessary to it. You probably have quoted
this verse many, many times, haven't you? Come now and let
us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like
crimson, they shall be as wool. I mean, songs are hymns and songs
have been written out of this particular quotation. But what
is God really meaning when he says, come, let us reason together? What he means is that mankind
was created with a mind. You are created with reasoning
skills, rational thinking capacity, the ability to reason through
statements and arguments and proposals and warnings and promises
and threats. And so a very key component to
the prosperity of the gospel and its success in our life and
other people's lives is this. We want to see men and women
brought to a place of being reasonable when it comes to the word of
God. Ready to hear, ready to hear from God. After all, God
is calling them to the table of discourse, isn't he? ready
to hear from God. The actual word that is prominently
used in the scriptures for reasoning, and this we'll look at three
or four verses in the New Testament, is the Greek term lego, lego,
lego zygmai, and zygmai, and it's a verb form, which if we
took the word lego, you guys know those lego blocks when you
were playing as a little kid, I'm dating myself, The word Lego
is a derivative of the Greek term Logos. And the Greek term
Logos is word. The word Legos means to talk.
It means to reason. It means to dialogue. Dialogizomai is a Greek term
that is constantly used in the scriptures for reasoning. In
fact, what you are doing with me right now is reasoning. Even
though you aren't talking back to me, you are listening and
you are thinking through what I'm saying, right? This is called
a dialogue. I am monologically speaking to
you, but in your mind, you are responding with a yes or a no
to the propositions that are being set forth. Isn't that right? Well, listen, think about the
Christian religion for a moment before we go on. The Christian
religion is largely a religion of reason. The Christian religion
is largely a religion of dialogue between God and us. And in fact,
the very medium of which we find confidence that we have a relationship
with God is the what? The Word. The Word. And so here
we have a Bible, we call it the Word of God, and the Word of
God from Genesis to Revelation 66 books speaks to us, and we
hear, and we regard its statements, and we begin to try to reason
through what it says and its implications and inferences in
our life. Is that not so? Well, that's
where faith is manifested to be or to be absent. And when
Paul said, deliver us from unreasonable and wicked men, he essentially
is saying, deliver us from people who are blinded by and controlled
by unbelief. Unbelief. And so, I want you
to go now with me in your Bible to Romans chapter 12. I wanna share with you three
or four verses. And I wanna make sure this sticks before we move
on to some of the other things. Here's what I wanna make sure
sticks. that as you represent the gospel as a Christian, be
careful not to misrepresent the gospel as a Christian by a method
and approach that would suggest or imply that the gospel is not
reasonable in total. See, the difference between Christianity
and paganism is that the medium of paganism is not intellectual. The medium of paganism is sensual,
mystical, and often hyper symbolic and ceremonial. When it comes
to the Christian religion, the Christian religion is word oriented. It's scripture oriented. It's
speech oriented. It's testimony oriented. God
calls us to listen to his word. He that hath ears to hear, let
him hear what the Spirit sayeth. And so there is a need for the
Christian to understand that the way the world is brought
to a knowledge of God is through speech. It's through conversation. It's through dialogue like we're
having right here. And so in Romans chapter 12,
here, you guys have heard this quoted before. Romans chapter
12 verse 1, listen to this. I beseech you, therefore brethren,
by the mercies of God, that you present your what? A living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable unto God, which is your what? Ooh, see
the word reasonable? Now watch this. You cannot present
your whole being to God in a way that's acceptable apart from
reasoning. You cannot, you cannot please
God in your life without a knowledge of God's word. You cannot go
about pleasing God without first corresponding with God as to
what it means to please him, to successfully render your life
a living sacrifice to God, you've got to know what God calls us
to. To live in a way that's set apart
to God requires a knowledge of those things that God requires.
So an acceptable life committed to God is a life that's committed
to God's word. And in fact, tie this together.
And this is a this is a nuance that that can also be idolatrous,
but it's legitimate. You really cannot separate God
from his word. Now, there's a nuance there that
can be idolatrous, but I want you to understand this for you
to know God means that you've got to know God's word. You cannot
know anything about God apart from his word. Is that true?
If God doesn't speak to us, how can we know him? And God has
given us his word by which we can know, which means for the
Christian, the ongoing process of growth and sanctification
and maturity and development in our faith is a process of
growing in God's word. for my faith to grow, I've got
to continue in God's word. So actually I'm also stating
the obvious. You are sitting here on a Friday
night and most of you worship every Sunday and you probably
do other Bible studies and what have you. And if you were to
simply ask the question, why do I do that? Well, because it
requires an engagement of my reason in order for me to know
who God is and what God expects of me. I cannot advance in my
Christian life in any aspect of God's redemptive purposes
in my life apart from a knowledge of God. And I want to say this,
in relationship to a knowledge of God which God has made manifest
to us in the scriptures, that's where faith is affirmed to be
real or not. You know, people will tell you
they believe God. And I've been harping on this now for the last
several weeks because I kind of wanted to come home. I get
on a particular point and I like to just bring that point to bear
on us until it becomes clear to you that the the point itself
needs to be understood as absurd or something to embrace. And
for me, it is absurd, absurd for the Christian to say he's
a believer and does not believe the Bible. That's absurd to me. It's absurd to me that a person
can say, well, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but I really
don't believe that the Bible is the word of God. To me, that's
absurd. And at that point, there's a breakdown, isn't there, between
an assumption of what faith is and what the Bible teaches is
essential to the affirmation of authentic faith. If a person
says, I am a Christian, but I don't believe that God created the
heavens and the earth in six literal days. Well, I'm sorry,
you're in trouble. Because the failure to believe
that God created the heavens and the earth in six days may
not seem like a problem to you, but it actually is a problem
at the root of the matter. Because if you can't trust that
God created the heavens and the earth in six days, you certainly
have no basis in trusting that God redeems your soul from hell.
What grounds then do you have to trust God to deliver you from
damnation if you can't believe that He created this thing in
six days? Are you guys following what I'm saying? And then from
the Genesis account all the way through the scriptures, I talk
about how presently in our religious generation, it appears to me
that there is this cognitive dissonance, this disconnect in
the mind of the professing Christian to be able to say, I am a Christian,
but I actually don't think Christianly. It's a secular worldview that
is basically hostile to the testimony of scripture except the more
sympathetic and sensual embrace of a Messiah or a Savior of which
the person intuitively knows they need some type of deliverance
just in case they find themselves waking up in eternity on the
wrong side of God. So it's a nice thing to kind
of have Jesus as your Savior but really I don't believe the
propositions of the book. And what I'm saying that kind
of thinking is unreasonable thinking. It's unreasonable thinking that
has entered into the church and it has destroyed the biblical
concept of faith. And when you and I are thinking
it through as we are doing what you and I want to make sure that
we do as we contemplate verse 3 is this, as Paul is praying
that he would be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men and
who do not believe the truth, as we're going to read some of
the testimony, what you and I want to pray for is the effects of
unreasonable and wicked men having its influence on us, so that
we are walking around calling ourselves Christian, but in fact
the matter we are rooted in the same kind of unbelief the unreasonable
person is. And we don't believe scripture
either. That's the thing that we have to be careful to know.
So if I'm going to live in a way where I'm presenting my body,
a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, I must have
a rational, reasonable, service. The word reasonable there is
our Greek term, legosigma, and it really means to be able to
know why I do what I do in service to God. Now, go with me in your
Bible to the book of Acts. I want to share with you just
a couple of examples of what's taking place in the book of Acts,
Acts chapter 17. Verse two. So the Lord gave the
disciples the commission to go into all the world and preach
the gospel, as you know. So let's see what this thing
of the preaching of faith is all about. What is the method
and approach for which the apostle Paul and Peter and James and
the rest went about seeking to spread the word? Listen to what
it says in verses one, two and three of chapter 17. And then the response in verses
four and five. I want you to see this. Are we
there? Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia,
they came to Thessalonica. This is our context. Where was
a synagogue of the who? Now, I already told you that
the Jews for Paul is his major opponent, right? Watch this.
And Paul, as his manner was. See, Paul already had a methodology
and approach. Went into them. three Sabbath
days Reasoned there it is. Are you ready with them out of
the scriptures? Do you see what the you see what
he did? He took 21 days three Sabbath days to open the scriptures
and and try to show his Jewish constituency what the Word of
God said about the message of redemption, about the condition
of mankind, about the Messiah, about his work of redemption
on Calvary Street. He didn't go in there pulling
off some kind of magic trick or throwing up smoke and mirrors
or creating some type of sideshow. He didn't come in there saying,
listen, I'm the apostle and I've got the ability to raise the
dead and open the eyes of the blind and heal the sick and create
some kind of religious atmosphere. What did he do? He went in there
and he immediately began to deal with them in terms of the mind,
how we think, how we think. Look and look at the net effect.
I'm in verse three. Are you there? And here's his
medium. He reasoned out of the scriptures
opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and
risen again from the dead. Now watch this. And that this
Jesus whom I preach unto you is what? Now for those of us
who are Christians, this is such a natural proposition that it
is, it's just, it's just, it's a song to our soul. We, we certainly
believe that Jesus is the Christ. We certainly believe that it
was necessary for him to suffer and to die and to rise again
for us to have favor with God. We just, we believe that don't
we? And yet unreasonable and wicked
men don't. Now watch how he works this out.
And some of them believed, see it? And consorted with Paul and
Silas and of the devout Greeks, a great multitude and of the
chief priests, of the chief women, not a few. Do you see the effect
that took place when the scriptures were open and line upon line,
they were reasoned through? Do you see what Paul did? He
took 21 days to go through the Tanakh. I told you what that
was. That was the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi. And
he began to show them that the scriptures that they say they
believe, the scriptures you say you believe are pointing to Jesus
of Nazareth as the Messiah and the one who fulfilled all those
scriptures. Now, listen, he couldn't just
go in there and say that, you know, off the cuff ad hoc. He
couldn't just say Jesus is the Messiah. And if you don't believe
you're going to perish. Now, that's a proposition. But
what he had to do was reason with them and show them through
the scriptures that this was so. And then that's our challenge
as well. men and women will be exposed
or discovered to be believers or not as we open the scriptures
and share with them the testimony of scripture concerning Jesus
Christ. And so when Paul says, pray that
we would be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, well, the next
verse will underscore this. Look at verse five. Are you there? But the Jews, see it? Which what? Believe not. Watch this. moved
with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort."
I like the old King James. Lewd fellows of the baser sort.
This is kind of like Hamlet's poetic language. And listen to
what it says. And gathered a company and set
all the city on an uproar. Now listen. Those are unreasonable
and wicked men, aren't they? Listen, all he's doing is opening
the scriptures. All he's doing is demonstrating
logically that the scriptures are pointing to this Christ who
is Jesus and that they cannot argue him legitimately out of
his doctrine because he's proving it line upon line, precept upon
precept, very clearly, very reasonably, very rationally as I'm talking
to you now. And here's the thing. Reasonable,
rational, propositional truth is the only way we can be saved.
And reasonable, rational, propositional truth is the way you will find
out whether or not people are believers or not. You cannot
find out whether a person is a believer or not by empirical
or emotional or existential or circumstantial events. You don't
know who a believer is just because they say they are a believer.
Oh, I had this marvelous experience the other night. An angel came
to me. So what? What does an angel have to do
with believing the gospel? Am I making some sense? So when
people say I'm a Christian, you know, it's the moment they say
that to me, it doesn't mean a thing. It doesn't even begin to mean
a thing. I have to ask myself, do I even want to entertain the
thought of asking them, what do you mean that you are a Christian?
Because at that point, you know, I'm afraid that I'm going to
lose them if I start using the reasoning skills necessary to
discover whether or not there's credibility behind that assumption
that they are a Christian. As soon as they say it, they
are under obligation to bear testimony to the truth. And quite
frankly, you have the right, the moment a person says they
are a Christian, to say, what do you mean? Tell me what you
mean by you are a Christian. See what I'm getting? But now
what we're doing is dialoguing. That's what the Greek word there
means, to dialogue. Dialogizoma. It means to reason
through. It means to talk about, to have
discourse, rational, logical discourse. but the Jews which
believe not moving in envy took unto them certain lewd fellows
of the base of certain gathered a company and set them set the
whole city in uproar and assaulted the house of Jason and sought
to bring them out to the people and it goes on and on and on
this is the context in which the church at Thessalonica was
established go to chapter 18 I want to read a few more for
you before we go on to our other points in our outline It's the
same thing. He's, uh, in chapter 18, the
apostle Paul, we read over in verses one through four, after
these things, Paul departed from Athens, came to Corinth this
year is where we have the Corinthian church and found a certain Jew
named Aquila born in Pontus, uh, lately come from Italy with
his wife, Priscilla, because that Claudius Caesar had commanded
all the Jews to depart from Rome. This was the persecution of the
Jews, uh, shortly after the crucifixion of Christ. Came unto them and
because he was of the same craft he abode with them. Now, what
did he do? He was a tent maker for there for by their act occupation
They were tent makers look at verse 4 now watch this here it
is and he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded the
Jews and the Greeks see it and and persuaded the Jews and the
Greeks. Now watch this. And when Silas and Timotheus
were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit and
testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. And when they opposed
themselves, see it? What do you mean oppose themselves?
They took a position of unreasonableness. They became unreasonable. They disagreed with the truth. Have you ever had that experience? You know, when I was a young
man, 18, 19, 20 years old, when God saved me, one of the things
I did was immerse myself in scriptures, and I love to be in the realm
of discussion and debate. Debate is not always that healthy,
but sometimes it is if the debate is controlled and contained and
civil. Sometimes debates are more heat than light, but in
many cases where there's light, you have your senses exercised,
don't you? Now watch this. Tell me if this is the truth.
You can listen to a debate where one of the persons arguing for
one position versus the other person arguing for another position.
So long as you only hear one side, it sounds reasonable. Have you ever been in that quagmire,
in that vulnerable place of listening to a particular argument on a
particular subject and the proponent of that subject is explaining
that subject as they feel that they are capable of doing and
it's sounding very good and then all of a sudden here comes his
opponent and his opponent begins to say, Respectfully with regards
to what my opponent was saying He actually got it wrong on this
point that point the other point here there near and then that
whole straw man Began to fall apart didn't it it just began
to deconstruct it had holes here holes there holes everywhere
Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's precisely what goes on in the
Christian Church Not everybody preaches the gospel Weren't you shocked one day you
actually heard the gospel preached and explained in depth where
you had clarity on the person and work of Christ on a level
you never had before and it blew you away? See, and what you were
asking when you got confronted with that experience was, what
in the world was I doing all that other time? I thought I
was saved. I thought I was doing fine. I
come to find out I was believing a pack of lies. This is true. This is true. And this is why
when we talk about the unreasonableness of unbelief and wicked men, and
I am I'm pressing home to you to not fall prey to this laziness
with which the Christian church can fall prey to where in your
own little circle, where you have a system of beliefs that
you have embraced and somebody told you that's Christianity.
and that system of belief has not really went through the filter
of a more comprehensive examination to determine whether or not the
basis upon which that so-called Christian church is true or not
is established on the Word of God. You may just very well think
you're all right, but all you are is sincere. But you're sincerely
wrong. Do you understand? And so sincerity
is not, and see this is where I call it the mental breakdown.
And the mental breakdown is this, where when you begin to understand
that Christianity is calling for reasonableness, and it's
calling for intelligent people, it's calling for us to think,
there are a whole lot of professing Christians who have a mental
meltdown because they're being called to think now. And as a
consequence, they're challenged because, uh-oh, you mean I really
gotta think? Why can't I just believe? Well,
you can't believe authentically unless you think. See, your believing
was a pagan sort of jumping off the cliff and embracing something
that you could not affirm or deny as to being true. And that's
not biblical Christianity, nor is it biblical faith. You know
what the bible says right the bible says if you continue in
my word John chapter 8 verses 31 through 36 then are you my
disciples indeed And you will know the truth and the truth
will make you free if you continue in my word now What is jesus
saying disciples are taught ones? Disciples are people who sit
at Jesus feet and have the word of God explained to them rightly
dividing the word of truth So that men and women come to a
real saving knowledge that grounds them in the truth What you and
I are doing right now is extremely important right now what we are
doing now We are not taking a particular doctrine tonight and unpacking
it, but we are dealing with antecedent things to doctrine and that is
Faith versus unreasonableness and the flawed assumption or
hypotheses that faith is something other than reason. Faith is not
something other than reason. Faith is the byproduct of reason. Faith is the byproduct of reasonable
propositional truth, which comes from God. Am I making some sense?
Faith is the fruit of logic. What do you mean? Well, you know
the word logic comes from the word logos. You do know that,
right? Do you know that? Yeah, logic.
I was talking to my brothers. I'm glad you said that because
I keep telling people, honest people ain't gonna never go to
hell. Always be honest. You'll never go to hell. I was telling
my brothers last night outside, uh, cause we were talking about,
um, politics and we were talking about the different, uh, um,
offices that people hold in land. We were rejoicing as we were
rejoicing in sister Condoleezza Rice and her having made it to
become secretary of state. What a profound thing for an
African American woman to reach that level of status. Next status
is presidency. And, uh, and, and yet there is
on the part of, some people that secular offices, whether it's
a judge or whether it's a lawyer or whether it's a legislator,
whether it's a professor in college or higher learning universities
or what have you, that they have a body of knowledge, a body of
knowledge, a corpus of truth that is distinctly different
from scripture. And here's what I want you to
know, Christian. There is no body of truth, nor no corpus
of knowledge, no body of truth anywhere in the world that does
not have its derivatives in the word of God. There's nothing
in the world, no system, no knowledge, no discipline, no office, no
station that is based upon truth, even in the secular realm that
doesn't have its origins and derivatives in biblical truth.
And this is the claim of Scripture. The claim of Scripture is, in
the beginning was the Logos. In the beginning was the Logos.
And the Logos was with Theos. And the Logos was Theos. The same was in the beginning.
God and His Word. The Word and God are one. This
is how God reveals himself to us as the true and the living
God the God who has revealed himself to mankind I'm not talking
about animals. I'll talk about that on Sunday when we talk about
demon-possessed dogs and cats But I'm talking about creatures
whom God made in his own image and in his own likeness Whom
he breathed into their nostrils the breath of life and man became
a living soul and immediately upon creating him God talked
to him and God didn't have to teach him how to talk. He didn't
have to teach him how to read. God didn't have to tutor him.
As soon as he created man, he started giving man commands and
promises. Are you guys following me? He
did not do that with any of his other creatures. He made man
in his image and likeness. And one of the prodigious attributes
of God, essential to a true knowledge of God is intelligence. God is
a rational being. He is super rational. He's transcendentally
rational, but God is a rational being. That means when we say
that God is the Logos, we are talking about the origin and
epitome of reason. Now, if you have a PhD in some
major, major discipline like you know, quantum physics, then
you went through all of the disciplines all the way down to basic physics,
basic biology, basic math, all of these sort of basic skill
sets that we learned in high school and college, right? But
you're way up there in the stratosphere of these disciplines. Your language
is different than ours down here. But there is a relative connection
between the language up there and the base root language down
here. There's no way to get there.
except for through here. Am I making some sense? And you
would be perpetrating a fraud if you are walking around as
the greatest quantum physicist and are able to use language
describing the universe in a way in which most of us common peons
can't even understand whatsoever because you aren't disclosing
the bridge between the way we think about phenomena and the
way you think about phenomena. But there is a bridge and there
is a spectrum of knowledge that allows us to get where you are
But if you're like God, even though you're in that realm,
that stratosphere, you should be able to talk to us where we
are. Am I making some sense? If you're
like God, You should be able to break down all of those highfalutin
terms and concepts which you have earned because God is giving
you the material to construct and formulate these ideas and
these arguments that led to that particular discipline, which
discipline will disappear in a decade or two, you know, giving
way to a new discipline, which is an ever unfolding body of
information that only affirms the infinite nature of God in
its essence, who himself is perfect, infinite knowledge. When John said in John chapter
one, verse one, in the beginning was the word. He wasn't sending
us on some gnostic, esoteric, ego, you know, centric journey. He was simply telling us that
when God created us, you and me, he created us so compatible
to him, that all we need to do is talk to him and let him talk
to us. Did you hear what I just said?
We don't have to try to enter into some type of eons or some
type of system of ascendance to knowledge through angels or
demons or mysticism or tarot cards or crystal balls or some
other esoteric method. All we need to do is say, Lord,
speak to me. And God's already done that.
He's done that by giving us his word. He did that when he created
the first man in his own image, and he breathed into his nostrils
the ruler, the breath of life, so that not only is this man
a rational breathing creature, like all the other animals, he
is a living soul. And he is also a soul that's
created in God's image with rationale, thinking capacities, the ability
to propose things and to assume things and to deduce and to adduce
and to deduce things and recognize, what if I do this? If I do this,
that'll happen. If I do the other thing, that'll
happen. If I don't do this, that'll happen. Only human beings can
think like that because they're made in the image of God. Animals
don't do that. Are you guys following me? Animals
don't pick up books to find out how to drive a car or do any
such thing. But from the beginning of time
to this very hour, the human race has been bound by knowledge. When God created Adam and Eve,
he created them with the capacity to acquire infinite knowledge.
I'm getting into our systematic theology class when we get back
there, but you guys know this already. When he created Adam
and Eve, he created them with the capacity to communicate with
the infinite mind immediately. There was no mediator between
Adam and God. Adam could talk to God, God could
talk right back to Adam. There was no mediator. There
was no waiting. In our sinful condition, when
we don't know something, we got to pray about it. Then we got
to read. And because our minds are contaminated
by sin, we got to ask God for what? Understanding. Then we
got to wait for understanding, right? And sometimes he'll give
it to us as we wait for understanding, and sometimes he has to give
it to us through the pastor or somebody else. And we wait and
then it's like, wow, now I understand that passage, right? But it took
five years to come to that understanding. So what is God doing? He's working
with us in our fallen condition. But prior to the fall, all understanding
came instantly upon request. because there was no filter between
us and God called sin. I could talk to God, God could
talk to me, and immediately upon that discourse, I knew what I
needed to know. What potential Adam and Eve had
to know like God knew because their source of knowledge was
God himself. But somehow the devil came in
and tricked them and said, no, you will acquire more satisfactory
knowledge from a tree than from God. It was the tree that God said,
if you take this course, you will learn, but it will be painful
and the consequences will be damnable. That's where we are
today. We are now in that realm of experiential
empirical knowledge because we chose to go the route of a tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. versus direct conversation
with an infinite God with whom we had access because there was
no breach. Think about having a father who
was more than willing to tell you immediately the answer to
everything. You would be something else,
wouldn't you? Wouldn't you be something else if God would just
give you the answer to everything? But since we ate the tree, we
have been struggling through knowledge mixed with the curse,
the depravity of our nature. sin dominating it so much that
even when God has brought us into a redemptive state like
we are now, we struggle with regeneration and deterioration
at the same time. We struggle with regeneration
and deterioration at the same time. Regeneration is the work
of God's grace in renewing our mind Renewing our heart renewing
our spirit and bringing us into a saving knowledge of Christ
by and by Via the Word of God like we're talking about tonight.
We're learning things Which shapes our understanding broadens our
our horizon gives us a greater clarity of God but that very
knowledge that you are acquiring right now can diminish tomorrow
by something taking it away and See, the struggle is regeneration
and degeneration. Am I making sense out of that,
brother? That's right. Right. And see, so where we are now
is we are in a tension. The tension is continually doing
what Jesus said in John chapter eight, verse thirty one. Continue
in my word. Continue feeding on my word.
Continue communing in my word. Continue growing in my word.
As you grow in the word, you will know the truth and the truth
will make you free. It will liberate you from all
of the bondages that come from our fallen system, our fallen
nature and adversaries who would want to keep you from knowing
the truth. So I say that to say this, faith
is not unreasonable. You may argue that faith and
reason are not the same thing as what we call equally synonymous,
but there's no way for me to have a conviction what's right because that's what
faith is isn't it faith is the conviction
of things hoped for and the evidence the tangible present evidence
of things not seen now follow this now I'm done I'll open the
floor for questions before we close to have faith is to have
an assurance of what God has said. That's what faith is. Faith is having an assurance
of what God has said. There can be no faith apart from
knowledge. Faith comes by and hearing by
So the fruit of faith or the fruit of knowledge is faith. If I am a believer, I believe
something, right? And what I believe are propositions
that lead me to the reality of the person and the work of Jesus
Christ. And what we have to be careful
of is falling prey to this notion of unreasonable faith, unreasonable
faith. deliver us from unreasonable
men, wicked men, and deliver us from unreasonable faith. Go back to our text. I'm just
about to close there. So the apostle Paul says this
in the latter part of verse two, And this needs not be developed
much if you think it through. But I will make a couple of comments
just for those of you who are visitors with us if you've never
heard it before. The last line in verse two is, for all men
have not what? That's right. That's logical,
isn't it? Is that logical? Have you fallen
under the false assumption that everybody has some kind of fate? Have you been told that everybody
has some type of faith? Well, if you just take the scriptures
verbatim, what it says is not all men have faith, right? And
so we can take that one or two ways. Not all men have this kind
of faith. And what we mean by this kind
of faith is faith in God, faith in Christ, faith in the truth. Faith in the scriptures. Are
you guys following me? Not all men believe because the the opposite
side of the coin of faith is what believing if you are a believer
You're a person who has what faith if you have faith you are
called a what believer and obviously Christians don't believe everything
what we believe is what God says and So what Paul is saying is
we want to be delivered from people who pretend to know truth
But in reality are unbelievers because not everyone has faith. Whoa. Now watch this. You sit
under a pastor for 20 years. And then you come to discover
that that pastor doesn't believe the Bible. And in an uninformed mind, here's
what you would say. Well, he used to. No, he never
did. He never did. He pretended. And what he did was use the scriptures
to build a religious system, but he didn't believe the word.
Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? You don't, you don't
really believe the scriptures when one day you walk away from
them. It's not possible. That's not possible because faith
is a gift from God. Faith is a gift from God. Faith
is a gift from God. And so when that person walks
away from the faith and says, I'm an atheist or am I agnostic? And I don't believe that this
is the infallible word of God. I don't believe that it's without
flaw. I don't believe anymore. All that stuff I used to say
because I learned it in seminary. Well, what he's saying is I never
did have faith in the first place. And then you are shaken up because
the medium between your Christian experience And what the scriptures
truly teach is an individual who didn't believe the word.
And now you're challenged as to what was that all about. But
what the Bible teaches us is there are men and women who enter
into the church and take up the Bible and share it with people
as if they are believers. But in fact, they are not believers.
What is the one big sterling example that we have in the New
Testament? Judas Iscariot. right judas is
scared is a perfect example of an unbeliever he was a devil
jesus said that he never believed he was simply going along for
the ride to get what he could get out of it until he was exposed
he would have been a tragedy as an apostle establishing local
churches wouldn't he and yet we have lots of local churches
like that so the warning that comes out of the text is when
you are listening to men or women who alleged to be believers,
this you must know. Not everyone that says, Lord,
Lord, is actually in the kingdom of God. And it will require,
as Paul is saying, deliver us from unreasonable and wicked
men. It will require you praying for discernment, you praying
for patience, you praying to listen long enough to determine
whether or not an individual actually really believes the
book. In order for you to really be able to take that person through
the acid test, you have to be knowledgeable enough in the scriptures
to be able to challenge them. Because people sit under false
prophets and false teachers for decades because they don't know
how to challenge them. Pastor, I heard you say this
and you didn't actually show us in the scriptures where it
was. Can you show me in the Bible where that statement came from?
And see, as soon as he gets defensive, you already know. He's functioning
in a very unprincipled fashion. He doesn't have the liberty to
make propositions or statements about what he believes the Bible
says without being able to prove it from the scriptures. He doesn't
have that liberty. But you also don't have the liberty to simply
sit there and listen to it hook, line, and sinker as if it's the
God honest truth without being able to test it. Am I making
some sense? It's extremely important. Cause see, you know where we
are right now, right now at this moment, is much more of a spirit
anointed moment than most people would as it were suggest what
it means to be in the presence of the spirit. You know when
we go through all the emotions hoopla all the crying and whining
all that dancing and right now we're in much more of a spirit
anointed presence because we are focusing on biblical truth. and God has been pleased to set
aside our human weaknesses and bring us into a crystal clear
focus on this concept of faith for just a moment. Once we close
in prayer, you will be challenged by the clouds and the turbulence
and the winds and all of the distractions out there as to
whether or not you can take this study and build on it and strengthen
yourself and come to a greater understanding of the concept
of faith. But just remember, faith and reason are not at odds. They are not antithesis. And
faith and unreasonable men, they can't coexist in the same place.
You can't be a believer and be unreasonable. Any questions before
we close?