We see here where Paul is speaking to the Galatians. He goes in and we see kind of like a different twist, or like a different tenor to what's going on here, where he says, picking up in verse 11, Galatians 4, I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am, for I am as ye are. Ye have not injured me at all. You know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first, and my temptation was in my flesh. You despised not, nor rejected, but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness he spake of? For I bear you record that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me." We see here in Galatians 4.15, Paul is, he's reaching out to them. And in verse 16, he picks up, Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but not well, yea, they would exclude you that ye might affect them. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice, for I stand in doubt of you. Tell me ye that desire to be under the law. Do ye not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid and the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory? For these are the two covenants, the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not. Break forth and cry, thou that travailest not. For the desolate hath many more children than she which hath a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. For the next couple weeks, we're going to be still basically going here primarily in verses 21 to 31. But this morning, we're picking up where we left off, where we spoke about the days. Paul says you observe the days, and he was talking about what really the true form of legalism really is. And I just say this as a disclaimer for the Sunday school class. Some of this may sound kind of repetitive, and I'll have to tell you the dilemma that I go through. When we have Sunday school class, there are many times when we have people that maybe come like a half an hour late, or they haven't been here in weeks, or they sit out in the foyer, or there's all kind of different dynamics. And I try to go over this and repeat it. Thank the Lord we have a core of people that are here on time and are here to listen. But when people are not here, I kind of feel like I have to repeat some of it so that it's kind of understandable. And I'm somewhat repetitive because it kind of helps me to remember what I'm doing and to go forward with this. But I got to say this to you. I don't care what documents in this world are there that seem of a matter of importance. I don't care if it's the plans to the Hubble telescope or the battle plans to win a war. I don't care if it's how to build the biggest computer or the best rocket ship or basically the whole layout of the presidential responsibilities. There is nothing more important in this universe than these words. Nothing. There's nothing more important than what Paul is begging. And isn't it amazing how if you need something very important, how today it's so expensive to get your hands on it? Do you realize today if you own a $300,000 Komatsu excavator and you want the operations manual for it, you have to call Komatsu and pay $800 for it? A lot of manuals are online and they're not very on purpose. They're not a lot of the manuals for things that you need and things that we have in our lives. They are online but they're not as descriptive and as detailed as having that book in your hands. And there are many things, car manuals. All these things cost lots and lots of money to get in order to be able to fix and do things we need to do. But it is an amazing how all through the ages Christ has made the way to salvation free You might have to spend, what, 50 bucks on a Bible, but I can tell you a hundred ways to get a Bible for free, easily. And it's amazing how the most important information you will ever have in your life is right there at your fingertips. Isn't it amazing? It could be through tracts, or it could be we have Gospels of John and Bob. The most important thing you will ever hear and read in your life is the message of the Gospel. And not only is it expounded as to what it is, it's defended by a seasoned missionary who shows what is not the Gospel. Because there's so many things today that look like the gospel. So what's Paul saying? I'm building a case here, because Paul is going back to the Galatians and he's saying, I explained to you what the gospel is. What's the matter with you? He's saying, I'm afraid of you. I'm afraid. Why is he saying, I'm afraid of you? Anybody? You think about it. What we've been studying. What's he afraid of, Dave? He's afraid that if they don't understand what it is, Right. He's afraid because of today. We can give a million examples. He's afraid, that's a great point. He's afraid back then of what today anybody that knows the Bible is afraid of today. People are being pied piper right into hell because they think they have no obligation at all to God at all. And there's two main reasons that we're going to look at this morning that if you're going to find this, if you have any interest in this at all, which I'm sure you do, this is fascinating. Here Paul picks up, we were talking about how the Old Testament church was under bondage. We saw how John Calvin said that the fathers were divinely elected for the sole purpose of prefiguring to us a people of God that were free of conscience. This is just a little bit of an overview. Paul said he observed the days, which is really what the legalism was. And basically when you bring this together, he's talking to them and he said, you were remembering the Feast of Weeks. You're going to Passover. You're going to the Feast of Harvest. And they're all, you don't have to do that anymore. Christ came. He died. He rose. And all of this covenantal Old Testament Passover and sacrifices have been abrogated. The law has not been taken away. But to take today, we do not go out, say maybe up on Teresa's farm or somewhere and bring a calf or bring some kind of animal and come up and sit it out on the altar, cut it up, bleed it all out. burn the fat and do it in the morning, do it in the evening, every day, there's an oblation, there's a sacrifice. We don't have that anymore. And Paul says, why are you still doing it? They were still sacrificing animals. And I think this is one of the things that infuriated him. If you know that Jesus Christ, if you were around, Paul the Apostle was somewhere when Christ was on that cross. I don't know where he was, but he was somewhere. He saw the sky grow dark. He may have actually seen the dead people rise and walk into Jerusalem. He was there. He was under the tutelage of Gamaliel. And I have no doubt Gamaliel probably spoke with him in private. And this is a conspiracy theory. I kind of like to go down that rabbit trail. Helps me to dig deeper. He was probably sitting somewhere with Gamaliel and Gamaliel was probably saying under his breath, away from Annas and Caiaphas, this is Christ. This is the one we were talking about. Gamaliel may have very well been saved. He may well, because he spoke highly of the coming of Christ. He did. He may have been teaching Paul this. Paul was somewhere and he knew what that sacrificial lamb was. And so when he sees the Judaizers going back and they're taking the animals and they're sprawling them out and you can hear them wailing and the blood going everywhere. What are you doing? He says this to the Judaizers. And so we see here, he goes, I am afraid of you. He says, brethren, just like back in Romans 12, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, he says here, brethren, I beseech you, be as I am, for I am as ye are. He's saying I'm no better than you. Stop looking at me like I'm something I'm not. Teresa. Amen. Yes. Right. Right. How would that affect Paul personally if they were doing that? That's a great point you bring up because it would have personally affected Paul in a very hard way. How would that affect him? Right. Right. you're in a lesser position than a parent would be speaking to a child. You really step out when you do that. And when you've been, like Paul, all the things he went through, I mean, the shipwrecks and the stonings and the rips and everything, to have people just so willingly just, oh, well, it's like, you know what? I don't want to go into this, but I'm thinking, when I share the gospel with somebody, and they're not receptive of it, or they may have been, and then later I find out they've gone another way, I say, Lord, what did I do wrong? Did I not talk about opinions enough? I kind of beat myself up over that. And I'm asking, what did I do wrong? And I sorrow over these people, you know? So I don't know. I think, of course, he being Paul is a whole lot stronger than I'll ever be. But he's still human. And it's very grievous to see people that you have sweated over, and they're costly. You go see them, and suddenly, they're not there. You wonder. Well, if you give the gospel and you have that on your heart and you do that wonderful job and if someone rejected it, the only way you're responsible for that is if you had the power to save them. And that's the thing. See, and that gets back to what did Teresa say? Where was Paul? When you opened that up, where was he? Where was he going? Right. Think about that. Here's where it would have affected him even more personally. He looks at the Judaizers and he says, at one point, you would have plucked your eyes out and given them to me. We're going to look at that. I didn't want to open that up yet because it's a window of something that's very important with Paul. But if he was on the road to Damascus, he came back after Damascus. He knows what he did. He never forgot that. He goes into Galatia and Ephesus and Corinth and all these and he pours his heart out, he gets beat, he gets incarcerated and all. He pours his heart out and gives them the truth and they come back and then he comes back to the Galatians and they're worshipping the Judaizers. They're worshipping the very people that gave him the documents to go kill those Christians. That's where it affects him. They are now going away from that wonderful Savior and they're going back to the people who were in adherence to the Jewish council that Paul himself went to them when he was Saul of Tarsus and said, please give me the documents. He had to get them signed off to go to Damascus and go in and persecute the Christian church. Now they're following those people. That would have infuriated him and that brings up a fantastic point because we never even thought of that. See how deep this gets? Now, if you're going to really dig, you've got to take this and you've got to put it and plug it in to how we live now. How does this affect us now? Because anybody that just says this is some mythological writings of history is an idiot. This has a perfect prophecy on what our problem is now. And we're going to find out about that in a few minutes. But first, I don't want to miss this because Paul, going back to what Teresa is saying, he is now in the grip of agony over watching them slip away. Because Paul did maintain a certain level of arrogance. He did. And he was rebuked by other apostles for that. And it wasn't that he was trying to be arrogant. It wasn't that he was trying to be that way. But he would get very upset. As Lisa was saying, when somebody would turn away from the gospel, he would get really angry and get upset at that. And he, Paul himself, said he had to be careful with that. Because, you know, you might have the closest relative in the world that you've been witnessing to for 30 years, like Lisa and I have. I knew her together. And they just don't want to have anything to do with you. Like, God, where are you? But I don't ever ask that. Because I know he knows. He knows. And it could be a child. It could be a grandchild. It could be a father, a mother. And you're like, I've been faithful. I've prayed my heart out. Why? And this is Paul with the Judaizers. Why? And he says here in verse 15, he goes, Wherein is the blessedness ye spake of? They talked about the blessedness of the gospel with him. They loved it. He said, I bear record to you, I told you that even if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes. You know what this means? Paul was going blind. You would have given your eyes to me. He was blind. I've heard that. And he had to have Luke go along with him and John Mark, and they had to write for him in the jails and all. He was going blind. His health was so bad, he said, you would have plucked your eyes out and given them to me so that I could see again. You loved me so much. And then he goes to another one. Look at this. And he says, go back to 14 first. I'm sorry, this is inverted. And my temptation, which was in my flesh, ye despised not. What does that mean? I know I wrote this verse down. Somebody go and read this while I'm looking at this. 2 Corinthians 12, 7. Okay? And then somebody read, maybe Teresa, you do 2 Corinthians 12, 7. Jacob, do Mark 9, 37. Could you do that for me, please? You're going to remember this. Now here, oh, Jacob's out there. I'm sorry. Lee, can you do it, hon? Could you do, at least Jacob's out working. Mark 9.37. You got that, Teresa, go ahead and read that. 2 Corinthians 12.7. messenger of Satan to buffet me." Now we're getting a clue as to what he was talking about. How many times have you heard, if you listen to radio, how many times have you heard pastors talk about that thorn in the flesh? And nobody can say what it was. We've got a little bit of an avenue. I think we got an idea of what it might have been. We can take a stab at it here this morning. Lisa, go ahead and read that, please. Thank you. That's Mark 9.37. Okay. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but that's a byline verse here that's here about the thorn in the flesh. But I think I know what it's saying. I'm going to take a stab at this. Verse 14, it says, "...and my temptation, which was in my flesh..." Remember, Paul said it was a thorn in my flesh that Satan buffeted me. This floor in Paul's flesh, which could have been wrapped around what Lisa just read about being brought to Christ, there was a temptation that he was suffering from. Whatever it was, it very well could have been what we were just talking about, the temptation to have that impatience when he was giving the gospel and Paul would get angry when they would not listen. Because it all wraps, this is all what he's talking about. I don't know. But he says this was a temptation in the flesh. He was suffering with a temptation, something that was really pounding on him. Lisey. Yes. Right. Right. Right. Right. Amen. And, you know, Lisa, good. Second Corinthians, twelve, seven. Yep. Second Corinthians, twelve, seven. Yes. So if he had, in other words, what this is saying here, you know, by Satan, that would have been originally or would that be This is haunting him now and then. And he's saying, back then you had this temptation. I don't believe he ever relinquished that. See, what I love about this is that one of the things that we have a problem with as Christians we're still prideful. Paul was this way and so was Peter. That whole argument about circumcision, remember that? And it's good to discuss this because I could sit and discuss this all day, I love it. Paul, one of the things we always find out, and I've seen this in the church, I've been in all kind of councils, oh I've been in the candidates and credentials meeting up there, at Presbytery which we have in March and I've been in meetings here and other meetings and people calling me and stuff as an elder and people never come to you until they've, for the most part, committed a heinous sin and they got caught. That's what it always happens. It's after it's kind of exposed and it's out there kind of on the laundry because it manifested itself. That's when it usually manifests. What I love about Paul is he talks about it before whatever the sin is, the temptation for the sin, he wants the temptation stopped. And so the temptation, you have sins that you don't want to talk about here. So do I, I'm sure. There are things maybe from the past or things you've repented of, but things that come back and they haunt you when you think about them. You don't want to talk about them. If there are temptations and you have not taken the temptation and crossed over the bridge to engage in that sin, you're struggling with Satan pounding on you. He's trying to destroy you with that temptation. It could be anything. And here Paul even announces there was a temptation. That's when you want to nip it in the bud, when it's a temptation, not after you've crossed over the line and done it, and now you've done something horrible to hurt other people. Some of these pastors that just come out in Fort Myers, Texas, they got caught having affairs, five of them. One was very, we talked about an awful lot. And if they would have just came and talked about the temptation before they engaged in it, look at how they wish now they would have probably gone back and done that. Think about that. And you know people like that. Paul's talking about whatever this temptation is, he even announces that it was a temptation. He knows this. When Christ was in the wilderness and He was tempted, it's manifested in Scripture to show that temptation is not a sin. It's what you do with that temptation. Those temptations of Christ, they don't mean that he sinned. It means that in his humanity, this is what we go through as Christians. And so Paul is saying here, he's seeing the sins come out of these Judaizers. And when you go in and you go to these Passovers, there was all kind of filthy things now that were happening amongst them. And he's calling them out. And so here, it's a very good discussion. He says in verse 16, Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth? He's just in agony. He says, Paul, he exhibits care for the church. If you read, if you see 1 Thessalonians 3, verses 9-10. Why don't somebody read that? Hey, Greg, could you read that maybe? 1 Thessalonians 3, verses 9-10. And how he cared for the church and how he loved it. Giving thanks to the Lord here. Give me a chance to catch up here a second here. Paul's talking here about the baneful effect of Judea. It's the bane around his neck. Go ahead, Greg, if you have that. First Thessalonians 3, 9, 10. Yep, that's it. For what thanks can we render to God again for you? For all the joy we are with, we join for your sakes before God, before our God. We might pray exceedingly that we might see your face, we might perfect that which is That's it. He's praying exceedingly. You can see the heart of a pastor here, the heart of Paul. He says they zealously affect you in verse 17. He says he beseeched them. Just back in Romans 12, 1 Timothy 5.23. Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thine stomach's sake and thine often infirmities. Paul was suffering physically. This is what he was talking about in 1st Timothy and in 1st Corinthians 2, 3. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And we see the storm in the flesh as a temptation. He asked them, where is the blessedness? Where is the fellowship that we enjoy together? Where is the happiness and the joy of being together and discussing the things of the Lord? Are we happy discussing the things of the Lord? Or is it just boring to us? Is it boring? Is it, oh yeah, that's the Sunday school stuff. It should be exciting. This is eternal life we're talking about. And he says, where is that excitement that you had when I was there and you were willing to give me your eyes? We talk, we have trials, we have things that happen. Sometimes they're very difficult. Isn't it nice to be able to sit around and talk with other Christians and people that are really struggling? You know, I look at there's two examples. I had a chance to speak to Elder Ed Zimmerman yesterday. And last week, it was very hard for Pastor Don Britton. And very hard. And you know what? They were so wonderful to him up there at Marcus Hook. He didn't hear from anybody except his church, his real family, the people that love him. January the 4th, two years ago, Miss Vicki dropped, she was dead before she hit the bathroom floor. Died that Sunday, it's been two years. And he was having a rough time. So what did they do? They sat down and they prayed with him. They took him out to dinner. And Elder Ed Debbie, we were talking, they said, you know, it was just good for him to hear her name. And, you know, we've seen that here in this church. This congregation has done a wonderful job standing behind Miss Roberta. What that woman went through since 2018, I haven't seen anybody get through stuff that hard. Her husband in the hospital in a coma. He went into hospital talking. The last words that he said to Miss Roberta going into surgery was, what are we going to do about the lawns? They cut lawns. They have the lawn company. He was wide awake. He goes in, whatever happened to him, he was never the same after that. He was in a coma for, what, three years. And then Miss Doris died. And look at how this church really rallied around her. We've had lunches with her and went out with her and did some things and went and visited. That's what Paul's talking about. Where's that fellowship? Where is that when things are down? Where's the family? And that really had an impact on him. Have you ever had a family member or maybe a very close friend that you had a lovely time with and they just grew cold? They didn't want to talk to you anymore. They just kind of put you off. That's how Paul felt. They didn't want to return your calls or they blocked you on social media. That's what I hate about social media. That's what I hate about Facebook and all that stuff. Facebook. I'm the only one there. Look, I'm not going to be a hypocrite. I'm only because of Marketplace. I have to be on there because of business, but I don't do any of that. bantering back and forth. Oh, today my dog threw up and I got to put a picture on it. Here Paul gives such a wonderful affirmation and shows a very intimate fellowship with the Galatian church back in the missionary journey. Where is the blessedness that you speak of? Where did it go? What happened? Because I told you the truth? You hate me because I told you what's going to happen to you when you die? You hate me? He says, you actually hate the truth? It's like when Pilate stood there in front of Christ. He's standing there in front of the truth, and he says, what is truth? What a moron. He's a truth. He's a truth. He's why in the way the truth and the life. And he stands there, what is truth? And that's what people think. What is truth? Well, I kind of would love to wait till next week to do this, but I'm not going to. We have a problem today with what Paul had, and I'm gonna start going through this, and if it gets too much, then we'll just go into next week. That's what I love about having it every week. The supernatural forces of God and his covenantal blessings have been so, just so maligned. Let me say this, going into this part. Paul says in verse 18, it is good to be zealous, affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you. He says, my little children, he calls them his little children, of whom I travail and birth again unto Christ be formed in you. And then he says, I desire to present with you now and to change my voice, for I stand in doubt of you. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? Don't you hear what's coming out of here? What I've been trying to tell you? Here's what he's telling them in essence. If you think hard about it, your whole life is filled with judgments. From the time you're born, when your parents are handing down punishments in order to judge you and to punish you for doing things bad, Till you go to school and you get judged for your work and you have to be graded on your accomplishments and you get your grade point average or whatever. Till you go to work and you're being judged by your boss on your performance and how much you're going to get paid. Till you're judged to going into the district or the court or the circuit court or whatever if you do something wrong, if you get a ticket or whatever, you're going to stand before a judge. There's always judgments. And some of us have to deal with a lot of judgments. Some of us get away with some of it. There's one judgment that we're not going to miss. And it's all coming. And it's coming to us sooner than we think. And it's that judgment seat right before the Lord God Almighty. Hebrews 9.27 says, And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. And this is exactly what's coming. You will not be annihilated. You will not be in some spirit world with some goofy rock singer. You will not be a grasshopper. You will not be a cow. You will be you standing before Christ. If you can think about that, it might change all of our views a little bit when we just start to get kind of like maybe a little apathetic after we leave church on Sunday. Paul is saying here, we are no longer a slave, but we're the son of the Lord. We are heirs through God and we're given this freedom. And when we go and we face that judgment, we're free. Christ stands there and he says, I know Lisa, I know Charlie, I know Dave, I know Lisa, I know Teresa, all the way, I know you. Let him alone. That's all about the only time, I don't think Christ actually says that to God, but in a sense, he's like, he's fine, they're fine. God already knows it. He goes, ye good and faithful servant, enter in. That's the liberty that Christ is talking about. And this is what Paul is building up. And so in the beginning of the Sunday school class, you see where I'm going with this. This is the most important thing you'll ever hear in your life. You get to that point and you stand there and the Lord says, what if you hear, whoa, be gone from me. I never knew you. There is nothing worse in his whole existence of hearing those words. And a lot of people hear it every day, sadly. And here Paul was saying here, basically, you're an heir of God. He's begging them, look, don't be pulled in by this cult. 2017 was the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. And following that awesome revival and awakening came a Pandora's box of false teachings laced with man's manipulative perversions of Scripture to the point of eradicating any inerrancy of the Bible. We start out with the German Enlightenment, it was called the Auflaung, was a portion of the European Enlightenment period that taught spontaneous generation. This advancement of Enlightenment spread across the seas, started in France and landed right in America, the Enlightenment period. And there is a whole list, I started reading the list of Armenian theologians, Arminian, they were the ones that were pushing this through, this enlightenment. Wait till you hear this. False teachings laced with manipulative perversions. Here we see that this discovery was to abrogate the origin of the universe and origin of mankind. Now God was not necessary that all things came to pass for spontaneous generation. God was part of a fatherhood of mankind and all men no matter what creed, religion, cult or criminality are brothers and sisters and we are to be unconditional humanitarians. Western civilization saw this advent of enlightenment, moved right into France, and then found out its way here. Not a monolithic position held by all the professors of the day, but one thing they agreed on is that God is not necessary to explain human or universal origins, but by spontaneous generation. Now let me start interpreting some of this. This all started right after the Reformation, and it was basically Satan rolled his sleeves up and said, boy, that Reformation was something else. It's going to take time, but I think I know what I can do here, and it worked. Look how it's funneled into our schools today. Spontaneous generation starts out basically pulling together any way of any type of origin beginning without the effects and the work of God. Matthew. That's right. Right. And some of the philosophers actually did believe that there was a God, but here they had an objective. Listen to this. That's the first paragraph. I'll try to go paragraph by paragraph here. I just got done putting all this together. Now they say we can no longer believe in spontaneous generation, but now gradual spontaneous generation. But wow, now we must wait for it gradually. And this was an 18th century enlightenment that had a major impact on American culture. Now spontaneous generation, or a big bang, didn't come immediately. Now even the Big Bang is gradual, the spontaneous generation. Everything has to adapt slowly and patiently. Just the stupidest thing in the world. I was talking to one of the ladies at the bank the other day. She started bringing up something about creation. And I said, isn't it amazing how when we go to make something, we want to create it? I mean, think about it. You go home today, Sunday afternoon, and say you might want to make an apple pie. Doesn't it feel good to take those ingredients and make a beautiful apple pie? It comes out perfect. It tastes good. Everybody loves it. You created it. Did you stand there and wait for spontaneous generation for a million years for the apple pie to come together and for it all to come together or wait 10,000 years? You didn't spontaneously generate it. You didn't evolve it. You created it. And that comes from what? A creator that created us to create. That's so simple. I never could understand why people didn't get that. Well, this 18th century enlightenment had a major impact on American culture. What they did was create an amalgamation or unification between enlightenment, naturalism, and Christianity. This was a 19th century liberalism also. We need to get rid of all supernaturalism. That was the first thing they tried to do. We've got to get rid of the supernatural miracles of God. We've got to get rid of the miracles. We've got to get rid of all these things. Now look at this. We need to get rid of the supernaturalism, the miracles, Gideon's victory where the Lord used 300 people, Naaman's healing of leprosy, Samson's strength through his hair, a fourth being in the Nebuchadnezzar fiery furnace, a virgin birth, the miracles of our Savior, the resurrection and the administration of the Holy Spirit according to them all gone. The ascension gone and no possibility of a resurrected Jesus. And if you read the writings of Pearson and a lot of other Arminians, they came back and said Christ was buried in the grave. He was stolen. We still to this day have not found his bones. He's not coming back. And you want to know what that was called? Arminianism was originally called open theism. That's what the name of it was back here. Theologian Edward Pearson said we need to close the church. This was in the 19th century. No longer tenable or plausible, antiquated, but billions were invested in these massive cathedrals all throughout Europe. So he comes out and he writes this book and he says we've got to stop the church. If we're going to get science and we're going to get all this stuff to go forward, we've got to get rid of this gospel message and supernaturalism. Stop thinking that this God is a miraculous being. And he turns around and he goes to the churches. It didn't matter whether they were Lutheran or whether they were Episcopalian or Catholic. We've got to get rid of the churches. Well, another theologian comes back and he goes, no, we can't do that. We've invested billions into the reliquaries and into the cathedrals and into all of the great big massive steeples and all this. So they come back and they write all these other books and there's all these, this whole list of theologians. They come and said, well, if we can't get rid of the buildings, we've got to change the message. Now does that start sounding a little bit apropos for today? Here's what they did. Watch this. He says we need to, we've got a couple more minutes, we need to close the church. No longer tenable, it's no longer plausible. But that didn't work. We've got to change the theology. We need a movement. So Edward Pearson believed in that which was known in antiquity as open theism. Open theism, also known as openness theology, is a theological movement that has developed within Christianity as a rejection of the synthesis of Greek philosophy and Christian theology. It is a version of free will theism and arises out of the free will theistic tradition of the church. Its objectives is that it limits, confines, and abrogates the perfect will and providence of our Lord and Savior. Along with Pearson, two other scholarly theologians that brought this together regarding open theism and what we know today as all-out Arminianism was a man by the name of Thomas J. Ord, and he identified this path to open relational theology. Open theism. And I started digging and I started thinking and looking up the terms. Open theism was nothing but glorified Arminianism 2.0. And here are four major points to this open theism which now we are suffering today as a church. Except, thank the Lord, our little Bible-believing churches, all the churches around, see if this sounds familiar. Point number one, follow the biblical witness. Starts off pretty good, doesn't it? Now, here's the next three points. Follow the themes in some Christian theological traditions, but take out some of the Bible and leave some of the other ones out. And you were talking about communion and baptism. Leave them out. following the philosophy of free will, number three, and number four, following the path of reconciling faith and science together, thus attempting to eliminate 1,900 years of faith in supernaturals and believing in heavenly miracles. This is what the objective was hundreds of years ago. The formulation of taking out the inerrancy of scripture is what they did. And now look at today. A modern-day theologian, he was in the 20th century, Roger E. Olson, he said that open theism triggered the most significant controversy about the doctrine of God in evangelical thought in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He believed as a 20th century American, according to him, adherence to classical Arminianism is defined by being classically Protestant, affirming total depravity, conditional election, conditional election, unlimited atonement, which we don't believe in that, previent grace, which means a process by which we choose salvation by a process of grace. that what God does is a process. And all he does is he gives these little tidbits of grace until we turn the light on ourselves. We're not dead. We're not floating at the bottom of the ocean with bones dead, and God, Christ, reaches down and brings us out of that water and breathes life into our dead bones. We're already alive by our own will, and we can reach out ourselves, and we can say, thank you for that grace, Lord. Now I've decided to follow Jesus. That's what they were talking about. Teresa. It's sufficient for all, but there are many that have rejected Him. Right. Well, maybe this may make it... Here's another component of this. We're bringing this up. Hey, if you heard something, correct me if I'm wrong, but this, to me, makes sense with the way things are going. Lisa. A year ago when I was at Columbia Forrester, and a guy there who was doing the Bible studies at work, somebody here brought in, that I worked with, brought in Calvin, you know, the tool of the thing. And he said he was a 4.0 Calvinist, meaning he didn't believe in limited atonement. Right. Well, the unlimited atonement, the unconditional election, It's caused a lot of confusion, but here's what it all comes down to. Maybe this will make it a little bit more understandable. According to him, this was we were talking about this theologian, Roger E. Olson, adherence to classical Arminianism is defined by being classically Protestant, affirming total depravity, conditional election, unlimited atonement, prevenient grace, a process by which we choose salvation by a process of grace, and that God is in no way and by no means the author of sin and evil, but that these are only permitted by him. What they're saying is, God has no part in any part of sin being here. Somehow sin came all by itself and He knows nothing about how it got here. But He deals with it when it happens. So then I guess there's something God doesn't know. Right? That's what they're saying. They're saying He has nothing to do with the adherence or nothing to do with the presence of sin. Now does God inherently, does He sin Himself? Of course not. But what happened in the garden? He didn't know that. He had no idea what was going to happen in the garden. They're saying that he basically didn't. The Age of Enlightenment was a time when the concept of equality... Now, see if you think this sounds familiar today. And there's two really main points about this. The Age of Enlightenment was a time when the concept of equality and individual freedom began to take center stage. Intellectuals of the time believed that all individuals should be treated equally and should have the freedom to pursue their own interests and goals. This is basically where they were saying, under two major headings, which we'll probably have to deal with next week, is that basically this. It doesn't matter what creed, religion, or cult, or culture, whatever you're part of, we're to accept all of it as viable, verifiable religions. All of it, we are to be tolerant, no matter what beliefs. And so now, you want to talk about evolving We're not evolving. If there was any chance of that at all, you wouldn't call it evolving, you'd call it devolving. Because that's exactly what's happening. This whole LGBTQ movement and all, I don't know how many letters, it's a whole alphabet soup now of it, that has become a new religion. It's a religion in and of itself. It's worshipped, it's funded, it's put way out on the laundry, I mean it's everywhere, out on the laundry, on the clothesline. It's everywhere. People worship it. People defend it. And even many of those that are out there now, basically, that are supposed to be among evangelical ranks are protecting it. Case in point, Amy Grant just had her niece marry a woman and she said, how dare any of my Christian friends not attend because they will not be showing the love of Christ by not going. And not only did she attend it, she funded it. That's enabling it. I mean, here it is, and where does it manifest itself in a sanctuary where there's worship of it? They do it at weddings. It's now weddings, and if you read about it, many of them have these weddings on Sundays. Very serious. Overall, the Age of Enlightenment brought about a shift in thinking that placed a greater emphasis on equality and individual freedom. These ideals continue to shape modern society and serve as a reminder of the importance of treating all individuals equally and giving them the freedom to pursue their own happiness. One of the church historians of the 19th century, Adolf von Harnack, wrote a book called The Being or Presence of Christianity, reducing the bare minimum of Christian religion to its most basic being for two specific principles, universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. And that's the way it is today, isn't it? What does that mean, the universal fatherhood of God? What it means is he's nothing but a universal cosmic bellhop to everybody that caters to what anybody wants and the universal brotherhood of man. We're not a brotherhood. Christians are brothers and sisters, but the Bible says to love thy neighbor. It's a neighborhood, but it's not a brotherhood that we're supposed to accept all around us no matter what creed, religion, no matter what it is. That's what it said. And this is what was during, this is what was coming out of the Enlightenment period. and now look at it today and how what America's like now today. Anyway, we're going to look at that next week. We have a lot more to go here. And then we're going to look at the difference between what happened with Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and see what it means where Paul says, and Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. So let's finish up with that and we'll get moving forward here. Maybe I'll ask Matthew if you could close this this morning. Thank you. I thank you Lord for all that you have given us, plus the scriptures and our hearts of service. I pray that those of you who are saved will hear our prayer later. And I thank you Lord for all that you have given us, plus the fellowship later. In Jesus' name, amen.