So we continue in our study of scripture and psychology, just a brief review of what we've looked at. First, we looked at the nature of man. We looked at the two parts of man's being, that he is body and spirit. We also considered the heart, both from the Old and New Testament, looking at what exactly the core of man's being is. basically by the verbs associated with the noun heart. What does the heart do? And that helps us to understand more of the specific nature of the heart. We saw that the heart basically thinks, makes moral judgments, is bent towards specific objects, makes choices, is either willing or unwilling, and those sorts of things. And then we looked at the moral or ethical outcome of that, the specific nature of man's thoughts, intents, his choices, his affections, and how the Bible describes human sinfulness in terms of the heart. It describes virtue in terms of the heart, and it shows that the heart leads to the external actions from the abundance of the heart. The mouth speaketh as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Those sorts of things. So now, last week, what we looked at was the humanistic counseling models. What is man? And that, in a secular world, darkened in sin, there are a couple of major theories that I touched on. And if you do any kind of critical thought about our culture, the educational system, politics, the notion of punishment of crimes, if you look through social media, if you look at Hollywood, if you look at newspapers, you start realizing pretty rapidly that they believe this one of these or a mixture of these systems of thought. One instance recently, anybody here heard of Jordan Neely? Yeah, he's a black guy on the subway, and he's running down, threatening to kill people, mayhem against the passengers on the New York subway. A white guy, Mr. Penny, got him in a chokehold, took him down to knock him out. He ended up dying after Mr. Penny got him down. And then there's this massive, oh, this is a white-on-black crime, it was lynching, blah, blah, blah. essentially assuming he was guilty because he's white. And then at the end of it, Mr. Penny was acquitted by a grand jury because actually he did nothing wrong, like he's just defending himself and other people. There were actually black people helping him to restrain this guy, it wasn't just him. But Black Lives Matter came and said that they wanted to curse America and they wished that God would curse America. And they said that this was a lynching and that there's no justice, we have a two-tiered justice system, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Which was ironic because the guy had been booked 40 times, Jordan Neely, he had been booked 40 times and never spent time in jail. And yet this guy... who restrained him and who knocked him unconscious. He spent time, you know, basically before his trial, before bail was posted, he was imprisoned. So, long story short, the Black Lives Matter activists told everyone that this man, Jordan Neely, was, you want to guess? Well, yeah, sort of. He's like a martyr. Sick. They said he was sick. Now he was committing crimes. He had been beating old women. He had been burglarizing. He had been on drugs. He had been threatening mayhem against people, but he is sick. and you should have compassion on a sick person. So the idea of mental health, in other words, behaviorism, that was her answer. He's a victim because he was sick and you treated him like a criminal as if he were responsible for his own actions. So it comes out in people's everyday thoughts about reality. So we looked at Sigmund Freud, his scientific Weltanschauung, also called worldview. He talks about the research. And again, it's all very packed language. He says that there's no other source of knowledge of the universe but the intellectual manipulation of carefully verified observations. All of that is like tons of lies upon lies. First, manipulation. That's fair. Like you're manipulating things with your mind. Okay. carefully verified and not so sure about that there's a lot of quackery that's what psychology and psychotherapy is a lot of quackery and guesswork and theories that are imposed on things it's not necessarily careful Nor is it verified. You can't prove the truth value of many of their statements and one generation says that the former generation was lying and then they keep on doing that every generation so they can sell you new products. So this idea of verification of their observations and that they somehow do this carefully is all 100% made up. And then he says that that's called research, and that no knowledge can be obtained from revelation, intuition, or inspiration. So his worldview, his pantheistic notion, is that there are certain minds who can manipulate observations very, very carefully so as to verify their research, and that that's the only source of knowledge that exists. So that's Freud. We talked about his notion of the soul as having the id or the pleasure principle, the superego or the idealized moral self, and the ego, which arbitrates between these two, you know, the angel and the devil speaking on either of your shoulders, and then you have to make up your mind about how society would view this. You can indulge in a little bit of devilish behavior. Don't go too far in your morality and follow God's law. You know, you got to kind of indulge in your sins. And then for him, counseling is the release of the maladjustment, which is your conscience condemning you or you're too far in your pleasure principle. So he's going to make you kind of equalized out in your wickedness one way or the other. Then we looked at behaviorists. We saw that their notion of reality is that everything is determined by the location of bodies. That there is nothing after you die called the personality that lives on. That you're just your body. That's all you are. You are a machine. You are without consciousness. That's contrary to Freud. Because Freud assumes a conscious and a subconscious person. The behaviorists say, nope, you have no consciousness. All you have are, well, ethics maybe. We might come up someday with some ethics about right and wrong. We're not sure whether you should know who your parents are or how many wives you should have. We'll figure it out someday whether or not we should punish crimes. We also looked at B.F. Skinner. and John Dewey, John Dewey being the father of public education. He talked about how human nature is basically just muscles. That's all humans are, a series of muscles and chemical reactions. That's it. We also looked at Christian counseling. So after having seen Freudianism and behaviorism, We looked at Christian counseling, which is just a little seed picking here. Let's take a little bit of this secular atheistic trash. Let's take a little bit of this secular atheistic trash. Let's smack some Bible on top of it. And then we'll formulate this thing called Christian counseling. And we'll tell you that the only reason people end up, we looked at, lying, profaning God's name, thieving, is because of abnormal personality development. You know, it's just your environment. It's just like your body grows and it might have bad developments. So, you know, your mind and your psyche will have bad developments. And so we'll explain that all the way. We also read Leslie Vernick's His Emotional Abuse Grounds for Biblical Separation from the supposed Association of Biblical Counselors. who said that you, in your soul, are just your brain. That thing between your ears is your soul, in other words. So she justified her notion about why women or men could separate from their spouse, contrary to God's word, because of these psychological considerations where the psyche is just your brain. So essentially, she's agreeing with John Dewey. She's saying you're just a big pile of muscles. And the bruises left on the brain muscle from this kind of verbal and emotional abuse are so much worse than any physical damage and the damage that happens on the brain. And she even cited her gods, the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Drug Abuse. Those are her gods. How is that biblical? Well, obviously it's not. But this is the notion people have of Christian counseling. All right, now today we're going to do, as I promised, a contrast of counseling. So if you look at your handout there, part three at the bottom, a contrast of counseling, page three. We'll begin looking at what I will call the confessional counseling model. And what I mean by that is, our Westminster Confession and our catechisms, what would they advise us to do with regard to the Word of God, and how to approach pastoral counseling, or an elder doing pastoral counseling, or just Christians themselves counseling one another, which is likewise required. And we'll look at that specifically, God willing, next week. God requires believers to counsel one another. So there is a special duty that pastors have, but it's a general duty of all believers to each other. All right, so on page three, I give a series of foundational premises. I'll give slight allusions to our prior studies, but I think these all naturally follow from what we've already studied, or I'll give a little bit of the background and detail as to why I'm saying these things. So number one, foundational premise of a confessional counseling model is this. We must assume the specific nature of man, body and spirit, and the ordering of the heart, intellect, will and affections, and the ethical implications of that order. We must assume those things. This has a lot of implications, and we'll look at a couple more as we go through these seven parts here. But what we looked at in our study has massive implications for how we consider counseling. If we assume that man is body and spirit, and that everyone you're going to counsel is both body and spirit, then we have to take into account both of those realities. You can't just treat somebody as a disembodied spirit. That would be unlawful. Not to consider their specific physical condition, their bodily functions, etc. It would also be inappropriate to confuse those with the spiritual function like John Dewey, and just say, well, all you are, your brain is your soul, like that woman said, or like John Dewey said, or the other behaviorists say. To assume that man is just a collection of muscles would be absolutely ungodly and inappropriate. So we have to assume the specific nature of man. So we need to address spiritual things spiritually, bodily things bodily. And the Bible is very clear about this. You see, your brother has some need. And you say, be warm and filled. And you send him away. And you don't give him those things needful for his body. You haven't loved your neighbor. You haven't loved your brother. So there's the bodily aspect we need to take care of. But then there's also the spirit aspect. And we can't say the spirit aspect is just a product of the body. That's sinful. And that's the idea of behaviorism, that your behavior is caused by your environment. That's a confusion of body and spirit. In fact, it's just a denial of the spirit. That's all it is. So that people are just a machine, and their behavior is the direct result of external stimuli. That's a denial of the spirit of man. Okay, and then the order of the heart. So this is very important. When you are counseling someone, you must assume that what God says about them is true. And if he says the heart means this, it does these things and it is these things, then you can't start counseling somebody assuming that that's not true. You're not gonna do them any spiritual good. You're not going to benefit them in their specific need that they have by assuming, for example, that, for example, affections are everything, or they're the primary thing, or that the way people feel is the most important thing. Is it an important thing? Yes. It's in the third place, according to scripture. The primary thing is, what does this person think? So that's the first thing. Counseling, we'll see, is often associated with teaching. Teaching and admonishing one another, we'll look at in Colossians. Something that all Christians are to do. But the idea being, you must give proper information, because otherwise, how will people know what they're to believe? And how will they know the duty that's required of them? How will the conscience and the faith be properly formulated without knowledge? Then will. Okay, so the heart is primarily intellectual, and secondarily, it's your will. What are you bent toward? What are your things that you naturally go toward, or instinctively go toward? So if your heart is set on those things on the earth, rather than those things that are above, then the things of the gospel, the demands of Christ, won't make any sense. Do you choose his precepts? Do you long for his ways? Do you delight in the law of God after the inward man? This has to do with the will. So first is the mind, second is the will, third is the affections. What is it that you are moved with? Affections, one said, is like the vehemency of a desire. The heaviness of the weight of your desire. or the fervor, the heat of your desire towards something. Those are your affections. And the affections are very important in motivation, because they're going to tell you, when it comes down to action, it must come through the mind, to the will, to the affections, and then out the fingertips, and the feet, and the mouth, and all these things. So addressing somebody in counseling, knowing the specific nature of what God says about them, can help you in figuring, well, how do I address this person? Well, primarily the task is give them the word of God so that they may understand it, so that they may believe in God's promises and obey his precepts and the will. Now setting the will on embracing those things that God says, being bent toward his commandments and delighting in his law, That then leading to affections that take delight in those good things. That the mind is satisfied with those things. That the affections move you in a vehement way toward the ways of God. So that you delight in it rather than, ah, well, whatever. I could, you know, take it or leave it. I know what I'm supposed to believe. I know what I'm supposed to do. But, you know, it's not really that big of a deal. Why get that excited about it? So the affections are absolutely and totally quenched in that case. Okay, and then the ethical implications that if the mind is not informed properly and the will is not bent in the right direction, the affections are not lively in the things of God, what sort of Christian are you going to have? Well, you're going to have a very, very ungodly Christian, or a non-Christian, depending on the level to which they really don't love the things of God. They don't receive the love of the truth, as Paul puts it. Well, those people are damned. So then the counseling turns into evangelism, which we'll talk about in a second. Alright, so the specific nature of man, body, and spirit must be assumed in counseling the order of the heart. You're addressing the heart. Some people, when they say, I'm going to counsel while addressing the heart, all they mean is emotions. Which is absolutely illegitimate and wicked. Because it turns upside down the specific nature of man, and it just treats one thing. That's not right. So, we must address in God's order all three parts of the heart. Number two. Each case is evaluated in terms of the individual's profession of faith, whether Christian or heathen, and suitable scripture remedies applied to each. So again, if we're talking about a person who doesn't even say they're a Christian, you have no promise you can hold out to them that they have the Holy Spirit, that God will help them, that God loves them, that God sent his son to die for them. So then the message for such a person, if they have specific problems, is not, Well, just, you know, God will work. No, no, no. You can't tell them God will work all things for their good. You can't tell them that God loves them. You can't tell them that Christ died for them. You can't tell them the Spirit's working in them. That's not right. But for a Christian, it would be wrong to deprive them of those comforting facts. So for a person who believes in Christ, they have the Holy Spirit. They have the ability to repent of their sins. They have a desire to do God's will. They can grow in the knowledge of God, because the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. For there foolishness to him, but you're no longer in the flesh, you're now in the Spirit. And therefore you ought to love these things of God. You see, so you kind of have to understand, what am I dealing with here? Because the remedy for a believer who's struggling with problems is very different from an unbeliever who's struggling with problems. And the remedy has to be suited to each case. That's the second foundational premise. Third foundational premise. God speaking in the scriptures is the only true, sufficient, unerring, and powerful voice that can produce any real and beneficial change in the party councils. You're counseling somebody, There's only one place where real change comes from. That is from God. And God has two things, he says, that make for effective counseling. One is his word, the other is his spirit. not the word without the spirit, not the spirit without the word. God's method is the word and the spirit joining together in the specific person. That's why number two is so important, by the way, because you can't counsel an unbeliever to live for the glory of God when their whole existence is an offense to God. That's not possible. But for a believer, there is hope that they can change. because God is at work in them by his spirit and he's given them his word and they have a desire for his word. And so counseling must recognize God has spoken. And it's interesting, we'll look at this, God willing, this Sunday evening, the procession of the spirit is also called the spiration of the spirit. Now we talk about God, the father, God, the son, and God, the spirit. Now, isn't God a spirit? Yes, and that includes the Father and the Son, as well as the Holy Spirit. But the reason why the Spirit of God is called the Spirit of God is because the Father and the Son breathe Him out eternally. He eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son by a breathing out. So, not like a physical breathing out, but the breathing out of the fullness of the Godhead into this one who is spirated from the Father and the Son. And that's the same sort of language used about the Bible, that it's God-breathed. So the language of the Spirit of God and His procession from the Father and the Son is the same as the language of Scripture. They're both God breathing out, one in the being of the Spirit of God, the other in the scriptures that come from God. And when you guys remember when Jesus rose from the dead and he gave the Spirit to the apostles, you remember how he did that? He breathed, that's right, which reflects the eternal breathing out of Christ as he did it in space and time. So the Spirit and the Word are merely two moments of God breathing to us. That's what I want to say. One is the ontological basis for our faith. The other is the, if you want to say this, the propositional basis for our faith. The scriptures are the propositional basis. The Spirit of God is the ontological basis, the being that makes us new. But we're begotten again, James says, by what? The engrafted word, which is able to save our souls. So we don't have the spirit without the scriptures, and we don't have the scriptures without the spirit. The gospel brings both together as two ways in which God breathes. Okay. This is contrary to Freud. Because he said, remember, there's no source of true knowledge concerning man other than us scientists and our verified observations that we very carefully combed through. And that's called research. And there's no truth in inspiration. You see, he said that. He's denying the Bible. There's no revelations from God, natural or supernatural. No, no, no, no, no, no intuition. No, now God has eternal intuition of everything. Like he knows everything by one act of understanding. He doesn't have to learn anything. So he's saying none of these things, but we know it's exact opposite. What he's claiming is truth is absolutely false, which is why he has to be so brash about it and say there's no inspiration, there's no revelation. Because he realizes if you accept revelation and inspiration, what happens to his theories? They all get swept away into the dustbin. They're all trash. Okay, so there's only one true, that is, as opposed to false or lying, sufficient, meaning it's enough in itself, unerring, never makes a mistake, and powerful, can actually affect the change, that voice of God speaking in scripture. It can produce real and beneficial change. Fake change? Sure, Freud can do that for you. Beneficial change? Well, that's only the Spirit of God. He's the only one who can sanctify us and make us more like Himself. So when you're counseling, you have to remember that. There's only one place, there's only one source. It's God speaking, and it's the Spirit attending the Word, using the means that God has ordained, and God promises to add His blessing by His Spirit. All right, so those are the first three. The specific nature of man, the order of the heart, and the ethical implications was the first. Second, evaluate each one according to whether they have the spirit of God or don't, whether they're professed to be a Christian or don't, and apply suitable remedies. Third, the scripture is the only sufficient rule that does not err and is powerful. And then fourth, also contrary to Freud, The scientific worldview is corrupt, it is deceitful, it is fallible, and it's destructive. Now, that is so obvious. If you understand that our whole society is built on this rubbish psychology, what are the fruits that you see in our society? Okay? Is it good? Is it wholesome? Is it virtuous? Is it truthful? Is it constructive? No! It's corrupt, lying, fallible, destructive. It's rooted in rebellion against God's truth and ends in futility and wickedness. It's beginnings and it's endings. Some people say, and they mean this sincerely, but they're wrong. They'll tell you all truth is God's truth. Now that's true, but that's like saying all love is love. Okay, you're not qualifying. There is a claim of love that is not love. There is a claim of truth that is not truth. It's actually the opposite. So to say all truth is God's truth is a meaningless statement. Yeah, that's true. That's a truism. Of course, all truth is true. And if all truth is true, God is the God of truth, so he gives all truth. But Freud is not true. But he's claimed under this rubric that somehow, because of observation and trusting the science, that's truth. Therefore, Freud is from God. That's the syllogism. All truth is God's truth. Freud is true. Therefore, Freud is from God. And if we're going to counsel people, we have to use the Bible and who else? Freud. We have to use the family systems therapy. We have to use the id and the ego and the superego. Or we have to understand that the brain is the soul of man and blah, blah, blah. Why? Because they're not honest with you. Not all water is water. Water from the toilet is not the same as water from a fountain. Not all love is love. Being a pervert isn't loving. And not all truth is truth because not everyone who claims to tell you the truth is actually telling you the truth. Which is why Paul says, and the other apostles and the prophets say, be not deceived. Why? Well, because people are going to tell you things, and they're not going to tell you, hey, by the way, guys, I'm lying to you so I can destroy your soul. No, no, no, no, no. They will deceive you into thinking, oh, this is the grace of God that leads to this licentiousness. We can live however we please because I'm not under law, I'm under grace. And it deceives a lot of people. They think, oh, that sounds good. I really believe that I'm a sinner and that Jesus died for my sins. How can I argue against that? Okay, so, contrary to Freud's scientific worldview, it is corrupt. It's deceitful, it's fallible, and it's destructive. Could you mix truth with error and come out with truth? Could you mix an infallible, unerring word with fallible words of men and come up with infallible truth? Could you take a powerful, life-transforming voice and the voice of almost literal demons and tell me at the end of it you have God speaking to you? No. So this is a foundational premise. that the scientific worldview provides no truth. It provides no wholesome truth. It ends in futility and wickedness. Alright, number five. Contrary to behaviorists, man is not merely a machine. Man is not a chain of physical causes. So when they sit them down, tell me about your maza. You know, sit down on the couch. That's the Freudian thing, right? Sit down and tell me about your mom. What's he saying? You were formed by your maternal, whatever he wants to call her, your mom, and the environment of your parents and your home and your socioeconomic status. That's made you who you are. So now tell me everything about your environment. That's what they do. That's psychotherapy. Just tell me about all of your environmental, why? Well, what they're saying is, you're a product of your environment. So let's figure out what your specific environment is so we can see what diseases you contracted, like alcoholism or mental illness. And then once we figure out what those are, then we can input physical causality, make you repeat certain words and phrases, maybe put drugs, give you something to take every day, and that will fix you. Just say words. That's one form of therapy. Repeat after me. I feel good. I feel great. I feel wonderful. If you've ever seen that stupid movie. The guy's repeating words to himself. Why? To create reality by speaking words. He's changing his environment. And so by changing his environment, he'll change himself. No, that's not true. Behaviorists believe it's true. You're just a chain of physical causes. You're just a product of your environment. That is not the case. And if you're counseling somebody who wants to do this about their sins, point to everybody else, what are you facing? Someone who believes, I am a chain of physical causes. My sins are caused by other people. If those physical causes were removed from my life, I would not be a sinner, or at least in these ways I wouldn't sin. So by understanding you're not sick, you're a sinner, you can help to counsel people. Now, if they're sick and they have a cold, OK, you treat a physical cause with physical application. But if they say, I hate people, I'm sick, no, you're not. You hate people, you're a sinner. You have hatred in your heart. That is a sin you need to repent of and take responsibility for. So the whole approach to counseling people has to be fitted and suited to the recognition that people are not merely machines or chains of physical causes. They're not the product of their environment. And you cannot heal their soul by physical causality, which is the whole premise of modern psychotherapy. Let it out. Say what you want. Scream your head off. Let's do group therapy where we all scream about and complain about all the problems that we've had. What does that do? Nothing. Just makes you feel like you should take out your anger on other objects rather than point your cannons at yourself, which is what God says, and repent of your sins. It's not that people don't do us wrong. That's not, the Bible addresses that. If people wrong us, there's a biblical way by which you respond to it. But you are responsible for your responses to the wrongs that are done to you. You have a duty to respond appropriately to the wrongs that are done to you. And that can be different. That can mean pushing for the civil magistrate to put somebody to death. Like that's one biblical solution for wrongs people do to us. And there are others where you're required to forgive, you're required to confront, things like that. But what I'm saying is, You can't just tell someone, well, look around you and figure out all the bad things that happened to you, and that's how we'll counsel you. That's how we'll fix your neurosis, is by looking at your environment. All right, number six. Another foundational premise. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, which includes sanctification, growing in grace and knowledge, and conforming man's life to the precepts of God's moral law. Alright, so this is very important. The counsel that a pastoral or a biblical, like truly confessionally, scripturally accurate counselor, if you're going to counsel people, and you're going to help them, and you're going to show them that there is some hope, so that they're not just left to themselves. Remember, you have to have the Word of God, and you have to have the Spirit of God. And the Spirit of God comes through the preaching of God's Gospel, of the Gospel of Christ. So, when you're counseling with people, their hope is not in, follow my formula of words. follow these steps that I'm going to give you. Even though steps might be useful, they might be helpful. That's not actually going to change them. What's going to change them is God engrafting His Word in their heart, enabling them by the Spirit, through the use of means, to grow in grace and knowledge. And again, God has more means than just counseling. He has the preaching of the Word, the reading of the Word, prayer, the sacraments, the singing of God's praise, Christian fellowship, And part of that Christian fellowship is where believers encourage, confront, exhort, teach one another, admonish one another. All those things are in play, and we'll look at that in more detail. But in all of those cases, what are you confronting the person with? What are you helping them with? What are you encouraging them with? Well, the encouragement comes with God has made promise of your sanctification, that if you're in Christ, you are not a bond slave to your sins. You're not helpless. You're not hopeless. God sent his son and God sent his spirit. He's taken care of the judicial problem of your sin by sending His Son and forgiving you all your sins. And He's taken care of the dominion of sin by sending His Spirit, by raising His Son, so that you may overcome and put off the old man and put on the new. You're not left to your own devices. That's a fundamental premise of confessional counseling, is that the gospel has power to save and it has power to sanctify. And if there are sins that someone struggles with because sins lead to depression and bitterness and destroyed relationships, if you have sins that have done those things in your life, you're not hopeless. You're not left to yourself. It doesn't mean every relationship's gonna get fixed. It doesn't mean you're gonna poof, wake up and everything's gonna be fine in your sin problem. But it means you have hope that by God's grace, you can overcome these things. This is very important in a Christian confessional counseling model as opposed to the Christian counseling where you just borrow a little bit of Freud and take this pill and follow this method and blah, blah, blah. All right, seventh. Pastoral or confessional counseling by believers in general must be rooted in these premises to be pleasing to God and useful to the person counseled. So these are not optional smorgasbord, take it or leave it, maybe this will work, maybe this won't. No, these are required. These are things that scripture very definitely teaches. We've looked at them through the course of this study. But if we're going to counsel to glorify God, to please Him, and also to enable the person to benefit from the counsel, these things must be foundational in what we're doing. All right, page four. some scripture rules for lawful counseling. And we'll do more of a general introduction this week, and then Lord willing, next week, more of the kind of the practical, okay, well, how, how do I do this? Because we need to understand the hows as well. So scripture rules for lawful counseling. First, the counselor must have understanding of the law of God that applies to the case. the threats of God against people in such a case, and the facts of the case itself. You don't have those three, you can't counsel someone." Deuteronomy 32, 28 and 29. God says of Israel, for they are a nation void of counsel. Neither is there any understanding in them. Oh, that they were wise. that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end. Okay, so notice here, God is illustrating by a negative example, what is someone who cannot counsel? What is someone who does not have the power to direct others in the right way? Well, he says a couple of things. First is, he says, these people are void of counsel, neither is there any understanding. They do not know what it is that God requires of them. And they cannot, therefore, tell others what does God require of others. They cannot direct them with wisdom. And then he says, oh, that they were wise that they understood this. So counsel requires wisdom and understanding. And then he says that they would consider their latter end. Well, what's that? It's that God threatens you that if you continue on in this way of behavior and living and thinking, you're doomed. You are slated for destruction. You hang by a thread over molten lava of eternal damnation, and you're gonna fall into it if you're not careful. Okay, that's their latter end. What are the judgments that come against people in your case with these sins? Israel couldn't counsel anybody about that. They did not know. They were not wise. They were void. They were empty. Zero counsel they could help. Someone who's walking toward destruction, they knew nothing what they could say to that person to turn them away from that path so that they wouldn't fall into destruction. They could not do that. So, if you're going to understand how to counsel, you must know, well, what does God's law say to this person's case? What are the commands of Christ through the apostles and prophets in scripture? What has he said they're supposed to be doing? What is he threatened if they continue in that, the threatening of their latter end? Now, what is the suitable remedy of this person's case? You can't assume everybody's case is the same. You must know, okay, well, with understanding, with wisdom, what is this person doing or what are they not doing? And how do you help them according to what God requires? And what is it if they continue doing that thing that God threatens against them? Those are all very important and they're all part of counseling. All right, Psalm 1, 1 and 2. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. Here you see, by contrasts, the counsel of the ungodly, which leads to curses, because he says, blessed is the man who does not walk in that ungodly counsel. So what does that mean? Well, he walks in God's counsels. He's blessed. He doesn't go in the ungodly counsel. And then verse two makes it explicit what he's talking about, which is delighting in the law of the Lord. Lawful, godly, wholesome counsel to bless people is derived from God's law. That's where it's from. It's rooted in it. It's formed by it. It's executed according to it. That's what biblical, lawful, confessional counseling is. Okay, number three. God's counsel is enduring. It leads to prosperity and blessings, and it always defeats the counsel of the ungodly. It may not in the time frame we wish, but it always defeats the counsel of the ungodly. Psalm 33, verses 10 through 12. The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to naught. He maketh the devices of the people of none effect. the counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. All right, so notice here, this passage is often cited as a formula for national prosperity, which is exactly what it is. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. How do you know if God's chosen some nation? How do you know if they've taken him for their God? Well, just ask yourself this. What do people counsel each other with? What do the counselors of state advise their supreme magistrates with? What do the judges counsel those under their care and judgments with? What do the pastors counsel their people with? What do the people counsel each other with? What do the dads counsel their kids with? What do the moms counsel their kids with? Okay, there are two sets of counsel. There's the counsel of the heathen. The God says, I'm gonna destroy it. with all their devices that they come up with as to how to have a good life, they're of none effect. God's gonna destroy them all. The counsel of the Lord, however, that stands forever. It goes on, it endures. Every generation, the thing that he thinks in his heart, that endures forevermore. That's how you know whether a nation is blessed or not. Do they listen to God's counsel? His whole counsel? His word? Or do they listen to the counsel of the heathen that God's going to destroy and bring to nothing? Which endures like a little vapor that vanishes away. God's is a rock That's why Jesus said, if you are a fool, you build your house on sand, the counsel of the heathen. If you're wise, you build your house on my words, he says, which is a rock and can endure and will endure forevermore. So godly counsel is enduring. It leads to prosperity and blessings, and it always defeats the counsel of the ungodly. Hands down, God always wins. Number four. God's counsel leads to enjoying God and ends in eternal life. Now, this is the goal. When you're dealing with a person who is sinning or is in trouble, there are these after effects of misery from sin. The troubles themselves are their own effects. And they're trying to figure out, what do I do about this? Okay, well, God's counsel leads you away from judgments and toward eternal life. Forsaking God's counsel, on the other hand, is described as spiritual whoredom. Psalm 73, 24 through 27. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Now that's only true if those two go together. Everyone that God leads by his counsel, he brings to glory. That's what he's saying. He's using himself as an instance so that all men might recognize if you want to end an eternal life, you had better listen to God's counsel. You'd better be counseled by him. He'll guide you in this life and receive you to glory. Verse 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. You think you're going to heaven and you don't want God's counsel in this life? You're deceiving yourself. If he's not your treasure in this life, he won't be your treasure in the next. You see. Verse 26. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. What is the portion? Well, think about it this way. If you had wealthy parents that gave you lands and estates, that would be your portion. Their inheritance that they pass on to you. Who is my inheritance? Whom do I enjoy? Whom do I treasure above all my possessions? Asaph says, God. I enjoy God. by giving heed to his counsel, by being guided by his counsel, by being received with the hope of eternal life, by being guided through his counsel through my whole life in this world, till at last I come to his heavenly kingdom. For lo, they that are far from thee, now remember being far from God isn't some mystic feeling you get by breathing or not breathing as the mystics believe. Oh, I'll exercise some breathing exercises or the monks. I'll go sit on top of a pillar. I'll go in a cave where nobody else is. I'll get so close to God. No, you won't. God has means that he ordains to that specific end. It's listening to his counsel. His counsel says, if you separate yourself, you seek your own desire. So monks, sorry, none of them are seeking God's counsel, because they're all going away. God also counsels that if you do not have the gift of singleness, you ought to marry. Do they follow God's counsel? God says, if you want to be a bishop in his church, you should be married and have children in subjection with all gravity. Do they follow God's counsel? No. They seek their own will. They're whores, in other words. They're spiritual whores, he says. Thou hast destroyed all them that go whoring from thee. Those who say, I will not listen to God's counsel are spiritual whores. Those who say, I will not receive his counsel, I will not give his counsel, I will not guide myself in all of my ways by his counsel. God's saying, it's like, you got married to me? And then you just went off and did your own thing with all kinds of lovers. You sold yourself on the public market. That's what he's saying. That's what that's like. Because I am your husband. That's what he's saying. And if I'm your husband, where's my respect? Where's my obedience? Where is you listening to what my rules for my family are and my rules for my wife? Oh, I'm not going to listen to you. Or, yeah, I'll listen to some of your rules, but you know, Freud's got some good ideas. All husbands are husbands, aren't they? All truth is God's truth. Freud's my new husband. I just got a couple of them. No, that's called whoredom. If you go whoring from God, it means you're not guided by his counsel. All right, number five. God's Word provides increase of wisdom and counsel must be given upon the foundation of the fear of God. So God's Word provides an increase of wisdom. Counsel must be given upon the foundation of the fear of God. Proverbs 1, 5 through 7. A wise man will hear. He's telling you, why am I giving you the Proverbs? The Spirit of God is literally telling you, what's this book all about? A wise man will hear and will increase learning. And a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels. So let's just stop right there. A wise man can read the word of God and not yet have attained to the ability to give wise counsels. So what he's saying is, by means of this book, by meditating on the law day and night, by receiving the wisdom of God, you will eventually arrive at a place where you can give wise counsels. that you can tell others and yourself how to be guided by God's counsel. So the wise man, listening to the Proverbs, will increase his learning. He's already a man of understanding, but he shall attain unto. It's not zap. You've got it now. Okay? No. It's something you have to work at. He shall attain unto wise counsels. to understand a proverb and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Here, notice the analogy switches. It was the whore in Psalm 73, now it's the fool. Both of them are, it's the same person in the Bible. It's just different aspects of the same person. It's the person who says, yeah, I see God's counsels. I see what he says there, but psh. I reject that. I despise that. I think little of that. I think that toilet water is just as good as spring water. So I'm going to go drink from the behaviorists. I'm going to go drink from Freud. I'm going to go drink from these Christian counselors who tell me that my brain is my soul. And I'm going to listen to them. Even though God says this, I'm going to follow their wisdom. Okay? Well, then you're a fool. You despise wisdom and instruction, which comes from God. And the principal point of wisdom, he says, the beginning point, the number one thing. It's not just first in order. It's also first in importance. The fear of God is the mother of all these other wisdoms that you might hope to attain unto. The fear of the Lord, it's the beginning, the principal point, the number one, the head of the line, the mother that gives birth to the rest of your wisdom is fearing God. And that specifically, the idea of fearing God revolves around the first table of the law. Thou shalt have no other gods before me, no graven images, no taking God's name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. That's the fear of God in a moral context. So now. That's the principle point. And if a wise man bases his counsel on anything else, he's a fool. He's no longer a wise man. So if his counsels come from some other source, from some other rock than the Lord, from some other principle point than the fear of God, like This is something that many, many Christians have is the fear of man. All of us natively have it, actually. All of us struggle with it. And the fear of man sounds like this when you're talking about counseling. You know, those counselors out there don't think that we know what we're doing. So why don't we bring as much of what they say into our counseling program so that they will not insult us and say we're backwards hicks. That we're know-nothings and we're, you know, morons and we don't understand anything. Because that's what they say. Oh, you believe the Bible has answers about marriage and family problems? Personal? No. You've got to go to the specialist. You've got to go to the doctors. You've got to get pills. So why would you not listen to us, Christians? Oh, yeah, maybe we should listen to them. You know, they've got a point. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. These people reject the fear of the Lord. Why would I listen to them as if they knew something about this? They don't. God's already spoken about it. So the wise man fears God and his counsel is based off of that. He increases his understanding by listening to the voice of God in scripture. All right, number six. Council must reach to all moral, personal, and civil actions. Proverbs 8, 13 through 15. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way. And the froward mouth do I hate. Council is mine, and sound wisdom I am understanding. I have strength. By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. Okay, so notice here. Wisdom is personified. We saw that this is Christ himself. He is the wisdom of God. And he's speaking to us here. He was begotten before all ages, if you remember. This is Christ's eternal generation. Christ is describing his own properties. And he's saying that God's fear and the counsel that Christ himself gives is to hate certain things. So, if you ever meet someone who has what I would call a kittens-based theology, and they think that hatred is a bad word. Oh, you shouldn't hate. We just love. We don't hate anything. Is that what the Bible, is that what Christ says is wise? No. The fear of the Lord is to love? No, it's to hate. And what specifically should we hate? What should we be moved with vehement desire to see it destroyed? Well, he says, evil, pride, arrogancy, the evil way, the froward mouth. And he says, I hate that. So of course, if wisdom itself hates that, if Christ himself hates all those things, well, shouldn't we be Christ-like? You see, some people's conception of a kitten's Jesus is that you don't hate anything and then you'll be like Jesus, right? Wrong! We must receive God's counsel about our pride and that of others, about the evil that remains within us and of others, and our arrogancy and of others. And of the evil way, the path of sin that people walk in in their lives. We ought to hate that. The forward mouth, the crooked and perverted way of speaking. It's not just bad words, although those are part of that. It's slander, gossip, evil speaking of your neighbor. Speaking disrespectfully of people you ought to respect. Speaking disrespectfully to people you ought to speak respectfully to. That's a froward mouth. It's all the same thing. Wisdom, Christ, he hates that. And we're supposed to hate it too. And that's what the fear of the Lord is, is to hate all those things that God gives us his counsel and says, hate this. That's his counsel. And then sound wisdom, he says. Not just your pretended, you know, water is water, love is love. Actual, healthy, solid wisdom, that belongs to me. The counsel by which you direct your affairs and you direct others, that's mine, he says. Because he is truth itself. I am understanding, he says. It's not like it's this impersonal thing. No, we're made in the image of Christ. That's why we have understanding. He lightens every man that comes into the world. The Logos does. I am understanding. I have strength. And not just for you and your personal moral life. Kings and princes, if their decrees are going to be just, they must hate evil. They must fear God. They must abide by the counsel of the Lord, which is why Psalm 73 said, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. If a nation receives his counsels, listens to his word, obeys his precepts, hates what he hates, loves what he loves, that's called justice. That's called equity. That's called wisdom. That's called the fear of God. That's called understanding and strength. And so you can see that by mixing the pure water of God's word with the corrupt stream of Freud and the behaviorists, people essentially have been taught to not fear God, to be spiritual whores, to be spiritual fools, that to think down upon the wisdom and instruction that God gives in his word. And therefore, what do you expect? We're going to have justice in the civil realm? No. We're going to have injustice. We're going to have folly. We're going to have wicked men exalted. And it's all going to be explained how? Well, I was born this way. It's my... Remember. How do we explain sodomy? Well, it's... Their brain didn't develop right, right? It's in their genetics! Look! We took a picture of their brain! And that tells us why they commit these unnatural, foul, and disgusting deeds. Right? Isn't that what they say? The Republicans say it. The Democrats say it. Well, it's brain chemistry. Is it? No, that's folly, that's wickedness, that's spiritual whoredom, that's foolishness. And of course you won't have justice in your civil society if nobody hates the evil way in the froward mouth, arrogancy, pride, and evil itself. And they all think, let's be nice, let's be kittens Jesus, and everything's about love, and we shouldn't hate anything. There's no wisdom, there's no fear of God, there's no justice. So the psychological model, while it might present itself as having this advantage that will fix these problems, what it ends up with is producing a society of the very sort of thing that God warns us about. Corrupt, deceitful, ungodly, whorish, foolish, unjust. That's the sort of world that is produced by rejecting the counsels of God rather than receiving them and to submitting to them. Alright so Lord willing next week we'll continue in our study of the confessional counseling model and we'll look not just at these scripture rules and these foundational premises but the hands-on kind of details. How do you practice counseling? How do you help someone out who's in a specific circumstance that they might need assistance with? Alright let's close our time